Driving 700 miles around Scotland with one leg (ep. 30)

Hi friends! 

This episode is about the recent trip i took going round the west coast of scotland. Stopping off in Largs, the Isle of Bute, Glencoe, Fort William and going all around the isle of Skye. I started this episode with a little bit of background information on my accident as before i had my crash Skye was top of my list of places to visit and at points of my recovery i didnt know if it would be possible. I drove on roads that scared me shitless and had a friend join me who helped me with my disability and helped me to feel very accepted in who i am as a whole. More on disability shame and feeling like a burden in two weeks time.

Hope you enjoy!
See you in a few weeks,
Much love 🥰

Chapters:
Introduction: 00:00 - 08:52
Planning for the trip: 08:52 - 17:23
Day one: 17:23 - 30:28
Day two: 30:28 - 50:35
Day three: 50:35 - 1:00:00
Outro:  1:00:00 - 1:04:16
Email: cripplechroniclespod@gmail.com
Socials: @cripplechroniclespod on Instagram + Tiktok

Music: Skating On the Uppers by National Sweetheart

Transcript

0:06

captions Hi Friends, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. If you're new,  hi, my name is Becca and nearly five years ago I had a serious road traffic accident  where I nearly lost my life and two and a half years and a whole lot of blood,  sweat and tears into saving my right leg. I later had it amputated above the knee in August of 2022. I can tell this is going to be fun today with my words and my brows are giving something today,  not sure what but we're here. I had two alazaro frames on my leg and  if you want to hear more about that whole journey of recovery  I would suggest listening to maybe the first ten or so episodes of the podcast and it will explain  all of the drama and all of the things I tried to do in my recovery. When I had my frames on,  the first one, I really thought that it would just come off and I would have a few months of physio  and I would slot right back into my job as a mental health nurse working in an admissions ward. WRONG! I had twelve months really to recover and go back to my job and I initially was  told that I might not walk for six months initially but within three months I was up,  walking and discharged home. Six months came around and it did look like it had healed.  Due to the ongoing global pandemic, wait times on the NHS to have my frame removed,  it was double the time that I had already been in the frame and therefore I went  private because my surgeon also works in the private sector as well as the NHS. The reason I am giving some of this backstory today that some of you might be well familiar  with, I had an ageing bone infection that had been held in my bone when I had the frame on and  it just ran wild in my leg when the frame came off. I had another elazoroth frame put on where  I then had pieces of my bone broken, I moved parts of the frame and I grew three new pieces of bone  in my leg. How the fuck did I survive that? With my leg fused, this was the point where  grief hit me really hard and I had to accept that life was never going to go back to how it was. I didn't know how I would get in a car with a fused leg as a passenger,  never mind actually driving. I dread up about flying because it was my dream to  go to New Zealand and I was seeing things from airlines that I would have to buy three seats so  that I could sit across it with my leg up which meant it was going to be three times the price  of me to travel somewhere because of something that I didn't ask for. That didn't feel fair. I didn't know what life would look like and the time with the frame on was probably the  worst time in my recovery. I couldn't move about a lot, my wheelchair was uncomfortable and I had  no access to a shower for two and a half years. I washed my hair in the kitchen sink and because  of the pandemic, other than my carers and visits from family once a week, I was alone and I have  been a bit apprehensive about sharing some things in my recovery because I don't want to be seen  as ungrateful for the support that I did receive but the more I accept and embrace my disability,  I realise how hard it has been because of being treated like my disability was a burden and  sometimes those reactions aren't intentional but they have a massive impact on my psychology and  before my accident I already felt like I was a burden so it had been really heightened and  I know that this is the introduction and I'll probably have some kind of title and  also a pretty little thumbnail to tell you what this episode is about but after five minutes,  I was gonna say five years, after five minutes of rambling on about that the point is today  I am going to talk about my very recent road trip that I took around the west of Scotland,  had some meltdowns about inaccessibility but still trying to make it work even if  it's not accessible and kind of trying to think about some of the experiences  that it has had on me and question my worth whilst living in a disabled body. This is something that I want to dive into kind of more on the next episode because when I was doing  my notes for this I realised how much I really had to say about the road trip because I had so much  fun but in spending time with people who accept me as a whole, disability included, it does make  me realise a lot of things that have kind of got under my skin and made me question myself and not  really understand it and it is scary talking about that sometimes because it is not even intentional  when like people say things thinking they're trying to help and they're not inside your brain,  they don't know the thought processes that you've gone through to get to this point where  it then does feel like a bit of a kick even if they meant it to feel like a hug and I don't  really know if that makes sense but it will in the next episode because this episode is about  my little west of Scotland road trip. So I guess the point that I'm making with this very long  intro is that I hope if you're somebody who listens to podcasts and you're not disabled  you have a bit more of an understanding how some things can play on a disabled person's mind and  I am obviously going to say that this mostly is my experience but it is coming from a disabled person  and if there are people you support or love in your life that are also disabled maybe it  will help you come up with some questions to also understand the things that go on in their minds.  