A Highland Tour

Okay so I'm a big liar - I never spent those sunny beach days writing blog entries, but if you'd been there, you wouldn't have either.

But I stayed up last night to tell you about Scotland.

There are some places in the world that hold a certain mysticism for me. I've read about the Scottish highlands, stuff of fancy and folklore, and I have this picture in my mind blurred by my imagination of what I'd find there. Somewhere at the edges was a kilt-wearing, sword-wielding man on a black steed, but at the very heart of it were wild moors and poet-inspiring heather.

Since Ella has always dreamt of marrying a Scotsman, sword-wielding or otherwise, and I'd just plain dreamt, as travel companions we suited each other very nicely. After purchasing a road map of Scotland we took to the Lowestoft library and spent an afternoon poring over guides and mapping our route. Or at least Ella did. First of all I flipped through the newspapers and then I flipped through the books with pictures of beaches, imagining sun-drenched days and window-wide-open warm nights and then I noisily ate a packet of tic tacs before suggesting we go to the beach or some pretence of being warm because I can't concentrate when I'm cold. As travel companions we suited each other very nicely because by the time that afternoon was over, Ella had planned the whole thing.

As to the nightly accommodation, camping was brazenly put forward but after some serious consideration we decided that erecting tents in the rain might not be as fun as the scouts advertise. Ella's proposal to hire a Wicked Van took care of both our sleeping and travel arrangements, since the van is outfitted with everything one needs for sleeping and creating rudimentary cuisine.

We collected our Doctor Who-themed vehicle from the Dundee train station car park (all the vans are themed in some way, so we were hoping for something cool – since Sunday Night Dinners at the Holmes' often ends with a Doctor Who viewing this was rather appropriate) and after a quick lesson from Glynn on which button does what we were off. Initially there was some minor confusion about road signs, and there was some fuzzy incident involving our van being driven down a pedestrian-only strip.

We travelled west along the A82 to the Weeping Glen (or something of the like)and in the evening light, passing by mountains and riding the water's edge, I could imagine terrible men acting out terrible deeds but since my main concern was whether we should pay more for a loch view, this was a mere passing thought.

Invercoe Caravan and Camping Park was perhaps the fanciest place we bedded down for, unlike the rest, it boasted an undercover area for meal preparation – oh, such a simple thing, an Australian might think. Every town in our country has a park with a sandwich-making shelter, even the towns not worth visiting, even the bloody towns people don't visit. We build a park, someone sticks a roofed building of some variety on it. Scotland builds a park, and maybe someone remembers to signpost it.

We were up before the dawn had cracked craving a cooked breakfast. I'm not sure if our eagerness was at fault, or if the damned cooker was plain damned, but what occurred next was of an extremely alarming nature.

There are some things I know with absolute certainty, one of which is that gas bottles aren't supposed to catch on fire – when faced with a flaming bottle and the real prospect of our tardis becoming airborne, I'm afraid neither of us showed any real talent for fire fighting. It was rather fortunate that two elderly campers swooped to our rescue to save us from probable bankruptcy and singed eyelashes.

The rain fell in earnest (and I do mean this, I'm not just using the word willy nilly; it couldn't have been more earnest in its pursuit to go to ground) as we drove on to Fort William, an uninspiring place that only improved when we found a camping store to replace our deceased cooker. With such poor weather we saw little point in climbing Ben Nevis since visibility was zilch. We were advised by a keen tourist centre attendant to walk on to Shean Falls instead. The rain had lost its urgency, which was most pleasing since we were passing through Harry Potter Quidditch Match Country (honest, the guide book said so). It was a get-your-shoes-muddy route up along a river that broke out into a series of small falls, and after half an hour of steady walking the path rounded a corner in to a large clearing hemmed on either side by walls of rock and trees, and at the far end a reward for our persistence: a grand rushing waterfall. The huddle of tents near the path told us we weren't the first to come this way, but we shared the clearing with just one other walking couple. A wire suspension bridge stood in the way of the falls but that, and the mad mud scramble at the other side, didn't stop us from getting close enough to see the water spitting.

The ferry to Skye from Mallaig was brief – enough time for the sun to fall beyond the sea – and then we were at the foot of the Cuillin Mountains setting up base at the Sligachan Campsite. I'd heard about midges since arriving in the UK. People would mention them from time to time but I always thought they were something that could be fixed with swatting, not so. They're like vegemite on toast, they stick to your skin like they belong there. I didn't have midges in my hair, I had hair in my midges.

