I feel like I'm cross-posting a little in different parts of the forum but I thought I would do a more comprehensive post on Scotland here.
The actual journey up itself was quite long and cumbersome over highways and freeways. If someone has a better route to take that is less congested and less monotonous I would love to explore the idea....
- one idea I had would take me via the A1 to Doncaster. Waze is avoiding that route currently as it might be closed due to weather conditions but it's currently suggesting a route via High Wycombe and the A46, though it looks like there is a lot of road works and police and probably accidents right now.
I used the satellite navigation app Waze to get me to my destinations. Luckily I had cell reception everywhere so that wasn't a problem though I do have a Garmin GPSMAP 67i (Inreach) device in addition. Currently I use the Garmin mainly for logging my journey and checking out statistics...
- since then I have also bought Telemetry Overlay and Davinci Resolve Studio software packages which will hopefully enable me to gain more possibilities regarding the videos I make in the future
Starting off this was the first 'leg' of the journey:
642km which if divided by 1.6 is around 400mi.
I would say doing this solo and having ASD and ADHD that cause hyper anxiety, is not easy! What I really didn't like was the M1 (artery highway)traffic. Too many cars and too many trucks, not to mention too many speed cameras which really make me nervous)!
Wish it was something similar to trans-Ladbrador Highway over in CA which from Jim Barid's family video looks pretty much empty....
Things eased up after hitting the A1M passed New Castle upon Tyne. The coastal road was really scenic and there are plenty of places I would have loved to pull over and use my cameras and even drone. Sadly for me and my anxiety and ADHD things become about the destination and not the journey. This is when doing things alone however, personally I struggle being on my own but when you are "different" from most people then life kinda forces you to do that without choice as people don't seem to understand you then run away.
Taking regular breaks after every 2 or 3 hours of driving or so and plenty of coffee does help:
Up north the weather was crazy! It started raining so hard the visibility was really poor while traffic concentrations where really high. My anxiety went through the roof as I'd been on the road for a while and into unknown territory so I wasn't gona take any chances and subsequently pulled off into the nearest services I could find and waited for the rain to ease up. I hung around for about an hour or so before proceeding further up north until hitting my overnight stay in the village of East Linton.
The following day I proceeded on my way further up north and towards the Alladale Wilderness Reserve:
What was cool though is around the Inverness area, there were some police trucks (4x4 picksups) and was later told that there were some beached dolphins being rescued. I arrived too late on the scene but I was also shown some seals around the bay area which was really nice though I was quite far and couldn't quite make them out.
Minding the potholes, it was really a pleasure to drive after that as the traffic was tolerable and the routes were pretty scenic.
After a week of no sleep but lots of walking and fun adventuring around and no people or crowds, just spectacular scenery, I left Alladale and journeyed down to the Cairngorms and Aviemore:
I must admit the scenery around the A9 (kinda of an interstate like road) was amazing! I popped some images up in the photography section already so check those out of interested ;-)
The Cairngorms National Park was simply amazing, just like Alladale before, I had never experienced anything quite like it before. I know Turkey quite well as a country and have traveled a lot around it when I was younger however, the climate and landscape is completely different. Completely gorgeous but in a different way and it's a much larger piece of land so people aren't so squished together which I'm faced with living in the south east of England.
I really loved the 10 - 20km hikes I did (about 6.25mi - 12.5mi) - as an example:
I'll have to dig out some of my pictures of the Osprey I imaged as well at the RSPB reserve on my last day before heading back. It was manufactured nest sadly built by some people and not one the birds had built on their own. But the upside was that though not 100% wild the couple were rearing a chick.
On the way back home sadly is where things went really downhill and I suffered a panic attack just outside Preston on the M6 Highway. I had about 3 hours of sleep then was on the road for around 7 hours and just could not take it any more. It is quite complicated to explain and probably a better topic for the "Special Needs" part of the forum but basically after being around these amazing places, my brain went into "emergency mode" and simply didn't want to come back home.