However before I get into talking about the road trip, the good and the bad, if you're new and you  enjoy this content please hit subscribe on YouTube and like on audio platforms. If you want to follow me on social media you can find me on TikTok and Instagram at cripple  chronicles pod. I have posted some photos from the road trip already,  I am hopefully going to post some more. There will be some in the YouTube video  as well of things that I'm talking about so you can also kind of see what I was seeing. However it's more beautiful in person, photos do not do it justice and I used  to kind of think that when I was hill walking that everywhere around me just  looked so breathtaking and I would take a photo and it was just yeah it was nice to  remember it but it doesn't beat the feeling of actually being there. However this intro  has already been long enough with me yapping on about what this episode is about so I am going  to get straight into it. If you have anything you'd like to say to me, comment, whatever,  drop me an email to cripple chronicles pod at gmail.com and let's get into this long episode. Strap in, get some snacks. I have just noticed that Simba's all cosied in in his wee house  underneath my desk which is cute. So we also have Simba here today but he's not on screen,  you might see him wandering about in the background sometimes. But the first part of this episode I wanted to maybe think about planning things whilst  disabled. I have mentioned a few times in recent episodes about my level of planning  about things. I feel like I have to have a plan even when I'm being spontaneous which  I feel like kind of goes against being spontaneous and realistically I end up  not properly planning and when disabled that can end up being an absolute shitshow. Sometimes although I have a plan thoroughly I am human and I make a mistake, pardon me,  and I obviously burp a lot as well if you've not noticed through these episodes. But on  this trip I made a few mistakes. Firstly I didn't go on my own, I had one of my lovely  friends come and explore some more of Scotland with me and he did help me a lot in terms of  disability like dismantling my wheelchair and putting it back together each time  we stopped even with one of my wheels being broken and being very hard to like push out  because the mechanism broke and with the car being packed because we were camping on it. It was all very specific how we had it in and I guess I'm going to discuss more about that help  in this episode and in the next one because I do want to think about it as I would have seen  these things as being small things before but looking back on my trip without him doing those  things I really would have struggled a lot more and for no reason other than to be stubbornly  independent and not have to ask for help and that would have meant that after I came home my  recovery time from the trip would have been so much longer. Plan for this trip changed multiple  times with lots of places to visit and not sure how to plan a route, where is best to stay,  trying to find accessible places, looking at ferry times and prices and not adding up the  prices correctly as well as trying to do this trip on a budget meant finding a hotel camping in the  car one night like I said the car was fully packed and we could have just camped full stop but I am  a nature girly like I love being out in nature but not that kind of nature girly like I don't  like camping I don't like trying to piss outside because I usually end up getting it on me and that  is zero fun also with one leg I didn't really want to think about how to get onto the floor and camp  outside and then have to get up and then drive I was like that's going to take a lot so what do we  do camp in the car also I didn't have a tent and I was trying to be as cheap as possible so it seemed  like that was the best option if you are watching I am going to put on screen my planning for the  camping in the car I dragged like three or four cushions off of the couch put down my back seats  in the car got some blankets and dismantled my wheelchair to fit it in the front seat it was  small but I would like to say it was more cozy than cramped and I did plan on having some fairy  lights and blankets to cover the windows but after planning with getting the cushions all sorted and  taking my chair apart and getting into the front seat I slept for 16 hours that day so when I say  about my friend helping that is the kind of I think that puts it into perspective like that  was me just trialing how the cushions would go in the car taking things apart and I was so fatigued  that I had to sleep for that long after it so yeah that's what I mean when I would have said I see  that as small things because it's like well I can do it but what is the repercussion of me doing it  and it is draining to think about that sometimes I need to add up the pros and the cons what I'm what  am I going to have to deal with if I do this thing however that is part of living with disability and  part of what I want to chat more about because it is something that I have been thinking about  a lot trying to kind of come to terms with it really and that is a process that takes quite  a while and I feel like it's something that is probably going to be lifelong because there's  always going to be things that crop up I sometimes forget that I'm no longer in an able body and I  can't do all of the things that I want to do without being totally wiped out and I would say  I did a bit too much planning because I wanted there to be lots of things we could do or see  but trying to find out if places were accessible and unfortunately there were a lot of places that  were listed as being accessible and it turned out they were not for example one restaurant we went  to was listed as being accessible however they had a step outside and then yeah there was a takeaway  up one step and they had a disabled toilet but we wanted to actually sit in and eat something and  that we couldn't do that because the restaurant was up another flight of stairs which I'm like  that's not being accessible pardon me a lot of places would say it was an easy walk but then  realizing the path is not very well maintained or has extremely steep gradients or large stones  which are not very friendly to the very small wheels at the front of a wheelchair it would be  great if I had an attachment to add a third wheel on at the front of my wheelchair however  right now I don't have the money to do that so I need to kind of try and work with what I have  got. I am going to go into all of these things where these problems cropped up so I don't know  maybe if other people are wanting to visit