Exploring Scotland's Highest Road with a Twist: A Journey to Remember

As I set out on my adventure, I had one goal in mind: to find a quiet road to enjoy the beauty of Scotland. With the UK's rugged landscape as my playground, I was determined to discover a route that would allow me to take in the breathtaking scenery without any distractions. After some research, I discovered that the North Leithen Road, which leads up to Glenshee, was the perfect spot for a peaceful drive.

I had heard that this road was less crowded than other routes in Scotland, especially during the winter months when it's all snowed under. However, my experience has been different. As I made my way up the mountain, I encountered more traffic than I had anticipated, which was a bit of a disappointment. The narrow and twisty roads are indeed epic, but they can also be chaotic at times.

Despite the traffic, I've still managed to find some hidden gems along the way. One of my favorite parts of exploring is taking the lesser-trodden path or inviting road off to the side. Today, I spotted a rather inviting road that seemed to be calling my name, and I decided to investigate further. It turned out to be an old mine road, which was...interesting.

As I continued on my journey, I came across a fascinating sight: a Ferrari Roma parked next to a new F-Type at the Five Arms cafe. The contrast between the two cars was striking, with one being a luxurious convertible and the other a sleek supercar. It's not often that you see such iconic vehicles side by side, especially in this part of Scotland.

The road has been perfect so far, winding its way up the mountain with stunning views at every turn. The scenery is breathtaking, with rolling hills and sparkling lochs as far as the eye can see. But I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when I encountered a sign for a closed road. It seemed like it might be due to some sort of maintenance work or landslide, which would have been a shame. Luckily, the alternative route offered a different kind of driving experience.

As I continued on my journey, I found myself on a flowy single-track road that was the perfect antidote to the twisty roads I'd been driving on earlier. The speed was much more relaxed here, and I could enjoy the scenery without feeling rushed. It was a nice change of pace, and I felt like I was discovering something new with each turn.

Eventually, my journey came full circle as I made my way back down to the valley below. It had been an epic adventure, one that I'll always treasure. From the stunning scenery to the iconic cars, this trip has been truly unforgettable. As I settled into my hotel room later that evening, I couldn't help but feel grateful for the experience and the opportunity to explore one of Scotland's most beautiful landscapes.

The highlight of my journey came when I encountered Jeremy Clarkson driving an F-Type on Top Gear all those years ago. Seeing the car that started my love affair with Ferraris was a thrilling moment, and it's funny how something as simple as a breakfast stop at the Five Arms cafe could lead me to discover that fascinating piece of history.

