First off – finding this BBC website quite useful for working out if a journey is possible or not. Only of use in populated areas though.

I live in down south and folks live up north – quite a long way up north. The plan was to visit for Christmas but the weather has made that a bit more tricky than normal. To compound the issue my old man got some bad (read proper bad) health news yesterday that has turned missing a family Christmas from a shame to a bit more than that. Last family Christmas and all that.

My sister and I have chosen different methods of transport to increase the chance of at least one of us making it – she will try to fly (Gatwick to Inverness) & I’ll drive. Plan to set off very early Thursday.

Not too interested in opinions/ advice about sanity of trip or aspersions on driving skill; just eye witness reports of current driving conditions along that route. Manchester area, over Shap, Glasgow/Edinburgh belt, A9 etc.

Much appreciated.

I drove from Essex to Lochaber yesterday, so from your route that would include M6 from Manchester, through Shap and Carlisle, then A74/M74 up to M8 through Glasgow. Don’t know if you’ll be on the M1 prior to the M6, that was slow but not standstill due to a combination of the roadworks and a couple of break downs. However, the roads themselves were fine (temps down to -13, but plenty of gritters out, especially on M6), and once North of Birmingham it was 70 all the way without any problems. Don’t know about the A9, but the A82 was fine, and absolutely stunning in the snow and moonlight.

Convert it looks like you are heading for the same town my ex-colleage’s folks live in but I cannot remember its name 🙂

Close to Nairn, but inland a bit on the edge of the moor on the way to Carrbridge.

Thanks for the info Mr Ape – all useful.

Sounds like a Top Gear challenge. You just need a James May in a Triumph Herald yacht to cover the coastal option.

😀

It began with T I think.. I keep thinking Teign but that’s a river in Devon…

Driving brighton to yorkshire on Friday so interested too.
J.

Tain?

Sorry to hear about your old boy. Grampian and Highlands have had a fair bit of snow and very cold temperatures, but it should be do-able on those roads. Your problems may come near your folks place depending how rural they are. I’m going in the other direction on the same day. Good luck

Tain, that’s the chap.. wait no – that’s a farm near Thurso, that’s not right.

A9 between Perth and Pitlochry is fine and should stay so over the next few days.

This site shows what the matrix signs in Scotland are saying

http://trafficscotland.org/vms/index.aspx

Have you considered the sleeper? That would be my preferred mode of transport at the moment for that journey.

Good luck.

Just driven from Beadnell (Northumbria) to West Yorkshire this morning, first 10 miles to the A1 were ‘interesting’ but rather than turn back we soldiered on to the A1 at Alnwick, amazed to see a main road (motorway?) in such a poor state, may have been bad timing on our part as it was snowing. The conditions didn’t improve till about Newcastle and were then fine for the remainder of the journey.
One thing that we suffered with was frozen washer jets/bottle. We had to stop a few times to clear the screen and we weren’t the only ones struggling with this problem

Our trucks are moving up and down the A9 to Inverness ok today. No issues on the A90 to Aberdeen either. Just mightily cold.