these are things that maybe come into your head when  you're planning because as much as I try to plan and think about things you don't really  know until you get there I overestimated the amount of things that we would be able to do  and in turn the trip ended up taking different shape than what I originally planned but in a  good way because if it didn't change then I would have totally ruined myself if we tried  to do it all and sometimes it does make me a little sad but I think I'm a lot more capable  than I am and accepting that I can't do all of the things even if I want to do them is hard. My disability is dynamic and some days I can do more than others but I also need to think about  how much moving I'm doing, how much energy I'm going to have throughout the days and sometimes  I misjudge it and think that I have more in the tank than I do and I guess that's another positive  of going with someone who is accepting of that and checking in that I'm coping okay and not being too  disappointed when we couldn't do things because I was getting sore or tired or hungry and I mention  this because it is definitely something that comes into play on day one. We left very early  in the morning and headed towards Largs with the plan of the night to stay in a hotel in Rossie on  the Isle of Bute. Look at me getting better with transitioning and then taking notice to it and  making it not as much of a good transition but whatever I'm gonnae toot my horn when I get the  chance but I am gonnae add in some photos whilst I'm editing this for the episode on YouTube. I will also have some more posts going on Instagram with some beautiful pictures of  the west coast of Scotland but as well of that is that I get to be a little bit geeky  with some of the information that I know about Scotland and some new things that  I learned whilst being on this trip. I may have been told this information before in  my life but trauma has created a lot of blank space in my memories and a lot of  the time when I go to places that I have been before they look totally new to me or I guess  less frightening than they did before. So our first stop was in Largs which is a little town  off of the Firth of Clyde and the original name translated into the slopes in Gaelic. It is the home to Vikingr which was our first stop as of the morning as the town has a history of  battles so whilst you're looking out at the water and enjoying the views just imagine it once hosted  some fierce Norse warriors. Today mostly it is seagulls and but there is a massive  Viking statue just in case you forget the history like I had. I say that because in  primary school we actually visited Vikingr on a school trip and when I was younger I  remember it being so much larger but then again the main thing I remember from that  trip was dressing up in chain mail and the helmets which they still let you do today. So this time I actually got to go back and take in the information that they  were telling us. It was so interesting to hear about how Vikings lived in their long houses,  what their job roles were in the community and how they ended up coming to Scotland and  tried to take over. It was in that that I learned Alba which you can sometimes  hear Scotland being called and when you drive into Scotland from England  on the welcome to Scotland road sign it also says welcome to Alba however that came about when  the Scots and the Vikings were trying to live in harmony or that's what I took from our tour guide. If there's anything about the Vikings in Scotland that you want to share head to the comments and  geek out because I'm sure it won't only be me that finds that interesting. At the end of the  tour there was a video shown about the Battle of Largs and I also learned that the Vikings  stormed the area that I grew up in as they made their way up the River Clyde and I just thought  that was really interesting but moving on like the very fast currents of the Clyde we decided it was  time to get some food and figure out the ferries because when doing the planning like I mentioned  I made a few mistakes and I wasn't very good at reading the prices and estimated it to be a hell  of a lot cheaper because I didn't realise you also have to pay for the car when you're travelling  with a car on the ferry. Obviously when I say it like that it sounds very self-explanatory. I didn't really consider that and I was like thinking a lot cheaper than it actually was.  I also didn't realise that there was a summer timetable and a winter timetable  and it had literally just changed over the week before so I was panicking a little bit  because initially we were planning on going to the Isle of Oost which is about three hours on  the ferry and when I realised that you had to pay for the car unfortunately for a single it  was looking at roughly £130 for a ticket and I'm like we paid 50-60 quid for the hotel we  stayed in for the night. I can't really afford to spend that on a ferry so whilst in Largs  we were also going to the short trip over to Millport which is on the Isle of Cumbrae and  I visited Millport quite a bit as a kid and one of those very small places where  everybody knows everybody and as a kid I always saw Millport as a biking town, a biking island. I think it's like an hour or so and you can cycle around the whole island and I thought  well maybe that would be something fun to do in my wheelchair however we decided to give  it a miss as I realised it was going to be a bit more expensive than I thought to go on the  ferry to look about and not really do anything and also if we were to hire a bike that's more  money and also am I going to be more tired out that when we get to the hotel I'm going to have  an issue because it wasn't accessible and I had already been told that beforehand however  I'm glad we didn't go to Millport because the hotel ended up being less accessible  than I had been told on the phone which I didn't really appreciate however we'll get to that in a  minute because we're heading away from Largs and we drove about 15 miles up the waterside  getting to Weems Bay which is where the ferry port is for Rossie on Isle of Bute and this is  somewhere that I can't remember if I've ever been before maybe I was too young to remember but Bute  has this mix of Victorian era and wild Scottish landscapes so it is really good if you're craving  a bit of everything Rossie Castle is literally right there when you get off the ferry everything  is pretty much right there giving you instant look at some historic vibes we actually took a bit of a  look around the castle