Today it was my turn to drive and we headed north then west. The car is easy to drive If you’re not bumper to bumper then the way it shuts off the engine every time you stop moving for any length of time is very, very annoying even if it does restart as soon as you touch the accelerator. Alex is going through the handbook again to see if we can bypass the eco mode.
We stopped at Rogie Falls which had an impressive amount of water cascading down, it’s no wonder the Salmon choose a different time to make their way upstream, even with the Fish Ladder I’m sure many would be smashed to death in the river. There was so much mist that photos don’t do the vista justice. Throughout the day we experienced sunshine, rain and bitter wind, reminded me of the saying about Melbourne,” If you don’t like the weather wait 5 mins for the change”. There is still a lot of snow lying on the hills and when we were looking down Loch Maree it was only 4deg.
Our lunch stop was at The Old Inn, Gairloch. I thought Alex had a pea/potato mash but it was the famous Mushy Peas. He forgot to ask for salad.
We took our time driving back, stopping frequently to take in the awesome scenery. We saw goats, a colourful male pheasant, heaps of sheep with new lambs, Shetland Ponies and some Salmon jumping in Fish Farm pens. A female pheasant almost breathed her last, I tried to avoid her as she seemed to be heading straight for the wheels but there was no bump and no feathers exploding into the air when I looked in the rear vision mirror. She lived to challenge another car.
2macstracks 
Comments on: "Gairloch" (6)
This pub brought out the devil in you Alex!
I love the picture with Alex and his stag(?) horns. In fact, it makes me think I’ve always seen Alex this way – I’ve just not realised it.
Enjoying the blog and sounds like a great trip so far. And if it makes you feel any better, I often shut down when I stand still for a while so why should the car not have similar characteristics?
ive looked it up. not a hybrid lots of complaints about the stop start on line. some people haveproblems and there seems to be a control button you can set each time. anyway…. with our car if you sort of ease into a stop the engine doesnt cut out. and someone writing about the car you have said the same happens with the bmw. i did notice today that when the engine cut out i had a very marginally reduced start when the car moved off than the time i stopped and the engine stayed on.
What a wonderful time, Scenery in a beautiful car and you’ll know how to drive a hybrid when you buy one! And you’re missing anzac day here which is not a good time. Enjoy your freedom. Is there a map anywhere?
is the car a hybrid, ours switches off when we stop most ofthe time but i havent found it a bother. i think fred found it a pain at first because it was slow to take off at lights. but we are used to it.
Car is a diesel, not hybrid. Alex has now found a switch which puts off that eco mode but it defaults to it when you switch off the ignition. It does mean though that if we’re in a traffic line up again we can switch the eco off and not have the irritation again.