Best route across Scotland? Not in a rush...

Specific board for this popular undertaking.
tbessie
Posts: 186
Joined: 10 May 2014, 3:27am

Re: Best route across Scotland? Not in a rush...

Post by tbessie »

Tinnishill wrote:More about midgies and a bit about accommodation in Scotland.


...

Thanks again for all your suggestions! A wealth of information!

By the way, yes, I know that Scotland is in the UK - I said "England" the first time, but for some reason wasn't thinking clearly the second time I meant to type "England" ;-)

- Tim
Vorpal
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Joined: 19 Jan 2009, 3:34pm
Location: Not there ;)

Re: Best route across Scotland? Not in a rush...

Post by Vorpal »

When I've been in midgey places in Scotland, I have stayed in youth hostels. Whether camping is feasible depends partly on how well the midges like you. Like with mosquitoes, some people are less bothered by them more than others. If you are not too bothered by them, or only moderately bothered, camping with a good bug repellent and midge net is probably ok. If you are their favourite food, it might still be a problem.

If you are using any off-road routes, you may be able to use bothies for some of your overnight stays. Here's a thread about bothies viewtopic.php?f=16&t=112974


If your tent is single skinned, it will pretty much always have condensation in Scottish weather. Get a double skinned tent from a reputable brand. Have a look at reviews & things before you buy. A double skinned, well-ventilated, 3 season tent should have little or no condenstion, but may require a somewhat warmer sleeping bag & mat. Also, as you are carrying it, weight is a consideration. Here's a thread about tents viewtopic.php?f=42&t=110506
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tbessie
Posts: 186
Joined: 10 May 2014, 3:27am

Re: Best route across Scotland? Not in a rush...

Post by tbessie »

Vorpal wrote:When I've been in midgey places in Scotland, I have stayed in youth hostels. Whether camping is feasible depends partly on how well the midges like you. Like with mosquitoes, some people are less bothered by them more than others. If you are not too bothered by them, or only moderately bothered, camping with a good bug repellent and midge net is probably ok. If you are their favourite food, it might still be a problem.

If you are using any off-road routes, you may be able to use bothies for some of your overnight stays. Here's a thread about bothies viewtopic.php?f=16&t=112974


Huh, interesting - a nice resource. I'll read up on those.

If your tent is single skinned, it will pretty much always have condensation in Scottish weather. Get a double skinned tent from a reputable brand. Have a look at reviews & things before you buy. A double skinned, well-ventilated, 3 season tent should have little or no condenstion, but may require a somewhat warmer sleeping bag & mat. Also, as you are carrying it, weight is a consideration. Here's a thread about tents viewtopic.php?f=42&t=110506


I'm assuming that by "skin" you mean what we call "wall" in the US? eg. Single-walled tents used for winter camping and mountaineering, etc? I don't have any single-walled tents, just double-walled ones. I have a small collection these days (as I was searching for my "perfect" bike touring tent). I got a Hilleberg Unna:

http://us.hilleberg.com/EN/tent/red-label-tents/unna/

which I ended up not liking that much, despite Hilleberg's construction and materials being some of the best. I don't like their "the fly is always up" design, though, of course, that's very useful in a rainy and cold northern climate. I recently bought a Mountain Hardwear Shifter-2:

http://www.mountainhardwear.com/shifter-2-1585651.html

... and tried that out on a bike camping trip this past weekend; it sets up fast, very simple design, rather minimalistic, I like it. I *do* wonder if its mesh is fine enough to keep out midges, though, given what folks have said about a lot of tent mesh only being good for mosquitoes. I don't see a lot of articles about which tents have fine enough mesh. I might contact Mountain Hardwear to ask them (if they even know).

The first tent I ever bought was a Moss Starlet; I still think it was probably the best tent I've ever used. It's a bit heavy by today's standards, but I wish I could find another one; it'd be great on a bike tour. I even tried contacting various people associated with the company (it doesn't exist anymore); managed to contact a designer at Cascade Designs (who owned all their assets), who used to work at Moss, trying to find the original schematics to see if I could have one rebuilt with modern materials. They had given the old plans to a woman who ran a company that fixed these tents, but sadly, she died about a year ago and her husband has not been answering my attempts to contact him. It was a great tent:

http://www.wanderwheels.com/site_ww/wp- ... 20x410.jpg

I have a pretty warm down bag (I think it's rated to 20F) from Western Mountaineering (famous, independent US bag maker) so that won't likely be an issue, anyway. :-)

- Tim
juice
Posts: 137
Joined: 12 Jul 2007, 4:46pm

Re: Best route across Scotland? Not in a rush...

Post by juice »

If you do the outer islands which we enjoyed, there's a nice hostel on Barra which is also a sea canoe centre. The best hostel I've ever used is Nunton House Hostel on Benbecula. The hopscotch ticket Oban to Ullapool I remember as reasonably cheap. We also went across Arran. North of Ullapool there's a nice hostel at Inchnadamph.
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