Am on a road trip around the Highlands and my car starter motor has failed so need to park on a hill for bump starting. A new part is due to be fitted tues in Inverness so looking for somewhere to spend a couple of days riding within a couple of hours of there, but with a temporary overnight car camping on a hill. And need to be near a supermarket for provisions etc. Ballater was ideal but ideally need to be nearer Inverness. Any suggestions gratefully received…

Park at the ski centre, one of the biggest hills in the area!

Need to be within walking/short riding distance to the shops as can’t leave the car running while inside the shop…

Lower ski car park is ideal, you wont be the only one there, always a few vans but enough if you cant bump start your car on that hill then you need a new car. Aviemore PH22 1RB

For the shop option you could probably park on the hill up to the Macdonald hotels while you nipped to Tesco, or go a bit further through town and hang a left up towards High Burnside and park on a residential hilly street and walk back into the retail park area, less than 10 mins walk.

+1 on Coire Cas, you then have about 12km of downhill to get it restarted or just stuff it into Loch Morlich if you fail! 😉

It’s so nice to see a thread where almost no one has read the OP, but still feels they have help to offer!

In the spirit of this, I hereby offer no help.

You are going to have to seperate the supermarket and “car camping” as there is nowhere you can do both. Iains suggestion of parking at Burnside might work for the shopping trip, assuming you can get your shopping in a couple of bags. (The road up to Macdonalds is No Parking).

Ciste car park might work for your camping, though you’d have to be very careful about which direction you parked.

Personally, I’d head straight to Inverness and ride from there, booking into a camp site or B&B if needed. I’m not even sure that driving around with a non-working starter is completely legal 😊

Need to be within walking/short riding distance to the shops as can’t leave the car running while inside the shop…

are you looking for suggestions of petrol stations on a slope too? Or do you plan to fuel up with the engine running? 🙂

are you looking for suggestions of petrol stations on a slope too? Or do you plan to fuel up with the engine running?

Don’t laugh, I’ve done both. (once because I was running on fumes and bump started to save juice and the other because I forgot the hire car was keyless and had a really quiet engine)

The easiest option is to buy a blow up doll and put in in the drivers seat with the engine running when you go to the supermarket. This will stop any opportunist car thieves, allow you to park on a proper slope overnight and keep you company if you get lonely in your tent.

Thanks for the suggestions folks. I seem to have got around the problem so far, leaving the car running but locking it with the second key while quickly popping into the coop.
Car camping at laggan tonight for a trundle around wolftrax tomorrow.
Perhaps my blow-up sheep might freak out the locals if I put that in the driving seat ;0)

FWIW leaving a car running unattended is an offence. You should have said though, I could have popped round to the Coop and supervised your car for you 🙂

Car sorted.
And Laggan Wolftrax, what a quality place – very enjoyable…

Woody owes me a keyboard.