Surrey -> Aberdeen -> Sheffield....any roads you suggest?

[nichop]

I'm finally getting some time up in Scotland although still not as long as I'd like. I'm heading up to Aberdeen (business meeting excuse ) in a couple of weeks and taking a few days off while I'm there, followed by a nice drive back to Sheffield for the weekend. Any suggestions of routes/roads that I should try and take in?

cheers

Nick

[C7Steve]

I would stay on the main Dual Carriageway and head straight back home, as the roads are rubbish up here. You would hate it.


Only joking, you’re going to have a great time.


Head west from Aberdeen towards Tarland or Alford, then from here I would head in a north west direction to Dufftown via the Cabrach. From here I would head to Grantown Upon Spey, Tomintoul and then over the Lecht to Ballater and then out to Braemar. From here head south towards Pitlochry, Aberfeldy, Crieff and then to Stirling.

To be fair, most of the roads are very good for driving at the above places out-with peak commuting hours.

Have fun and let us know how you get on.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.


Steve.

[pshanks76]

When you're heading up to Aberdeen, or back down South, avoid the very boring A90 dual carriageway from Perth to Aberdeen. Instead head onto the A93 at Perth which goes over the Spittal of Glenshee and through deeside.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk

[hendeg]

The A93 is the only way to travel between Perth and Aberdeen in a Lotus. You've got three options at the end;
- follow the A93 into Aberdeen. It'll have the most traffic but probably nothing like you're used to.
- take the B9119 after Ballater.
- take the B976 South Deeside Road either at Balmoral Castle (you might have heard about this recently) or Ballater.

There are loads of great accessible roads from Aberdeen but it really depends how much time you have. If you have an idea of timings we can give you better suggestions.

[campbell]

Are you doing Abdn to Sheffield in a day? If you have a flexible schedule I’ll point out some roads to try to fit in en route …

[nichop]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Yes, Aberdeen to Sheffield in 1 day sadly.

[campbell]

Ah well. Another time!

[D_Mike]

Depending on time/energy, once you are back at Edinburgh instead of doing A1/M1 you could take the A701 from there over to Moffat (pretty fun once past the quite straight early stages) and then go south along the M74M6, cut back over to M1 on the a66 (via barnard castle) or a65 into Yorkshire dales?? (I don’t know those roads)

A bit zig zaggy but avoids the northern A1 slog (M74 is always free moving and pretty fast in my (small) experience), avoids Newcastle traffic… and you’d be off the M6 before it gets too busy at Preston/blackpool.

[robin]

Late to this thread, Edinburgh->Sheffield alternate route is to take the A68 as far as the roundabout at the bottom of Soutra (the really obvious hill with wind farm on it and overtaking lanes up each side), turn left and follow the Coldstream road (A697 I think) all the way to the A1 - you join the A1 just where it becomes dual carriageway into Newcastle - and you can take the A19 tunnel to avoid Newcastle if it's a busy time of day when you get there.

The Coldstream road is great in an Elise, overtaking is possible, not many speed cameras. Just did it on the way back from the ring last week and it was fun as ever.

[nichop]

Wow I am so jealous of you Scots!! I drove from Moffat to Aberdeen this morning. Right from the off the A701 was epic as the sun came up. Later I went over the A93 Old Military Road which was almost empty and again, amazing. England has nothing on these roads up here and the Exige makes so much sense on these roads.

[campbell]

Welcome to God’s Country

Come back up next year and we will take you camping to Assynt. That will blow your mind

[hendeg]

Did you manage to take in any other trips while you were here?