which when you live in or you have visited parts of Scotland or even  visited castle ruins and other places you may know that these places are the most accessible. A lot of castles have very narrow staircases inside and outside and there's mostly a lot  of grass and not a lot of paths. However, I do still tend to enjoy the views even  if I can't hobble up the top of the stairs and see them from a height and we had also  decided that we would go to Butte Yard which was a gin distillery. However,  it was very small and they didn't do tours and there's literally just a wee window where you  can see into the distillery process which was a bit disappointing as the building seems like  a very large venue space and it does seem like they've maybe missed a bit of a trick of like  making the distillery part a bit bigger and doing tours because the only thing you could  really do was a gin tasting and I'm sober so it didn't really seem like there was any point  to it and after taking a bit of a look around Rossie and realising that it is pretty small,  everything's very much just in the one part, we then decided to take a little loop of driving  around the Isle of Butte to take in the views and to find a nice place to watch the sunset. We did find a little place, I think it was the Kyles of Butte viewpoint. The term Kyles comes  from the Scottish Gaelic word meaning narrow street or channel so the Kyles of Butte refers  to the narrow channel of sea that lies between the Isle of Butte and the Cowell Peninsula.  The Cowell Peninsula is Loch Fyne, the Firth of Clyde, it's known for its rolling hills,  lochs and dense forests and it's really kind of an escape into nature. A lot of the times driving it was just going through so many different looking places and  it was just stunning. It was nice to sit in the car and chat and relax whilst the sun was  setting behind one of these rolling hills and I think we were in the perfect place  for watching the sunset as it does face west. There wasn't a massive amount of clouds so it  was a nice final activity before grabbing some dinner and heading to our hotel for the night. Other than the ferry when we were going to Butte, it didn't have the lift working so I couldn't get  out of the car and I felt a bit motion sick and I could see us like I couldn't see us moving I could  just like see the sky and I was trying to figure it out from like the buildings behind but then  I realised we were moving because I could feel it and then I went on my phone and I was like  damn we're almost halfway there. Anyway this is where I'm getting into talking a bit more  about the accessibility of the hotel because it said online it was wheelchair accessible  however when I started to look at photos I was realising a lot of stairs so I'd messaged them  just to say I was a wheelchair user and I ended up getting a phone call from the manager who had  told me that they do have a ramp however the gradient guidelines have changed and the ramp  is no longer safe to use. They do have roughly eight stairs to get into the hotel and I said  I'm fine getting up steps to get in it's just I don't really want to have to navigate stairs  when I'm inside so just making sure that like your lifts are working and stuff and he said yep  that's totally fine I'll make sure that you also have a room that has a walk-in shower. When we got there there was probably 10 to 12 stairs outside which I hopped up and my friend had  went and kind of checked us in and it turned out to get to the room there was another four steps  in the hallway after coming out of the lift or we would be put in a room that like we hadn't booked  and when we got there it was not a walk-in shower and the bathroom wasn't even wide enough for me  to get my 14 inch manual chair through it which is not even the average size for a wheelchair and  so I had to kind of hop about when I was in the room and needing the toilet and this was quite  disappointing when it comes to planning for a trip I did actually leave a review after booking it  because like I'd mentioned previously living with a disability and planning things I take things  into getting upstairs into account when I am planning and deciding on the activities that I'm  doing for the day and working around it however this was downplayed the amount of stairs that  I had to hop up which then meant that it came to me exerting more energy than I should have had to  however the bed was pretty comfortable and we were up next early next early the next morning we were  up early the next morning and although I had to navigate more stairs than anticipated going down  them was a lot easier and less energy consuming I did get a bit lost when I was coming to go out of  the hotel I ended up like at the restaurant part and I was like can you tell me where the exit is  please and the woman was like the ramp and I was like no the stairs she's like oh thank goodness  I was gonna say please don't go down that ramp because it'll be slippy and I was like no wonder  I've been told not to use it however now going on to day two of the trip which was from Butte to  Fort William and this was probably the same amount of time driving as the first day but more miles to  cover I don't know why I said to Fort William we didn't finish in Fort William we were driving from  Butte to Skye um we set off from our hotel on the Isle of Butte and headed towards the other ferry  port on Butte that isn't Rossie I think it's like Boysdale or something like that for some reason I  think it starts with a b but I can't quite remember what it is however I do know that  that ferry goes to Colin Drive and back onto the mainland in only five minutes compared to the 40  minutes that it took us from getting to Largs to Rossie I don't know why I said to instead of from  Largs to Rossie but anyway um I think we stopped at a shop and grabbed some food and some caffeine  for me because I was going to say about stopping for breakfast but I'm like we already stopped and  picked something up we drove from Colin Drive and our first stop was at the Rest and Be Thankful  on the 83 somewhere that I know very well because as a kid I used to have a caravan up at Dromsteiny  holiday park and I just always used to think that it was so pretty even though it can be  very temperamental in terms of landslides and to do this the engineers have installed netting which  whenever we were driving past hills when netting on I was calling them hill condoms because I just  feel like that's what it looks like um but they've also created like barriers and holes and places to  