Pitlochry Off-Slip Closed Until Christmas; Tourists Report Reaching Inverness, Wick and ‘Possibly Norway’ Trying to Find It
Coach party bound for Pitlochry Festival Theatre finally arrives, six months late, in Thurso.
Lost tourists consult a map at John o' Groats, still looking for Pitlochry.
PITLOCHRY — The northbound off-slip at Pitlochry’s south junction, closed since June for embankment repairs and not due to reopen until the end of December, has led to what tourism bosses are calling “a modest but growing diaspora” of visitors who never quite managed to arrive.
“People just keep going,” said Pitlochry visitor welcome officer Catriona Fleming, 44. “They see the sign, they go for the slip, it’s shut, and they think, ‘Ach, I’ll come off at the next one.’ And then they’re at Blair Atholl. Then they’re at Dalwhinnie. Then they’re having a strangely good time in Aviemore and they forget why they came.”
One coach party from Lancashire, booked for an evening performance at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in July, eventually turned up this week in Thurso. “We’ve seen a lot of Scotland,” said tour organiser Brenda Hollis, 71. “We’ve seen Brora. We’ve seen Helmsdale twice. We still haven’t seen a play. We’re thinking of just doing one ourselves in the car park.”
Local businesses have responded with characteristic ingenuity. A shop on Atholl Road has begun posting fudge to visitors “wherever they ended up”, while a Pitlochry hotel now offers a “Virtual Stay” package in which guests in Inverness are emailed a photograph of their room.
Roads officials insist there are perfectly good alternative routes into the town, a claim which locals greeted with laughter, then a long silence, then more laughter.
Meanwhile, reports suggest that a Dutch campervan which missed the junction in early July has now reached the ferry terminal at Scrabster and is “seriously considering Orkney”.
“They’ll come back,” said Fleming hopefully. “Everybody comes back to Pitlochry eventually. It’s just that, until Christmas, they’ll be coming back from the north.”
The real story: PKC roadworks list: A9/A924 Pitlochry south junction northbound off-slip closed 15 Jun–31 Dec 2026 for embankment repairs
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