It’s been almost a month since our first Tesla trip to Skye, and while I had good intentions of blogging about the experience while I was there, I really didn’t have the time or inclination. So this is going to be a kind of flashback, with some of the highs and lows of our first long Tesla trip to Skye.
The Tesla trip to Skye began in the morning on Friday 16 July and finished when we arrived back home on Friday 23 July having covered 776 miles at a cost of £46.28! I’ll admit to one free Tesla Supercharger stop in there, and we left with almost 90% which didn’t cost us anything from the local charge point in Linlithgow, but even still, that’s just less than 6 pence per mile! I don’t think there’s an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) car that could achieve anywhere close to that?
It was put through its paces on some pretty ropey roads around Skye, and also a very steep and gravely drive up and down to the small cottage we were staying at for the week, and it didn’t miss a beat. It was a joy to drive, other than the worry of damaging it which meant we drove a little like Miss Daisy at times.
The only downside was our 3-year-old Labrador, Nessa, who for some reason didn’t like being in the car. We’d not noticed this on any of the short journeys we did around home, but on the longer trips she seemed almost scared, and at times was almost hyperventilating. My partner and daughter took turns sitting on the back seat with her trying to calm her down, with mixed results. We ended up stopping more frequently than we might have done otherwise and limited some of our travels around Skye.
Any worry we had about charging was completely unfounded, and we never really went out of our way to charge. There was a rapid charger in Broadford where we stopped for food a few times, and also one even closer to where we were staying on Slait with a nice cafe and shop. We tended just to top up when we were there, adding a few hundred miles here and there and never worrying about being low on charge. We stopped at the Supercharger in Fort William on the way up, and another 3 times on Skye, before one final stop just before we started the journey home.
There were a few more ‘querks’ (I wrote a blog about some others here) that it would be great if Tesla could fix with software updates, the most annoying being the automatic windscreen wipers that during fine drizzly rain just don’t come on frequently enough. Perhaps the misty Skye weather is a little unique, but I spent far too much time fiddling with the wiper settings than I would have liked. There were also a few too many warnings telling me I was about to crash when everything was completely under control, so I might have to switch some of the ‘safety’ systems off. I think everything is on at the minute, but certainly, they were just a little too cautious for the roads around Skye. Even since then, I’ve seen too many ‘red cars’ and been told corrective steering has been applied when there was no need.
But overall, without the dog issues, it was a great trip, and far more enjoyable and comfortable than it would have been in my old Mondeo or my partners Fiesta. We need to get rid of that and just use the Tesla!
We also did a camping trip down to Durham the weekend after we’d got home, which I’ll admit to being a little worried about. I didn’t know how we’d get everything in the Tesla, and I’d been struggling to get some genuine Tesla roof bars for the car. I managed to get a brand new set on eBay while we were away in Skye and these arrived on the Tuesday before our trip. I’d also managed to borrow a Thule Motion 800 roof box from a family member, so the trip was a complete success.
The roof box has a little impact on the efficiency of the car, but not too much. It was another trip without any range anxieties as we’d left with around 80% and made it down to Washington where we Supercharged for about 40 minutes. That lasted for the weekend, and we needed a 20 minute stop at the Belford Supercharger making it home with around 15%. Another reasonably long trip with zero fuel costs due to the Tesla referral miles we got when ordering the car.
Which reminds me, I’m going to do a blog about a couple of referral programs I’ve made use of for which I now have referral links. I don’t expect anyone will find them, but if they do you can save some money for both of us so what’s to lose.
I’ll finish with some holiday snaps from Skye and Durham, all taken on my iPhone 12. I did take my Canon DSLR to Skye and it was in the car for most of the holiday, but I just couldn’t face the extra weight of carrying it around. The iPhone does take some great pictures anyway.
The first picture is of the little cottage we stayed at on Skye. There wasn’t much headroom upstairs, but it was a nice place to spend the week and had a great view. The second picture shows the view and the drive up to the cottage, although doesn’t really show how steep and rough it was. There was a similar length stretch after the bend at the bottom too! The third picture is of the black sand beach at Talisker Bay. We did a fair bit of walking to deserted beaches during the week!
Next, we have a panoramic viewpoint taken from Kinloch Forrest looking down Loch Hourn, followed by the ChargePlace Scotland charge point at An Crùbh (worth a stop if you don’t have an EV!), a shot of the Fairy Pools with the Black Cuillin range behind, and the Torabhaig Distillery, which was just over a mile away from our cottage and one of the newest in Scotland.
The picture of my daughter and the dolphin was taken on our trip with SeaSkye Boat Tours who I would strongly recommend. There is a picture of The Old Man of Storr and then one of our dog, Nessa looking back down the walk which you can see was through the clouds! We never imagined we’d see anything when we left the car park, so the steep walk up was worth the effort. Finally, there’s a picture of the bridge over to Skye taken from a nice vantage point at Kyle’s Community Parkland, which also happened to have another EV charge point!
It’s hard not to stop at Eilean Donan Castle which is probably one of the most photographers castles in Scotland. It’s not owned by Historic Environment Scotland, though so we took some pictures, grabbed some breakfast and headed home.
The last few pictures are from the campsite near Durham, with the Tesla and roof box, and then some shots of Durham Cathedral from various points from our walk around Durham.
So that’s our Tesla trip to Skye, along with an extra camping trip to Durham! Skye and the journey up the West Coast is incredibly beautiful, and we are spoiled to live so close. Durham is a pretty nice place too, and certainly worth a day out if you’re ever in the North East of England, which we are quite often given my Mum lives close by.
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