catch when landslides happen and when there is a particularly bad landslide and they can't use  the main road they then use the road which is at kind of the bottom of the valley which is an old  military road and they do convoys on it despite these efforts landslides are an ongoing challenge  and the road maintenance is almost at a constant I actually don't know if it is stopped since I had  my accident and that was in 2019 however on when you are at the Rest and Be Thankful on a clear  day you can usually see the top of the cobbler which is also known as ben arthur which got its  nickname because the mountain's distinctive peak resembles a cobbler or a shoemaker at work if you  look closely from certain angles um the rock formations look like somebody bent over as if  repairing a shoe this unique shape this unique shape along with its jagged profile has made  the cobbler one of the most recognizable and popular mountains in the Arikart Alps despite  it just being shy of the height that qualifies it for being a Munro after stopping at the Rest  and Be Thankful taking in the views and taking a few photos we headed up to Inverary where we  were just going to stop for some lunch but it ended up being a bit too early on in the day  so we thought we would have a look around Inverary jail unfortunately it is an old building which  they can't install lifts in apparently and there has been zero effort to install anything like a  chair lift so that wheelchair users can take in the full experience the women on the desk did say  that um there are some spaces outside that we can go and look at however it wasn't worth paying the  15 pound entry fee to not be able to see half of what is there because it's inaccessible and  it was a bit gutting because it was something that i had done as a kid and like i mentioned  earlier with trauma sometimes things are cloudy or they're more scary than they actually appear  to be and i guess that was something where i was like oh maybe i could do something  that i used to do as a kid and it is quite disappointing when these places aren't accessible  and don't really make an effort to be inclusive and i do understand with historic buildings that  can be more difficult but i don't understand why you can't put a stair lift in and i'm kind  of going to get to that because we decided that we would just continue driving up to Fort William and  we would try and find somewhere for some food um the road to Fort William, the road to Fort William  includes driving through Glencoe and taking a little pit stop at the Three Sisters viewpoint  as you drive through Glencoe the Three Sisters are there proud as anything these massive covered  peaks rise up beside the road taking you right between steep hills and cliffs and every i just  i really enjoy driving through Glencoe because every time you kind of you're driving through it's  something new to look at and i have always been as a passenger but i don't know driving it did  feel kind of fun um and like doing it myself knows that like i can pull over and i can stop and i can  have a minute to look around and take everything in and it's nicer than like say being on a coach  tour where you're having to be on the coaches time and you've got a few minutes to get off here and  have a look and then you need to get back on and then even then if you're sitting further back on  the coach you don't get the full view of the front so it's like you're missing 75 percent of it but i  do like i am thinking at some point i would like to go on some kind of um like disabled people's  trip wheelchair users trip but to be honest i think that would be more outside of the uk but  it's something where i think that it would be good to try and involve myself in the disabled  community a bit and meet new people and expand my world however back to the road trip um the  first place that we had tried when we got to fort william although on google it was listed as being  wheelchair accessible there was a step outside and then more stairs on the inside we ended up heading  into an indian restaurant where i really enjoyed my meal to be honest but um the unfortunately  the toilets were up three or four stairs and i had a look and it said the public toilets were  kind of right next to where we were and this is where i met another hurdle one on my part and one  on the council because when we got to the public toilets it required a radar key and a radar key  is a scheme which is in the uk which is supposed to make disabled bathrooms less easy to vandalize  or misuse however i could not for the find my radar key and it was really frustrating me because  i swear i could have seen it being in the door pocket in my car and it wasn't there and i was  so sure i'd put it there because i kept forgetting it however it turned out when i got home it was in  my bag the whole time because i'd started taking it out of the car because i would get to a toilet  and realize i didn't have my key on me so even with my radar key i wouldn't have been able to  access this toilet because there was a padlock put on it and i had said to my friend that i just  wanted to go back to the car because i could feel my start myself starting to get really frustrated  and upset and i really felt like i could feel a meltdown coming he offered to go down to where  the car was parked and have a look for my radar key but we couldn't find it and as soon as i  sat in the driver's seat i just burst into tears because i really needed the toilet we even tried  to go into a tesco to find a toilet and it was like a smaller shop where they didn't have one  and it just felt like another knock and i ended up me bursting into tears and my friend had sorted  putting my wheelchair in the car before coming and sitting in the passenger seat and giving me a hug  helping me to calm down and then trying to help problem solve the issue with the toilet we decided  that we would try and go up to the museum in fort william as it was just up from where we had parked  the car unfortunately the museum had stairs but they did have a bathroom that was a little tight  with getting in my wheelchair but it had grab rails etc so i was able to finally relieve myself  when i came back out my friend and the woman who was working in the museum had spent the time that  i was in the toilet trying to get the stair lift working which i thought was very sweet and that's  why when i was speaking about invariery i'd mentioned the stair lift before as i hadn't  really considered that as an access option before as i've never really seen a stair lift in a public  place