Now that the day has come to a close, I'm left with memories of a perfect drive in one of the most beautiful landscapes in Scotland. It may not have been without its challenges, but it was an experience that will stay with me for a long time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhmm hello and all welcome to seeing through glass you find me in scotland as part of my adventure with the f-type r i'm here for a fairly specific reason well actually maybe two reasons first of which is to drive on the uk's highest road all the coveted lockdowns and lack of international travel over the last year or so i missed road trips and i missed driving on mountain passes so i thought i'd have a go at the uk's version of a mountain pass which is a road here in scotland the other reason i'm here well i'll share that with you when i get to the road why am i waking up at 4am to go and drive on this road well firstly don't all good drives start early secondly i will as a couple of days ago in the peak district the roads are pretty busy at the moment so i thought i'd get out before the majority of the tourist traffic does and thirdly there's a storm coming at lunch time so my best chance at some dry weather is to leave right now so so this might be a premature move but you only live once right i did say i i always wanted to drive this car with the rooftown uh i feel somewhat sort of invigorated after that petrol stop i'm not really sure why but it's given me a second wind and tell you what if you ever look for sort of motivation to get up early for a drive hopefully part of this video will be just that because honestly it is so good driving when the roads are so empty especially in the summer when it's when it's light because doing this in the winter is not quite the same but yeah the minute the sun starts to rise at 4 5 a.m just get up and do it because it just makes driving a car so much more enjoyable i mean it's 5 5 30 now i'm starting to see a few other cars pop up here and there but in the most part i hardly see anyone this means i can get out and kind of do what i want where i want and maximize the experience i'm having with the f-type anyway i'm still about 40 minutes away from the uk's highest road can well pass in the cairngorms national park i think i've got that all right i am still a little bit groggy whilst the petrol station was open the actual shop wasn't so i was hoping to get myself a coffee or a red bull or something i wasn't able to do that so yeah i need to need to do some fast driving to really get the uh the old blood pumping but wow this is pretty not really sure where i it's lovely this road is starting to get very good i'll be honest the roof did go up briefly as we kind of passed through the first layer of cloud but it's holding off now whilst the road itself is very very wet i'm not that wet so yeah the roof is back down once again not only is the scenery mega but oh the road itself is turning out to be a complete gem that's why i didn't really know i knew that the views would be good but i didn't know whether the actual road itself would be fun to drive because often the two don't mix very scenic roads aren't always great driving modes if that makes sense and yeah if you got stuck behind a caravan up here you'd be screwed hence why there's another benefit to coming so early perfect kind of road for this car honestly especially with this new steering it's just so direct just gotta be careful of a few of these blind crests on a day like today and lambs by the way you've got to be careful of lambs if you come in springtime just keep in the back of your mind that there could be the odd land that's got confused between where its field ends and the road starts because i have had to do some minor avoiding action one thing i'll just feed back on is that because the uh the soundtrack is somewhat muted and compared to what the f type used to be i find myself shifting down early quite a lot because i'm used to audibly getting so much noise when it goes quiet i think i must be low down in the revs so i shift down and then i find out that actually i wasn't that low down with the revs just there wasn't a lot of noise wasn't a lot of uh sound accompanying my driving so worth the early start welcome then to the top of the highest road in the uk i have made it and it has been so worth it uh that over there you might have to see in the background is the glenshee ski center which sits atop of the canwell pass yes we do ski in the uk foreign viewers might be like what but it does genuinely happen um you're going to see there's some chair lifts behind me i think they have 36 runs here at the glen cheese ski center it's not the most impressive skiing you've ever seen but it is still skiing and yeah today's drive has just been exactly what i wanted it to be because in the uk it is quite hard to kind of find incredible quiet roads okay fine i have woken up early to sort of make the most of the quiet roads but i have heard that you know throughout the year you don't have a lot of traffic coming up here especially in the winter because it's all just covered in snow but when you go down to the south of france or italy or germany parts of spain portugal etc it's very easy to find a great road with no one else on it but i just feel like i haven't been able to do that for so long as epic as the trip was in the 360 to yorkshire we're always bumping into traffic there's always people around the roads are narrow and tight as you would have seen from some footage just a second ago the road up until this point has been incredible and i haven't even been down the other side yet god knows what is that way in this car it's just perfect for this kind of drive with the roof down taking in the scenery and the elements but also enjoying just how good that thing is absolutely epic now i do see a sign for a cafe over there and it is about 6 30 and i still haven't had any breakfast so i'm going to go and see if that's open i highly doubt it keep our fingers crossed and then yeah just keep driving up and down this road because why not i would say this looks fairly closed oh no it's thursday oh no why why um if i've turned off the main road because i saw a rather inviting road off to the side and thought why not one of my favorite parts of exploring is taking the sort of the letter trodden path or inviting roads off to the side and this might go nowhere but oh we're only going to find out by going down here and the main road's just over there i can still see it so i'm not going to get that lost um funnily enough this side of glenshee the road becomes a lot more sort of flowy it's wide long sweeping bends where on the way up uh it was a lot more tight and twisty and undulating but yeah lots of speed this side of the uh of the peak let's