Scotland asks a little more of a driver than anywhere else in Britain, and gives a great deal more back. North of the Great Glen the roads are wide, empty and beautifully surfaced for miles at a time, then narrow without warning to a single lane with passing places, where the point is no longer the road but the view at the top of it. The club's Tartan Run crosses the country and back in a week, and these are the roads it is built around.
Over the Cairnwell and the Lecht
The party gathers near Edinburgh and heads north into the Cairngorms. The A93 climbs to the Cairnwell, at 670 metres the highest main road in Britain, past the ski tows at Glenshee and down into Royal Deeside. Then comes the Lecht, the old military road from Cockbridge to Tomintoul: steep, open and empty, and usually the first road in Scotland to close when the snow arrives. It is the right way to begin, with big country, few cars and the whole of the Highlands ahead.
The Great Glen
From Speyside the route crosses to Loch Ness and the Great Glen, the long fault line that cuts Scotland in two. Most visitors drive the busy road along its northern shore. The quieter road on the south side, by Foyers and the hills above it, is the better drive and the better view.
The Bealach na Bà
West of the Great Glen the land rises into the mountains of Wester Ross, and at their edge is the Bealach na Bà, the pass of the cattle. It climbs from the head of Loch Kishorn to 626 metres and drops to Applecross on the far side. Its gradients reach one in five, its hairpins would not look out of place in the Alps, and it is single track all the way. In the right car on a clear morning, with the hills of Skye across the water from the top, it is one of the great drives of Europe.
The pass is the most famous stretch of the North Coast 500, the long loop around the far north that has made these places far better known than they once were. The Tartan Run takes in the best of its western side at the end of the season, when the summer traffic has gone home.
Home through Glen Coe
The way home crosses the country once more, and the last great road of the week is the A82 through Glen Coe. The Buachaille Etive Mòr stands at the head of the glen like a gatehouse, and beyond it the road runs out across Rannoch Moor, as empty a stretch of country as there is anywhere in Britain.
Driving the single track well
- Passing places are for passing, never for parking. Pull into one on your left, or wait opposite one on your right, and let the oncoming car through.
- Let a faster car go by. If someone behind you is in a hurry, a passing place is where they get past.
- A raised hand is customary, and returned.
- Sheep and deer pay no attention to the road. Round a blind bend, expect one.
- Keep a gap. The party drives with room between the cars, and the roadbook marks the stretches to take gently, the Bealach na Bà above all.
The practical things
- Pumps are few and far between in the north west, and some close early or on a Sunday. Fill up wherever the roadbook says, and never run low on the single track.
- Late September is cold in the mornings, and it will rain at some point. Bring a coat you can walk in.
- Mobile signal comes and goes. The printed roadbook works in a glen with none, and each day's route is on your phone in the members' area as well.
- Camera and police warnings are lawful in the United Kingdom, so the club's app shows both on every day of the tour.
- Members drive and insure their own cars, so confirm with your insurer in writing that an organised tour is covered, and carry breakdown cover valid on the route.
What the club takes care of
The Tartan Run is driven in late September, when the hills are turning and the roads are quiet again. The route is driven in full, in season, before a member sees it, and the roadbook carries every turn. Hotels are the kind that own their own water, where dinner is whatever came out of it that morning. Every hotel is slept in by us before a member stays and every dinner is eaten first, and the cars are parked securely every night. The club team is on the road with you throughout, and if a car cannot go on, you and your passenger carry on with the party while it is dealt with.
Members hear first when places open, and membership begins with an application, read personally by the team. If these are the roads you have been meaning to drive, we would be delighted to hear from you.