It was my birthday the next day and we woke to rain, hard heaviness that pushed us on to Portree where the sky cleared long enough for a loch side breakfast of porridge with freshly-picked blackberries. Despite the day's marked importance, it rained for the rest of it so we cleared Skye, tripped through Hamish Macbeth's Plonkton and made camp at Lochcorron. I use camp loosely since we spent the night in a car park overlooking the loch. We had the most delicious birthday feast at the local pub: pan-seared fish in a rich butter sauce and the stickiest sticky toffee pudding drowned in custard. Then we cleaned our teeth in the bathroom and snuck across the road for bed.

In dawn's light we drove the famous Applecross way, through the mountain cattle pass to snake our way northwards up the coast. We had lunch at Big Sand, a gorgeous stretch of rose-gold, where a seal stopped by to say hello. Minor hitch when the car window mechanism failed but some huffing and puffing worked where the manual failed. That night we made camp just out of Ulapool at Ardmere. I've always considered the art of skimming a boy's right, but that night on the rocky beach I was holding a lucky hand. Not two skims, not three or four or even five, but that special seven. It was marvellous: I raised an arm, soft weight cradled in my palm, then a quick twist and release, and there it goes, its dark shade just visible in the twilight tripping across the ocean's skin. Then, as it tends to do, it began to rain and we retreated to our sanctuary and pulled out our books and head torches. I'm indulging in a Bryson fest and am nearly done with A Short History of Nearly Everything: an excellent read but it's turning me into a paranoid mess. Did you know how overdue we are for an apocolypse?

Out driving the roads the next day, we came across a full car park and felt compelled to stop and see what all the fuss was about. The fuss was Stac Pollac: a mountain with the most satisfying views I could ever hope to see, every way you turn is a rush for the eyes. Ella powered up while I dawdled, camera in one hand - see, this was a big ben and my thinking was that the slower I walked the more chance a big gush of wind would come pass and knock the top off, shortening my climb. We stood there, just looking out across the land, and I don't think Mounty Lofty will ever be satisfying again.

Our guide book assured us there was a campsite at a small place called Sheigra, which looked ideally situated on the map, so we drove till dusk and till the road came to a gate with a sign saying to please put 4 pound in the honesty box. Our muddied track led out to a small cove that we shared with one other campervan, some soggy sheep and the circling sea birds. We climbed the rocky peaks and sat on the top of the world watching the birds until they weren't there to watch any more, then we climbed down to cook dinner under the back bonnet as the rain did its best to get us wet.

The rain stayed overnight and travelled with us the next day as we drove to the top of Scotland, through Durness where we stopped briefly to take in the waters of Smoo Cave – and the most ferocious waterfall I've ever seen and while I may not have seen many in my lifetime, I don't think I'll ever see one like this again – across to the badly named Tongue where we veered right down the long road to Invernesss. Every so often the rain would fade and I could wind the window down to take in the colours of the earth and heather and wild moss and lock them up tight in my memory so that I'll dream about them when I find myself home again.

Out of Inverness we swung east and toured the Black Isle. A romp in Fairy's Glen stretched our legs and then it was back in our van to search for another nighttime resting spot. We found one just out of Inverness at Bunchrew, the best camping spot we encountered for the proprietor told us we could drive anywhere we liked and we did – to the showers, the washing area, the laundromat, back to the bathrooms. We drove muddy circles into that grass.

We spent our last proper morning searching for Nessy before turning to easier finds: we drove south in the direction of Fort William and then swung round specifically to visit the house in Monarch of the Glen, which we saw distantly across the loch. I don't know why we feel compelled to visit such places when they inevitably lack the magic they have on screen. Our last night we stayed at Blair Athol Campsite, whose list of rules spans two pages. We strolled the Red Squirrel Walk and spied a recluse foraging for dinner. Our route took us past Blair Athol Castle, where we dawdled and sighed as the sun lit up behind. The sorry state of our vegetables meant dinner at the pub across the road: comfort soup with warm buttered bread, and a goodnight, sleep tight serving of sticky toffee pudding.

The elusive sun woke us up the following morning and stayed around while we hightailed it back to Dundee to give back our Tardis to Glen. No kilt-wearing, sword-wielding men, but wild moors and inspired heather, and all the world's rain – oh yes.