say not a lot of speed here though because it is single track and i'm just pottering along not really knowing what to find or what to expect what is that is this an old oh that's an old mine oh no way oh no or landslide i don't know let's get out of here that looks weird hello what do we have here the five arms if a man in a for oh and there's a bloody portofino and okay right i know i'm having breakfast oh i have to say it is super interesting seeing these two next to each other i often say that the new f-type looks a bit like the ferrari roma but of course the convertible type more of a direct comparison against the portofino because that's a convertible too but just hard top instead super nice spec this one on the left i mean specked up there's probably a hundred grand price difference between these two cars the portfolio obviously being more expensive i think i'm pretty happy with where i'm at i mean it is a ferrari and that one does look nice he's also been very brave with his park in this guy look at that really uh taking a bit of taking a bit of curb there but it does look lovely if anything's going to tempt me out of an f-type today it would be a ferrari well i promise you that was totally unplanned but absolutely mega the most delicious breakfast you know it's all been talking about all morning is having a coffee and something to eat and then i come across the five arms anyway i did tease earlier and actually even earlier in the week that there was a sort of pretty specific reason why i wanted to come up here and drive this road not just because it is the highest road in the uk some of you would have uh figured this out but this is actually the exact road that jeremy clarkson drove the f-type one for the very first time on top gear it was a v6s a convertible like this one and it really was the start of my love affair with this car because i remember seeing that piece thinking that thing just looks amazing and what i would do to be able to jump in one of those and blast around whatever roads he's driving on and so to come here today to have relatively good weather to be in this car which okay fine it's not my car but it's it's my car for now it's honestly so good and the road has lived up to all of my you know my hopes my dreams my aspirations and so is the car so driving this car on this road it's just been perfection and the best thing is to get back to my hotel i can't do it all over again up and over amazing so foreignhmm hello and all welcome to seeing through glass you find me in scotland as part of my adventure with the f-type r i'm here for a fairly specific reason well actually maybe two reasons first of which is to drive on the uk's highest road all the coveted lockdowns and lack of international travel over the last year or so i missed road trips and i missed driving on mountain passes so i thought i'd have a go at the uk's version of a mountain pass which is a road here in scotland the other reason i'm here well i'll share that with you when i get to the road why am i waking up at 4am to go and drive on this road well firstly don't all good drives start early secondly i will as a couple of days ago in the peak district the roads are pretty busy at the moment so i thought i'd get out before the majority of the tourist traffic does and thirdly there's a storm coming at lunch time so my best chance at some dry weather is to leave right now so so this might be a premature move but you only live once right i did say i i always wanted to drive this car with the rooftown uh i feel somewhat sort of invigorated after that petrol stop i'm not really sure why but it's given me a second wind and tell you what if you ever look for sort of motivation to get up early for a drive hopefully part of this video will be just that because honestly it is so good driving when the roads are so empty especially in the summer when it's when it's light because doing this in the winter is not quite the same but yeah the minute the sun starts to rise at 4 5 a.m just get up and do it because it just makes driving a car so much more enjoyable i mean it's 5 5 30 now i'm starting to see a few other cars pop up here and there but in the most part i hardly see anyone this means i can get out and kind of do what i want where i want and maximize the experience i'm having with the f-type anyway i'm still about 40 minutes away from the uk's highest road can well pass in the cairngorms national park i think i've got that all right i am still a little bit groggy whilst the petrol station was open the actual shop wasn't so i was hoping to get myself a coffee or a red bull or something i wasn't able to do that so yeah i need to need to do some fast driving to really get the uh the old blood pumping but wow this is pretty not really sure where i it's lovely this road is starting to get very good i'll be honest the roof did go up briefly as we kind of passed through the first layer of cloud but it's holding off now whilst the road itself is very very wet i'm not that wet so yeah the roof is back down once again not only is the scenery mega but oh the road itself is turning out to be a complete gem that's why i didn't really know i knew that the views would be good but i didn't know whether the actual road itself would be fun to drive because often the two don't mix very scenic roads aren't always great driving modes if that makes sense and yeah if you got stuck behind a caravan up here you'd be screwed hence why there's another benefit to coming so early perfect kind of road for this car honestly especially with this new steering it's just so direct just gotta be careful of a few of these blind crests on a day like today and lambs by the way you've got to be careful of lambs if you come in springtime just keep in the back of your mind that there could be the odd land that's got confused between where its field ends and the road starts because i have had to do some minor avoiding action one thing i'll just feed back on is that because the uh the soundtrack is somewhat muted and compared to what the f type used to be i find myself shifting down early quite a lot because i'm used to audibly getting so much noise when it goes quiet i think i must be low down in the revs so i shift down and then i find out that actually i wasn't that low down with the revs just there wasn't a lot of noise wasn't a lot of uh sound accompanying my driving so worth the early start welcome then to the top of the highest road in the uk i have made it and it has been so worth it uh that over there you might have to see in the background is the glenshee ski center which sits atop of the canwell pass yes we do ski in the uk foreign viewers might be like what but it does genuinely happen um you're going to see there's some chair lifts behind me i think they have 