Highlands and islands on Lonely Planet's 'Best in Travel' list
- Thread starter HairyHaggis
- Start date
ff1d1l
pfm Member
When I lived in the highlands, one of the absolute off-pissers was that they - visitors - didn't understand how to use passing places.
"Use passing places to permit overtaking" means that if you have a vehicle behind you, you pull over - in a passing place - to allow them to overtake. How hard is that to understand?
Yet if you went over to Dingwall from Lochcarron in summer, you could guarantee you'd get behind some ***** who somehow thought it was a massive assault on his puny manhood for anyone to overtake him and you'd crawl along for thirty miles while he took in the scenery at his leisure. I say his, it was usually males.
My dad wasn't beyond stopping in front of them when he finally did manage an overtake, and explaining slowly and clearly just how they were breaking the law.
"Use passing places to permit overtaking" means that if you have a vehicle behind you, you pull over - in a passing place - to allow them to overtake. How hard is that to understand?
Yet if you went over to Dingwall from Lochcarron in summer, you could guarantee you'd get behind some ***** who somehow thought it was a massive assault on his puny manhood for anyone to overtake him and you'd crawl along for thirty miles while he took in the scenery at his leisure. I say his, it was usually males.
My dad wasn't beyond stopping in front of them when he finally did manage an overtake, and explaining slowly and clearly just how they were breaking the law.
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
I have to say and maybe i have been lucky, but I have only ever encountered people using passing places properly. I have encountered motorhome on a road clearly unsuitable for motorhomes.
Most of the poor road behaviour I've seen in the north of Scotland was from motor cyclists and large groups of bicyclists.
I wish theh had a good implementation of passing places on roads in England
ff1d1l
pfm Member
Interesting. Do elaborate.
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
on three occasions motor cyclists coming around a blind bend and ending up on the wrong side of the road in front of me.
One motor cyclist hitting a stationary car at a pedestrian crossing as they were riding too fast and close to stop. I was stationary at the crossing coming from the opposite whilst families were crossing.
Loads of slow and wobbly cyclists that refuse to pull in at passing places to allow the long tall of vehicles to overtake.
I have dash cam footage of all these encounters
You choose to misunderstand. Let me clarify. I wrote:did you actually think about that before you posted it?
"Short sighted is people who think that the current population can be sustained without an inflow of tourist money."
Let me clarify this as "sustained without a continued inflow of tourist money", as was clear from the context. As I said, the current landscape is the result of human activity. Current populations are only maintained by current levels of tourism. Take away the tourists, take away the jobs, the population shrinks, shops and pubs are no longer sustained, fewer jobs still, and the landscape starts to revert to what it was in centuries gone by. Nobody (or very few) wants to return to a crofters' existence. Agriculture no longer employs the people that it did 100 or even 50 years ago. What jobs are people going to do now, if they are to continue to pay their bills?
HairyHaggis
<((((º>`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸.•´¯`•...¸><((((º>¸.
as always, nobody is going to much change anyone else's pov, but nevertheless it's an interesting discussion.
Indeed. It's akin to the CPRE position and the counterargument that the countryside can't be preserved in aspic and remain as it was in 19xx. The Peak District is the same, on the one side is the Peak District NP, on the other the quarrying operations that provide work and building stone at a cost of considerable disruption, nuisance and traffic congestion in an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
So specifically what is the problem as you see it. If it’s wildlife or environmental damage, and if so what are the tourists doing that’s causing it?
MVV
pfm Member
Seriously? Do you mean on it or in sight of it?
HairyHaggis
<((((º>`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸.•´¯`•...¸><((((º>¸.
suilven, like most other lumps in torridon or the poor hills that have to suffer the consequences being over 2999', is like sauchiehall street on many days of the year. i've come across people on bikes (motor) in the hills lately, 4x4's, crowds scattering litter, ghetto blasters...it goes on.
the mere presence of people, in some cases, the remote proximity, is more than enough to render an environment uninhabitable to some species. then you have the increase in cars, bikes, busses, coaches, housing, hotels, b&b, visitor centres, the ever-increasing inane races, road, hill, mountain (there's an increasing propensity to turn everything into a fvcking challenge these days), 'mountain biking' events..it goes on...i'm surprised you have to ask?
the mere presence of people, in some cases, the remote proximity, is more than enough to render an environment uninhabitable to some species. then you have the increase in cars, bikes, busses, coaches, housing, hotels, b&b, visitor centres, the ever-increasing inane races, road, hill, mountain (there's an increasing propensity to turn everything into a fvcking challenge these days), 'mountain biking' events..it goes on...i'm surprised you have to ask?
Big Tabs
looking backwards, going forwards
Midges.
I love Scotland. Midges love me. Also daylight is surprisingly shortened. Tourism does bring in the dollar. It is the payback of living in a beautiful country that folks will want to visit. We have family in Scotland and visit a few times each year.
I love Scotland. Midges love me. Also daylight is surprisingly shortened. Tourism does bring in the dollar. It is the payback of living in a beautiful country that folks will want to visit. We have family in Scotland and visit a few times each year.
Excellent. When I was on Skye we met a German chap in the bothy, had a chat, 100 yards down the path his girlfriend was standing naked in the stream, bathing. This was February. I asked if she was cold, she said yes, but it was lovely. So was she. She seemed unconcerned by us walking by 50 feet away, chatting away quite cheerfully as she reached for a towel. I didn't see any habitats being destroyed or rare species being threatened, just a beautiful young woman washing small quantities of organic material into a watercourse where it doubtless provided food for something.
MVV
pfm Member
This puts me in mind of a time when walking on a steep and narrow ridge I met a beautiful, naked young woman coming the other way.
I didn't know whether to block her passage or toss myself off!
Max Miller c1928
wow&flutter
pfm Member
As far as being overcrowded, is it hell. Get 5 minutes off the road and you have the place to yourself. A mate and I went on the Cuillin for 3 days in February and once beyond Corrour bothy, where we met 2 Germans, we never met another soul until we came down at the Sligachan. Which was closed. Similarly a walk in the 'Gorms one March 2 years ago, if we saw one other party that was all. This was just outside Newtonmore so hardly remote.[/QUOTE]
Interesting to hear Corrour mentioned here as my grandfather was a gamekeeper for the Corrour estate. My Father was born in Fersit and lived there till he was 14 when my grandfather died in a shooting accident.
Our family attended the opening of the updated Corrour Lodge in the early nineties as my father had been interviewed for a book that had been commissioned as a wedding gift for the family who bought it.
https://www.corrour.co.uk/lodge/
Don’t let the video fool you, that lovely circular pond at the opening of the lodge video was home to the largest swarm of midges i’ve ever experienced in my life!
Interesting to hear Corrour mentioned here as my grandfather was a gamekeeper for the Corrour estate. My Father was born in Fersit and lived there till he was 14 when my grandfather died in a shooting accident.
Our family attended the opening of the updated Corrour Lodge in the early nineties as my father had been interviewed for a book that had been commissioned as a wedding gift for the family who bought it.
https://www.corrour.co.uk/lodge/
Don’t let the video fool you, that lovely circular pond at the opening of the lodge video was home to the largest swarm of midges i’ve ever experienced in my life!