It took me nearly a week to drive what should have been around 4 hours:
One thing that I've learned from this trip is that travel and especially "Overlanding" is amazing! I know there is a description already written but really what it *means* to me effectively is: freedom, adventure, exploration, challenging ones self to new heights and surpassing limits.
What I would do differently is go with someone so that I had a distraction and don't get bored and lonely. Also so that we can share the work as everything was left on my shoulders and that's a little bit too much when you're not used to things like this and have lived in cities all your life.
Time will tell if I will be ok driving on highways again but if possible, it is best to avoid them in order to have a more relaxed trip. Right now I have more immediate issues to deal with in terms of leaving the house as I have been stuck for 8 months after that trip not being able to go anywhere or do anything. The anxiety is crippling and even if not for that, the medication I'm on to combat that means I can't really drive anyway. It's a really horrible and almost hopeless situation but I'm still trying to push forward and fight it as I really want to get back out there and explore more.
Before embarking on this trip I took a 2 day trip down south to a town called Chichester. It's not very far.... about 2 - 3 hours down the A3 on the south coast. It was a test to see how my anxiety and I especially would hold up. Again it was done solo but took me into uncharted territory. I'm no stranger to driving distances but how would my anxiety cope was the biggest question that needed answering.
Down there, I bought some outdoor clothing and the next day I bought my cameras and drone: DJI Action 4, Pocket 3, and Air 3 with Pro RC.
Some pics from Chichester:
Camera used was a Pentax K1 mkII with 15-30mm lens and Irix 150mm; it is my main camera for landscape and astro but sadly got completely demolished including the 15-30mm lens on the 1st night of Scotland as a gust of wind blew the tripod over ripping the lens from the body. Talking about downsides to the trip: my laptop also got waxed after a few days as the Nvidia driver branch that I was using caused a kernel panic leaving me needing to rebuild the system :-(
I'll upload more pics in a second as I need to resize them as it's showing "too large" :-)
The actual journey up itself was quite long and cumbersome over highways and freeways. If someone has a better route to take that is less congested and less monotonous I would love to explore the idea....
- one idea I had would take me via the A1 to Doncaster. Waze is avoiding that route currently as it might be closed due to weather conditions but it's currently suggesting a route via High Wycombe and the A46, though it looks like there is a lot of road works and police and probably accidents right now.
I used the satellite navigation app Waze to get me to my destinations. Luckily I had cell reception everywhere so that wasn't a problem though I do have a Garmin GPSMAP 67i (Inreach) device in addition. Currently I use the Garmin mainly for logging my journey and checking out statistics...
- since then I have also bought Telemetry Overlay and Davinci Resolve Studio software packages which will hopefully enable me to gain more possibilities regarding the videos I make in the future
Starting off this was the first 'leg' of the journey:
642km which if divided by 1.6 is around 400mi.
I would say doing this solo and having ASD and ADHD that cause hyper anxiety, is not easy! What I really didn't like was the M1 (artery highway)traffic. Too many cars and too many trucks, not to mention too many speed cameras which really make me nervous)!
Wish it was something similar to trans-Ladbrador Highway over in CA which from Jim Barid's family video looks pretty much empty....
Things eased up after hitting the A1M passed New Castle upon Tyne. The coastal road was really scenic and there are plenty of places I would have loved to pull over and use my cameras and even drone. Sadly for me and my anxiety and ADHD things become about the destination and not the journey. This is when doing things alone however, personally I struggle being on my own but when you are "different" from most people then life kinda forces you to do that without choice as people don't seem to understand you then run away.
Taking regular breaks after every 2 or 3 hours of driving or so and plenty of coffee does help:
Up north the weather was crazy! It started raining so hard the visibility was really poor while traffic concentrations where really high. My anxiety went through the roof as I'd been on the road for a while and into unknown territory so I wasn't gona take any chances and subsequently pulled off into the nearest services I could find and waited for the rain to ease up. I hung around for about an hour or so before proceeding further up north until hitting my overnight stay in the village of East Linton.