36 runs here at the glen cheese ski center it's not the most impressive skiing you've ever seen but it is still skiing and yeah today's drive has just been exactly what i wanted it to be because in the uk it is quite hard to kind of find incredible quiet roads okay fine i have woken up early to sort of make the most of the quiet roads but i have heard that you know throughout the year you don't have a lot of traffic coming up here especially in the winter because it's all just covered in snow but when you go down to the south of france or italy or germany parts of spain portugal etc it's very easy to find a great road with no one else on it but i just feel like i haven't been able to do that for so long as epic as the trip was in the 360 to yorkshire we're always bumping into traffic there's always people around the roads are narrow and tight as you would have seen from some footage just a second ago the road up until this point has been incredible and i haven't even been down the other side yet god knows what is that way in this car it's just perfect for this kind of drive with the roof down taking in the scenery and the elements but also enjoying just how good that thing is absolutely epic now i do see a sign for a cafe over there and it is about 6 30 and i still haven't had any breakfast so i'm going to go and see if that's open i highly doubt it keep our fingers crossed and then yeah just keep driving up and down this road because why not i would say this looks fairly closed oh no it's thursday oh no why why um if i've turned off the main road because i saw a rather inviting road off to the side and thought why not one of my favorite parts of exploring is taking the sort of the letter trodden path or inviting roads off to the side and this might go nowhere but oh we're only going to find out by going down here and the main road's just over there i can still see it so i'm not going to get that lost um funnily enough this side of glenshee the road becomes a lot more sort of flowy it's wide long sweeping bends where on the way up uh it was a lot more tight and twisty and undulating but yeah lots of speed this side of the uh of the peak let's say not a lot of speed here though because it is single track and i'm just pottering along not really knowing what to find or what to expect what is that is this an old oh that's an old mine oh no way oh no or landslide i don't know let's get out of here that looks weird hello what do we have here the five arms if a man in a for oh and there's a bloody portofino and okay right i know i'm having breakfast oh i have to say it is super interesting seeing these two next to each other i often say that the new f-type looks a bit like the ferrari roma but of course the convertible type more of a direct comparison against the portofino because that's a convertible too but just hard top instead super nice spec this one on the left i mean specked up there's probably a hundred grand price difference between these two cars the portfolio obviously being more expensive i think i'm pretty happy with where i'm at i mean it is a ferrari and that one does look nice he's also been very brave with his park in this guy look at that really uh taking a bit of taking a bit of curb there but it does look lovely if anything's going to tempt me out of an f-type today it would be a ferrari well i promise you that was totally unplanned but absolutely mega the most delicious breakfast you know it's all been talking about all morning is having a coffee and something to eat and then i come across the five arms anyway i did tease earlier and actually even earlier in the week that there was a sort of pretty specific reason why i wanted to come up here and drive this road not just because it is the highest road in the uk some of you would have uh figured this out but this is actually the exact road that jeremy clarkson drove the f-type one for the very first time on top gear it was a v6s a convertible like this one and it really was the start of my love affair with this car because i remember seeing that piece thinking that thing just looks amazing and what i would do to be able to jump in one of those and blast around whatever roads he's driving on and so to come here today to have relatively good weather to be in this car which okay fine it's not my car but it's it's my car for now it's honestly so good and the road has lived up to all of my you know my hopes my dreams my aspirations and so is the car so driving this car on this road it's just been perfection and the best thing is to get back to my hotel i can't do it all over again up and over amazing so foreignhmm hello and all welcome to seeing through glass you find me in scotland as part of my adventure with the f-type r i'm here for a fairly specific reason well actually maybe two reasons first of which is to drive on the uk's highest road all the coveted lockdowns and lack of international travel over the last year or so i missed road trips and i missed driving on mountain passes so i thought i'd have a go at the uk's version of a mountain pass which is a road here in scotland the other reason i'm here well i'll share that with you when i get to the road why am i waking up at 4am to go and drive on this road well firstly don't all good drives start early secondly i will as a couple of days ago in the peak district the roads are pretty busy at the moment so i thought i'd get out before the majority of the tourist traffic does and thirdly there's a storm coming at lunch time so my best chance at some dry weather is to leave right now so so this might be a premature move but you only live once right i did say i i always wanted to drive this car with the rooftown uh i feel somewhat sort of invigorated after that petrol stop i'm not really sure why but it's given me a second wind and tell you what if you ever look for sort of motivation to get up early for a drive hopefully part of this video will be just that because honestly it is so good driving when the roads are so empty especially in the summer when it's when it's light because doing this in the winter is not quite the same but yeah the minute the sun starts to rise at 4 5 a.m just get up and do it because it just makes driving a car so much more enjoyable i mean it's 5 5 30 now i'm starting to see a few other cars pop up here and there but in the most part i hardly see anyone this means i can get out and kind of do what i want where i want and maximize the experience i'm having with the f-type anyway i'm still about 40 minutes away from the uk's highest road can well pass in the cairngorms national park i think i've got that all right i am still a little bit groggy whilst the petrol station was open the actual shop wasn't so i was hoping to get myself a coffee or a red bull or something i wasn't