Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

Pitlochry is the name of the place we pitched up next, a pretty little town with a good range of shops - for the sake of the budget though, we managed to steer clear. That said, we did have to pop into the local food shop to get a few basic supplies and, as ever in more remote places, the food shop also stocked a range of other bits and bobs - including a model Unimog which caught Jasons eye! £28 was deemed a little steep for a toy though, so I eventually managed to drag him and his puppy dog eyes away from it!

We parked up in a car park and headed off for a little local walk to a waterfall called Black Spout. Didnt take too long to get to, and the sun stayed out most of the time, so it was a nice gentle amble. Snow showers were also forecast, so we were looking forward to sparkling whiteness some time soon :-)

Rather than stay in Pitlochry we decided to motor on, and pootled a few miles further to visit a place called Soldiers Leap. Its shown on tourist guides as well as OS maps, where apparently a Redcoat jumped 18ft across a river at the bottom of a gorge to escape his persuers. Unfortunately the site itself was a little underwhelming - a nice location for a summertime picnic but definitely not the death defying dramatic landscape we were expecting :-(

Carrying the terrible burden of our crushing disappointments, we again clambered back into Moglet and headed for the next highlighted location on our maps - the Queens View, named as such after Queen Victoria's 'friend' John Brown took her there and she spent a while afterwards saying how lovely it was. Its one of the most photographed sites in Scotland, and something thats on postcards all over the place. They also filmed on site for the film Mrs Brown with Judy Dench and Billy Connolly, so we had higher hopes of this one... By the time we got there though, the sun had already set, it was getting dark pretty damn fast and any nice views were hiding behind clouds or the trees that lined the roadside. Couple that with the fact that the road was very narrow and there was no sign of any likley spots for a wild camp for the night, tempers were getting a little frayed. So in the end we decided to turn tail and head back to Alyth! It was on the way for the rest of the journey we had planned, plus there was the thought of that delicious smelling chinese takeaway in town there... :-)

The next morning, we were up and about and heading north to the Spittal of Glenshee. Jason was keen to drag me onto a chairlift up God knows how high, mostly I think because I didnt really want to! The further north we travelled though, the more gorgeous the scenery became, coupled with the fact that the long awaited snow had finally arrived, so we were grinning like idiots for much of the drive. Getting to a road where there are gates they can close to stop you travelling on it because the snow can get too deep was quite exciting, despite the fact they were standing wide open! The snow continued to fall all the way up to the top, with the tail wind so strong you could see the run-off melt water that was supposed to be flowing down hill, getting blown back upwards by the force of it! Naturally, lots of stops for photos and playing with Moglet in snowy laybys, as well as pulling over for traffic behind us - 25% uphill gradients are not something we can do quickly!

We stopped briefly in the huge car park at Glenshee to watch everyone playing in the snow, but the chairlifts weren't running (shame!), so once Jason had had a go at trying to do handbrake turns in Moglet on the snow (is he mad??!!), we carried on up the pass.