ONE of the great things about travelling the UK and the world to report on Land Rovers is that often you find yourself off the beaten track, away from the maddening holiday crowds. This all changed nine years ago when my son Isaac was born. I am not complaining, he’s the biggest blessing in my life.
While some fly to Spanish or Greek isles for summer holidays, I normally fire up the Land Rover and look for a camping adventure somewhere. This is exactly what I did during the now all too distant summer holidays. The general advice is don’t go to the north of Scotland because of the crowds and midges, but I decided to see if I could avoid both while doing a week-long tour of the Isle of Skye. It’s a place I’ve been to several times, but it would be Isaac’s first visit.
To save two days of driving, we flew up to Inverness on good old EasyJet; I booked way in advance so the flights were much cheaper than the cost of fuel if driving.
We then picked up our rental Defender 90 from Inverness based WildTrax (see details on p82). Most of its rental fleet are low-mileage late old-style Defenders. While ours had every expedition accessory known to mankind, what it didn’t have was food, so before leaving Inverness, we stocked up at a big Tesco store. The Isle of Skye does have supermarkets, but once you get to its really remote parts you pay pretty high prices for commodities such as a bag