able to do that so yeah i need to need to do some fast driving to really get the uh the old blood pumping but wow this is pretty not really sure where i it's lovely this road is starting to get very good i'll be honest the roof did go up briefly as we kind of passed through the first layer of cloud but it's holding off now whilst the road itself is very very wet i'm not that wet so yeah the roof is back down once again not only is the scenery mega but oh the road itself is turning out to be a complete gem that's why i didn't really know i knew that the views would be good but i didn't know whether the actual road itself would be fun to drive because often the two don't mix very scenic roads aren't always great driving modes if that makes sense and yeah if you got stuck behind a caravan up here you'd be screwed hence why there's another benefit to coming so early perfect kind of road for this car honestly especially with this new steering it's just so direct just gotta be careful of a few of these blind crests on a day like today and lambs by the way you've got to be careful of lambs if you come in springtime just keep in the back of your mind that there could be the odd land that's got confused between where its field ends and the road starts because i have had to do some minor avoiding action one thing i'll just feed back on is that because the uh the soundtrack is somewhat muted and compared to what the f type used to be i find myself shifting down early quite a lot because i'm used to audibly getting so much noise when it goes quiet i think i must be low down in the revs so i shift down and then i find out that actually i wasn't that low down with the revs just there wasn't a lot of noise wasn't a lot of uh sound accompanying my driving so worth the early start welcome then to the top of the highest road in the uk i have made it and it has been so worth it uh that over there you might have to see in the background is the glenshee ski center which sits atop of the canwell pass yes we do ski in the uk foreign viewers might be like what but it does genuinely happen um you're going to see there's some chair lifts behind me i think they have 36 runs here at the glen cheese ski center it's not the most impressive skiing you've ever seen but it is still skiing and yeah today's drive has just been exactly what i wanted it to be because in the uk it is quite hard to kind of find incredible quiet roads okay fine i have woken up early to sort of make the most of the quiet roads but i have heard that you know throughout the year you don't have a lot of traffic coming up here especially in the winter because it's all just covered in snow but when you go down to the south of france or italy or germany parts of spain portugal etc it's very easy to find a great road with no one else on it but i just feel like i haven't been able to do that for so long as epic as the trip was in the 360 to yorkshire we're always bumping into traffic there's always people around the roads are narrow and tight as you would have seen from some footage just a second ago the road up until this point has been incredible and i haven't even been down the other side yet god knows what is that way in this car it's just perfect for this kind of drive with the roof down taking in the scenery and the elements but also enjoying just how good that thing is absolutely epic now i do see a sign for a cafe over there and it is about 6 30 and i still haven't had any breakfast so i'm going to go and see if that's open i highly doubt it keep our fingers crossed and then yeah just keep driving up and down this road because why not i would say this looks fairly closed oh no it's thursday oh no why why um if i've turned off the main road because i saw a rather inviting road off to the side and thought why not one of my favorite parts of exploring is taking the sort of the letter trodden path or inviting roads off to the side and this might go nowhere but oh we're only going to find out by going down here and the main road's just over there i can still see it so i'm not going to get that lost um funnily enough this side of glenshee the road becomes a lot more sort of flowy it's wide long sweeping bends where on the way up uh it was a lot more tight and twisty and undulating but yeah lots of speed this side of the uh of the peak let's say not a lot of speed here though because it is single track and i'm just pottering along not really knowing what to find or what to expect what is that is this an old oh that's an old mine oh no way oh no or landslide i don't know let's get out of here that looks weird hello what do we have here the five arms if a man in a for oh and there's a bloody portofino and okay right i know i'm having breakfast oh i have to say it is super interesting seeing these two next to each other i often say that the new f-type looks a bit like the ferrari roma but of course the convertible type more of a direct comparison against the portofino because that's a convertible too but just hard top instead super nice spec this one on the left i mean specked up there's probably a hundred grand price difference between these two cars the portfolio obviously being more expensive i think i'm pretty happy with where i'm at i mean it is a ferrari and that one does look nice he's also been very brave with his park in this guy look at that really uh taking a bit of taking a bit of curb there but it does look lovely if anything's going to tempt me out of an f-type today it would be a ferrari well i promise you that was totally unplanned but absolutely mega the most delicious breakfast you know it's all been talking about all morning is having a coffee and something to eat and then i come across the five arms anyway i did tease earlier and actually even earlier in the week that there was a sort of pretty specific reason why i wanted to come up here and drive this road not just because it is the highest road in the uk some of you would have uh figured this out but this is actually the exact road that jeremy clarkson drove the f-type one for the very first time on top gear it was a v6s a convertible like this one and it really was the start of my love affair with this car because i remember seeing that piece thinking that thing just looks amazing and what i would do to be able to jump in one of those and blast around whatever roads he's driving on and so to come here today to have relatively good weather to be in this car which okay fine it's not my car but it's it's my car for now it's honestly so good and the road has lived up to all of my you know my hopes my dreams my aspirations and so is the car so driving this car on this road it's just been perfection and the best thing is to get back to my hotel i can't do it all over again up and over amazing so foreign\n"