for wheelchair users or disabled patrons that kind of struggle with stairs but since the  stair lift wasn't working and i was feeling a bit off after having my toilet related meltdown i just  wanted to get back to the car and have something to focus on rather than my emotions and my brain  being mean to me that i was ruining my friend's trip by being disabled this is something that  i am really working on trying not to feel like a burden with my disability and it is something that  i am going to talk about a lot more in the next episode as the more i talk about the road trip  itself it is getting lengthy and it feels like me over committing to myself is a bit of a theme  here um i'm not sure if that's the right wording or if i underestimate how much i actually have to  yap about or maybe it's a bit of both but in the intro i mentioned wanting to talk about my friend  helping me in terms of my wheelchair and trying to problem solve poor access and i think that is  going to be better discussed in the next episode and kind of dedicate a full episode to it because  i don't want to end up missing out things because i'm worried about the time i've been recording for  and i know that some longer form content is really getting pushed out on youtube at the moment but i  still get a bit in my head sometimes and it is so easy for me to get sidetracked and half an hour  episode becomes an hour and a half episode anyway back on to actually talking about the road trip um  we left fort william after my meltdown and we were going to stop by the glenfinnan viaduct which is  the iconic viaduct that the jacobite harry potter train goes over and we were running a bit behind  of where i wanted to be for the time of the day and how much driving still had to be done to  get to the isle of sky we were avoiding paying more money for a ferry so i drove up and took  the bridge onto the sky instead the isle of sky is all very rugged like a lot of single track roads  and unpredictable weather and it just there's a lot of charm there there's a lot of like it  just feels it felt so unreal that it was actually still in scotland like as you're climbing up and  you're seeing these mountains and locks of water kind of opening up in front of you like if you  want to see somewhere in sky in sky in scotland i would really like um recommend people to go to sky  even if it is not the most accessible for getting out of the car it is a fucking stunning place to  from the fairy pools to the karang like that's q u i r a i m g not the music channel karang um  but we drove past that and i'm gonna kind of get more into day three and going around sky  and the kind of things that we try to do and some accessibility issues however the wind was picking  up and there was a definite chill in the air and there was a few places that we wanted to stop by  when we arrived in sky however with the driving time to different places we decided that it was  best to head to portree and find somewhere to eat whilst also looking for a parking bay along  the way for some overnight camping in the car there is a scottish outdoors access code which  permits people to wild camp as long as they're in small groups and respect the environment  usually if camping in a car or a camper van it is good to find a campsite or somewhere  that has specific plots to park especially in peak times as sky can become very overcrowded  and overpopulated however you are permitted to camp in your car as long as you are not blocking  passing places and you are far enough away from the road where it is not dangerous whilst driving  to portree we kept our eyes open and pointed out all of the large parking bays that weren't on  single track roads and saw ones that had cuts in that were not just on the edge of the road kind of  almost almost so like the parking place was a lane or two away from the side of the road where cars  are passing we found a spot that had a trucker in it and when we arrived later on i was very  cautious to be turning off the lights when we were trying to set up the car because i wasn't wanting  to disturb them however when we were driving back on that road to go home probably about  18 hours later the van was well the van it was a was still parked there in the same place so maybe  there was nobody in it but who knows i was trying to be respectful anyway before we actually get to  camping in the car we had to get some food which i mentioned in the intro as we tried to go to a  noodle place that was listed as being wheelchair accessible on google and it was not the restaurant  was up a flight of stairs and yes the takeaway had a disabled toilet in it but it also had a step and  it wasn't just a small step that you can just pop yourself up easily it would have probably taken  a lot of effort so we then were trying to figure out somewhere else to go as a lot of places were  quite fancy meaning that they were pricey and i'm not really somebody for fancy food like  i'm very plain jane sensory overload don't like too many textures or weird tasting foods so after  doing a bit of a loop and trying to find somewhere to go eat that wasn't going to rob us of all  of our cash um we ended up going into the place where i had parked the car we didn't even really  notice what it was thought it was a lot more fancy but it was like pub food it was actually  really quite tasty but there was a bit of a wait and we ended up having to share a table with  somebody because it was going to be an even longer wait and i think we had just got there in time for  ordering food so i'm glad we kind of agreed to share a table or we might have ended up having  to find somewhere else to eat which kind of going on half eight nine o'clock at night would have  been very difficult and sitting sharing a table with somebody wasn't really that bad because we  had like a few chairs in between us so it wasn't really like they were listening at conversations  or anything and i know on a basis anyway like my ears tune into everything around me so i'm like i  could probably hear a conversation when somebody is at another table and they can probably hear  mine so like whatever i have been chatting on so much that my voice is still my voice is still my  voice is starting to go however i got some chip cheese and bacon from this place which  was actually quite tasty apart from like the fatty bits of bacon that made me want to throw up but i  just was like putting them at the side of the bowl when we were finished with our food we headed back  to the parking place off the side of the road with our truck buddy that i mentioned