Malcolm and Brenda had taken a holiday in Scotland previously before they were married. On this occasion they travelled in the dark blue Morris Marina which was allocated to Malcolm by his employer. The first night they reached Moffat where they booked into a Guest House. They set off the next morning to get further up country.

The Morris Marina was notorious for being too powerful for the weight of the car and was thus sometimes hard to handle. Having started away from a cross roads, Malcolm suddenly found himself wrestling with the steering on a tight left-hand bend. He was not going to make it and there were stone walls each side of the road. Luckily, there was an open field gate which ha managed to steer through and avoid an accident. He was a bit more careful after that.

They were camping but had no set plan but eventually found a suitable campsite north of Fort William where they set up base for their holiday. Being so far north, the evenings were long which was ideal for camping. From there, they made day trips to various locations. On their way home one day they noticed a foreign couple at the roadside with their car apparently having broken down. The recognised the couple as also from their campsite, so they stopped to assist. They decided to come back to the campsite then arrange for a local mechanic to look at the car the following day. The next day, they went back to the stricken car where the mechanic found that one of the battery leads was insecure, thus soon fixed it. The two couples spent that day together but, as they prepared to set of back to the campsite, Malcolm found that his car would not start so he had to call the AA. It was a long wait and the horse flies were biting hard. The AA patrolman called them "the wee bites". The problem turned out to be a displaced small ferrule holding the float needle in place in the carburetter.

The foreign couple were Hans and Ynskje from the Netherlands. They were newlyweds. When the holiday was finished, Malcolm and Brenda exchanged details and said that they should come and visit if they had the oportunity. Within days of getting home, they received a call from the Dutch couple who had come down to Dorset and were camping nearby. They met up again and remained friends for the rest of their lives.

On the way home, Malcolm diverted through Troutbeck in the Lake District to show Brenda where he had stayed with Hamish and Peter. They stopped at the Queens Head pub and by an amazing co-incidence, Peter was there having a drink.