The following day I proceeded on my way further up north and towards the Alladale Wilderness Reserve:
What was cool though is around the Inverness area, there were some police trucks (4x4 picksups) and was later told that there were some beached dolphins being rescued. I arrived too late on the scene but I was also shown some seals around the bay area which was really nice though I was quite far and couldn't quite make them out.
Minding the potholes, it was really a pleasure to drive after that as the traffic was tolerable and the routes were pretty scenic.
After a week of no sleep but lots of walking and fun adventuring around and no people or crowds, just spectacular scenery, I left Alladale and journeyed down to the Cairngorms and Aviemore:
I must admit the scenery around the A9 (kinda of an interstate like road) was amazing! I popped some images up in the photography section already so check those out of interested ;-)
The Cairngorms National Park was simply amazing, just like Alladale before, I had never experienced anything quite like it before. I know Turkey quite well as a country and have traveled a lot around it when I was younger however, the climate and landscape is completely different. Completely gorgeous but in a different way and it's a much larger piece of land so people aren't so squished together which I'm faced with living in the south east of England.
I really loved the 10 - 20km hikes I did (about 6.25mi - 12.5mi) - as an example:
I'll have to dig out some of my pictures of the Osprey I imaged as well at the RSPB reserve on my last day before heading back. It was manufactured nest sadly built by some people and not one the birds had built on their own. But the upside was that though not 100% wild the couple were rearing a chick.
On the way back home sadly is where things went really downhill and I suffered a panic attack just outside Preston on the M6 Highway. I had about 3 hours of sleep then was on the road for around 7 hours and just could not take it any more. It is quite complicated to explain and probably a better topic for the "Special Needs" part of the forum but basically after being around these amazing places, my brain went into "emergency mode" and simply didn't want to come back home.
It took me nearly a week to drive what should have been around 4 hours:
One thing that I've learned from this trip is that travel and especially "Overlanding" is amazing! I know there is a description already written but really what it *means* to me effectively is: freedom, adventure, exploration, challenging ones self to new heights and surpassing limits.
What I would do differently is go with someone so that I had a distraction and don't get bored and lonely. Also so that we can share the work as everything was left on my shoulders and that's a little bit too much when you're not used to things like this and have lived in cities all your life.
Time will tell if I will be ok driving on highways again but if possible, it is best to avoid them in order to have a more relaxed trip. Right now I have more immediate issues to deal with in terms of leaving the house as I have been stuck for 8 months after that trip not being able to go anywhere or do anything. The anxiety is crippling and even if not for that, the medication I'm on to combat that means I can't really drive anyway. It's a really horrible and almost hopeless situation but I'm still trying to push forward and fight it as I really want to get back out there and explore more.
Before embarking on this trip I took a 2 day trip down south to a town called Chichester. It's not very far.... about 2 - 3 hours down the A3 on the south coast. It was a test to see how my anxiety and I especially would hold up. Again it was done solo but took me into uncharted territory. I'm no stranger to driving distances but how would my anxiety cope was the biggest question that needed answering.
Down there, I bought some outdoor clothing and the next day I bought my cameras and drone: DJI Action 4, Pocket 3, and Air 3 with Pro RC.
Some pics from Chichester:
Camera used was a Pentax K1 mkII with 15-30mm lens and Irix 150mm; it is my main camera for landscape and astro but sadly got completely demolished including the 15-30mm lens on the 1st night of Scotland as a gust of wind blew the tripod over ripping the lens from the body. Talking about downsides to the trip: my laptop also got waxed after a few days as the Nvidia driver branch that I was using caused a kernel panic leaving me needing to rebuild the system :-(
I'll upload more pics in a second as I need to resize them as it's showing "too large" :-)