before leaving i  had taken cushions off my couch which like i said i had trialed putting them in the car and seeing  how it was so i got to sit pretty and let my friend set up the back of the car and figure out  how to cover the windows with the blankets that i'd brought however also knowing that i had forgot  the other ones and i was so frustrated because i had them sitting ready to go and i'd left them  and i'd brought i had like a like an over sheet for a bed um and i'd taking that out because I  was like wow that's big that'll like cover a few windows and give us some privacy so or like also  block out the light so there's not people driving past and we're getting woken up and blinded by  headlights. However I'd forgot that some of the blankets were a bit thick we did end up figuring  a way to kind of jam it in the door it was sorted there was a bit of a draft locked the car when we  slept and we kind of just got cozy and watched Two Broke Girls and I was out like a light I think I  maybe watched five minutes of Two Broke Girls and that was it and I think he probably watched about  four or five whilst I was sleeping next to him. However I then woke up with him snoring like fuck  and I was so disorientated it must have been like two three o'clock in the morning and I don't know  if anybody has ever really had this before you see something and your brain convinces you that  it's something totally different so one of the blankets or my jacket was like flapping outside  in the wind and I maybe sat for 10 minutes it felt like 30 thinking that this was a fox that was on  my fucking car roof because we're sleeping in the wild and who knows what might be out here in the  dangerous wild and if there's a fox on top of the car how the fuck am I going to get back to sleep  and then I realised it was a blanket blowing in the wind and I thought right I really need to go  back to sleep because this is not going to be a fun day tomorrow if I do not get some sleep now. However when the alarm went off in the morning I really did not want to get up but I did also want  to explore more of Skye and I had another problem of needing the toilet so we stopped and went to  a shop to grab some food and we found a public toilet which again the disabled toilet needed a  radar key at this point I hadn't found my radar key yet so I had to go into the women's toilet  and the cubicles weren't big enough so I had to sit and do the toilet with my wheelchair in the  doorway and just praying that somebody wouldn't open the door thankfully I was the only person  that was in there however after I'd finished doing my business I realised the main door had a lock on  it so I could just lock the door and had the whole toilet to myself and not really had to do a danger  shite and be worrying if somebody was going to come in and catch me off guard however that is a  lovely start to day three of the road trip talking about my fucking bowel movements however here we  are I like to be upfront and honest and sometimes girls shite and that's okay anyway what the fuck  am I talking about after doing the toilet we started to drive around the isle of Skye and  take in the lovely scenery again I underestimated the amount of driving that it would take to drive  around Skye and then also drive home um there was a bit of a plan to go to Glenfinnan because we  missed it the day before and kind of round about October the Jacobite goes over the viaduct so I  was like oh if we can make it at this time we can see the train and it'll be great however by the  time we had saw all of the things we want to see by the time we got to the viaduct the sun would  have set and I don't really know if we would have been able to see anything and I'm glad we didn't  go because the route that I took to drive home that ended up being a closure and Waze didn't  update it for me so we got under an hour and I was buzzing probably 40 minutes till we get home and  then there's a diversion sign saying the road's shut there's people going in front of me and I'm  thinking this is bullshit and then I get there and I need to basically already turn back so then it  adds like an hour back on the time which was not fun I ended up driving for 10 and a half hours  on day three what was seen during those 10 and a half hours before I get far too ahead of myself  the first stop we made was at Lealt Falls or Lealt Falls and then further up there as Kilt Rock and  I would definitely say that Lealt Falls was the better waterfall they did have one of the gates  that you see in like when you're out hiking and stuff like that when you're going on to farmland  like cow gates or whatever they're called I don't know like walking gates but I didn't want to have  to try and maneuver my wheelchair over it so I just took a little hop and went and saw the  waterfall and it was so windy it was freezing I actually couldn't wait to get back into the car  and then when we stopped at Kilt Falls or Kilt Rock I just let my friend get out and have a  walk around because there was a coach full of people and it was starting to rain and I just  kind of wanted to get my heat up to be honest the main places that I wanted to see in Skye  were the Fairy Glen and the Fairy Pools before getting there we stopped off somewhere else but  I have totally forgot where it was um we got to Fairy Glen and there was a couple that were just  leaving who gave us a parking ticket which had an hour left on it and I am really glad because  it ended up being a bit of a farce for wheelchair maneuverability there was a steep hill just up to  the right of us and my friend did a lot of pushing and navigating uneven ground to help me get up to  the top of that hill however when we got there we realized that this path like went rounding  up and I was having a look and he kind of went down and realized that the path gets worse the  more we go on so I just kind of sat and took in these views from the top of this little hill and  then we went back down and got in the car and I decided to take like a drive up and see if  we could actually see anything more um at Fairy Glen however it was just more of the walk and I  realized that it was quite a long distance so I'm glad that we didn't try to do all of that  however it's definitely somewhere that I want to go back to when I've got my prosthetic and  I am comfortable walking with it because I think that'll give me some good experience for tackling  that Munro I want to do. We were going to go to the village of Island Life however it was an hour  drive from Fairy Glen and unfortunately on the day we were there