Our first proper day in the highlands started off very much like our 2012 trip, along the A93 and A939, past Glenshee and The Lecht ski hills. This is the route Evo magazine made a film about, and although I didn’t have an Aston Martin, I really enjoyed the drive – the MR2 was made for roads like these!

After the excitement of The Old Military Road, we stopped in Grantown on Spey for lunch, I went for that finest of Scottish delicacies – the macaroni pie! Tasty. Our next stop was at the Tomatin distillery, just off the A9. The plan has been just to pop into the shop, but we ended up on a very surreal tour with a coach load of French tourists, then a separate private tour/tasting and a sample of their 1988 malt to take away with us (which I’m enjoying as I type). The remaining boot space in the MR2 was also filled with purchases from the gift shop.

By this time we were running late, so drove past Loch Ness to our overnight stop at Lochcarron. The drive past Loch Ness and on towards Kyle of Lochalsh, then round Loch Carron would have been better without the rain, hopefully our return journey will be better. For those interested, we didn’t see Nessie, which I’m also going to blame on the rain, even the hardiest of Scottish mythical monsters wouldn’t have wanted to be out in it!

Total distance: 569 miles.