“Ye’ll take the high road, and I’ll take the low road...” So goes the song and I won’t deny there was much singing of it as we approached the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond for the start of the E-Type Club’s Scottish Highlands and Islands 2010 tour.
Over the next twelve days and one thousand miles we would take both the high as well as the low roads and many others in between, in the company of eleven other Es and two XKs for good measure.
The itinerary took us away from Loch Lomond across Glencoe to the coast, over the sea to Skye (what else?), then up through Skye and on to the Uists, continuing to Harris and Lewis, back to the mainland again and north to Lochinver, before winding back down the west coast to finish at Loch Fyne. If you look at a map you will see that it is not only a lot of road to drive but also a lot of water to cross – in fact five ferries’ worth.
If the Highlands very much conformed to our idyll of shortbread tin scenery – snow-capped mountains, rocky crags, deep valleys, purple heather, green fields and lochs everywhere – then the Islands were a lesser-known quantity. Skye – classically pretty. The Uists – flatter and more bleak (or maybe it was just the weather?). Harris and Lewis – simply stunning, with a combination of turquoise sea and golden sand, cloud-shrouded hills, open moorland, and strange boulder-strewn moonscapes. The Highlands were hardly the last word in modernity, but being on the Islands was like travelling back in time to an altogether simpler and more rustic age. You know your perceptions have changed when you catch yourself considering Stornoway a ‘large town’!
The roads were often narrow, no more than an E-Type’s slender width, and we were more likely to meet a sheep or a cow than another vehicle. Just as well perhaps, since some of the roads rolled like a sea swell across the landscape, a ribbon of tarmac with hidden dips and blind crests so sharp that we spent our time looking up the E-Type’s long bonnet into the sky or down it in to the ground.
Other roads were open, flowing and well-sighted, providing the perfect opportunity to fantasise that our little group of cars moving quickly and in unison were Spitfires flying low in formation. Nothing makes a challenging road more enjoyable than having an E-Type ahead through the windscreen and behind in the rear-view mirror, and knowing exactly how your own car is looking and behaving on the road, bobbing and moving so delicately.
Including our journey from Kent to the start point and back again from the finish point we racked up 2150 miles in 14 days. As always, our Eagle’s staying ability was rather greater than its driver’s and passenger’s!
Lastly, please forgive me an unashamed plug for the E-Type Club, membership of which adds so much enjoyment to the privilege of owning one of these special cars.
Nick Bromfield 18 June 2010