it was temporarily closed I'm  not sure if it was due to the time of year because a lot of places in Skye are only really open till  the mid to end of October because that's kind of the summer season and I'm guessing it's when the  kind of ferries change to the winter season that there's not a lot of things that are open because  it's not really tourist season. We then headed on to the fairy pools which again having a look  at the path didn't seem like it was a good idea for me to tackle it in my wheelchair so I wrote  a little wish for the fairies and handed it to my friend to leave it with the fairy pools and  see if they would grant my wish I am one of those bitches whatever judge me if you want. This is something that I might come on to in the next episode where I think about things that make  me feel included and less like a burden when being in a disabled body. With the fairy glen  the fairy pools are somewhere that I want to go back to when I have my prosthetic and maybe even  a row later so that I can have a seat and a break without actually still needing my wheelchair. We  then decided that it was time to head back to Portree for some lunch and again we encountered  some places that were listed as wheelchair accessible most of which had a step or steps. We ended up finding a cafe that had a step but I could just stand up and then sit in my  wheelchair and there was a bit of a wait so I sat and wait whilst my pal went and picked up  some magnets from one of the shop and the food was actually really good and I was eyeing up a piece  of lemon drizzle cake but my heat regulation was all over the place the whole time we were away I  was either sweating or I was freezing and I tried to go to the toilet when we were in this cafe and  it was small and there was people queuing and I was just feeling really really warm where I  then didn't really feel like having a bit of cake because I just felt a bit shit to be honest and I  didn't really want to be sick or anything like that and although there weren't a lot of places  in Skye where we stopped and the activities the whole journey was just really beautiful driving  I just kept saying wow every time there was something I found pretty and damn I said it  a lot there was a lot of single track roads and passing places on the whole trip and I  think it was the majority of these roads were either single carriageway single track roads or  like very rarely there was dual carriageways and previously I get very anxious driving on single  track roads and roads that have passing places because the limit is usually a 60 mile an hour  and it just terrifies me that people like bolt it down these roads and take corners at intense  speed when you don't know if something could be coming however because it was pretty quiet it  didn't seem like there was pressure for me to drive quickly and I could be safe and it just  it really helped me to become more confident in my driving and I think that is something that I  have really realized kind of getting into my car I did have a lot of doubts about myself and I had a  lot of doubts that people that I would spend time with and kind of go out in my car they would feel  anxious because of my previous accident and feel like I'm not as competent at driving but it turns  out that that's not really the case and that's actually really nice to be honest so I put on a  playlist that was both a mix of our music tastes and we played some country roads take me home and  caledonia which if you are not familiar with these songs go and look them up when I'm done  yapping which will be really soon I promise I am just getting to the closing of this episode but we  had a good time singing chatting and taking in the views on the way home before the sunset and as I  was driving I did really underestimate the amount of driving that I had to do on the final day like  I said I ended up driving for around about 10 and a half hours which is probably the longest  amount of time that I have driven for in one day apart from kind of going down to Leeds and back  but even then when I go down to Leeds and back in a day it's probably around about nine nine  and a half hours um so even though it was a lot I really enjoyed it and I was absolutely shattered  when I got home Simba was very happy that I was back home even though I promised him I was coming  back like anytime that I go away because I still feel bad for having my accident and abandoning  him for three months even though I couldn't do anything about it um but it was an early morning  the next day to then take my friend home because of the detour and the addition to the time getting  back to mine it was then even more to kind of go drop him off and he'd said like he would  get the train but then I was like that feels shit because it's adding like hours more onto  your day so like I'll get up there early and I'll take you and then I just had the next three full  days to rest and recover because I had driven over or around 700 miles with 25 to 26 hours of driving  and a lot of exploring over those three days and although I was tired and run down when I got home  it was so worth it and it's a learning experience of trying not to pack too much into a short amount  of time but then again I like to have options of things to do and sometimes those options go into  my brain of wanting to do everything and I am still on a journey of accepting that my body is  not capable of doing everything even if I want to. Like I said the next episode I am going to  dive into feelings of shame around being disabled, feeling burdensome and also a bit of background of  feeling like a burden and having to be extremely independent before I had my accident. If you have  enjoyed this episode of the podcast subscribe to YouTube if you haven't already, like the podcast  on audio platforms and turn on the notifications to get reminders whenever a new episode is live. If there is anything you want to share with me personally or for me to talk  about on the podcast drop me an email at cracklechroniclespod at gmail.com.  If you have been listening along and you would like to see some photos from  my trip please check out Instagram which is cracklechroniclespod and if you would like  to see some shorter clips from the podcast and some other video content, some vlogs,  some things like that follow me on TikTok at cracklechroniclespod. I will be back  in two weeks time with the next episode of the podcast. Look after yourselves especially with  the darker days and the colder weather and I will be back soon for you to listen to me yap. Bye!