Friday 11th August 2023

When we were at Callander Woods last month, we were trying to figure out where to go next, and decided that if Callander Woods was ok, we’d go to Blairgowrie Holiday Park.

It was a nice drive, up the A9 for a big chunk, and it took around 1hr50 to get there.

When we arrived, we were on pitch 5 which was a good size, and there were only three campervans/motorhomes on site, the rest were caravans.

It was dry and warm, first thing we did was get the seats and table outside, and crack open a wee drink.

I had prepped some chicken shwarma for cooking on Thursday night, so it was ready to go whenever we were hungry, which wasn’t too much after we arrived.

We rolled out the van awning, and I cooked up dinner, one thing I do notice is that the Cadac doesn’t seem to give out a huge amount of heat, so things take a while and don’t really get that seared, not sure if it’s the gas, the paella pan, or the underlying BBQ, but it doesn’t get particularly hot.

It started raining, so we were very grateful for having the protection of the awning, in our haste to get a seat and drink, we hadn’t spotted the dish washing bit (and it wasn’t on the map), so we ended up going old-school, boiling a kettle full of water on the gas, and washing the dishes in our collapsible sink!

By that time it was raining quite heavily, no wind, so it was dry underneath, but I was able to rinse the soap off my hands with the run-off from the tilted corner of the awning.

We donned our waterproofs and walked along to the local Scotmid Co-Op for some needed provisions, came back and spent a pleasant evening outside.

As it was so still, we left the awning up overnight even tho’ it was raining.

Up early, and cooked sausage and eggs on the grill which were combined with some tasty baps we’d picked up in the Co-Op for a hearty breakfast.

Found the dish-washing bit at the toilet-block (where else?!) so tidied up and we opted to walk into the town of Blairgowrie, we had plans for a big walk, but it was intermittently pretty heavy rain, it’s a nice walk alongside the river.

We had a good lunch at Number 31 on Wellmeadow, I had a BBQ chicken burger, and Gayle had a pizza, apparently the crust was a bit thick on the pizza so it wasn’t great, but I enjoyed my burger.

We wandered up towards one of the excellent butchers in the town and picked up a big bag o’ beef stir-fry dinner.

We also picked up a couple of books in “Adventure into Books”, while we were in there the rain took a turn for the worse and was really throwing it down.

But, as it’s Scotland, shortly afterwards, the sun was splitting the trees, and we walked back to the van.

Having books, and seeing as it was a nice afternoon, we spent the time relaxing and reading outside, eventually the awning was dry, so we opted to wind it back in in case it got wet again, and just as it was the first time we did it, getting the awning to go back in was hard work, I need to practice a bit more!

After such a big lunch, it turned out we weren’t that hungry later, so dinner was a cuppa tea and a granola from the deli in town.

Up early again on Sunday morning, and after a porridge, we wandered back into town, for a look around the town while it wasn’t raining, we’ve been to a lot of small towns in Scotland now, but Blairgowrie wasn’t our favourite, there are some great shops, bakers, bookshops and butchers, but also some nicer towns.

I had picked up a cold from somewhere, so we headed straight home down the A9 again, amazing to see how many motorhomes, caravans and campervans were on the roads, where do they all go?!