Before leaving Whitby, we took a drive around the township and up the hill to see the ruins of the Whitby Abbey. Then we headed south along the coast to the town of Scarborough. This is a lovely little fishing town and obviously a very popular place for summer holidays with the beach and the surf the best we have seen in England. We managed to get our customary coffee at the Waterfront Café before setting off again. We planned to drive into the city of York just to take a look around and particularly see the York Cathedral, although we had no intention of stopping. Then it was on to find our caravan park for our last night in the motorhome. Fittingly this was in the countryside at a place called Harbury Fields Farm Caravan Park – the best park we’ve had in England I must say.
As the sun sets on our European holiday, we hope you’ve enjoyed catching up with our travels via the blog and we will certainly enjoy looking back at all the places we’ve visited along the way.
Our motorhome trip around the UK is almost over. We’ve allowed a couple of days to travel back to Manchester where we will be catching our long flight home. But we aren’t quite finished yet. There are a few places we’d like to see along the way.
Our first stop was at Alnwick Castle, home to the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland and his ancestors for 700 years. This castle was featured in a number of episodes of the TV series, Downton Abbey and is very imposing and ornate (no photos inside sorry). After visiting the castle, we found a great little pub in the town serving Sunday roast (with Yorkshire pudding of course) for 8 quid.
Continuing southwards, we called in at Durham to see the Durham Cathedral which is reputed to be one of the best in England. We arrived just as a service celebrating 500 years since the Reformation was about to begin, so we joined in and enjoyed the first part of the service, before sneaking out prior to the Bishop’s sermon (my dad would have been disgusted). There is some lovely pipe organ music on the video if, like me, you’re into that sort of thing.
Unfortunately, because daylight saving ended in the UK today, we ran out of daylight before finally reaching our caravan park for the night at the seaside town of Whitby.
After a very comfortable night and a delicious breakfast in our B & B in Fort William, we were ready for day 2 in the Scottish Highlands. The weather initially was pretty drab with rain and mist slowing our pace but it gradually improved as we approached our first stop at the ruins of Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness. We took time out for coffee and then explored the castle ruins, all the time keeping an eye on Loch Ness in case the Loch Ness Monster should appear. But alas, no monster !!
We continued on to Inverness, and then on a whim, decided to drive across the bridge to Black Island and travel to its northernmost tip to the little town of Cromarty – reputedly one of the best preserved medieval towns in Scotland. The wind was ripping in but we found a great little pub and had a great lunch. WE were surprised to see quite a number of oil rigs lying just offshore – evidently the price of oil doesn’t justify their operation in the North Sea.
Then when set our sights on the long drive back to Edinburgh, although we did allow ourselves time to call into a great little town called Pitlochry for a coffee. We arrived back at our motorhome at late afternoon and I then returned our little hire car to the airport.
Today we headed off on a two day trip in our little rental car to the Scottish Highlands. Along the way we stopped off for coffee at the Falkirk Wheel, a modern engineering marvel which lifts boats from a low level canal system to a network of higher level ones. Took some pics and video to show you how it works.
Heading further westward, we stopped off for lunch at a delightful little town on the banks of Loch Lomond, called Luss. (Brings back fond memories for our friend Maggie).
Then we continued over the highlands to absolutely breathtaking scenery (I’ll let the photos and video speak for themselves) until we arrived at GlenCoe for afternoon tea (Merryl thought we’d never make it because I was stopping so much to take photos). Finally it was on to Fort William where we found a stunning B & B for the night.
After leaving St Andrews, we headed north to Dundee and then west to a little town called Kettins. Our purpose was to try to verify some of Merryl’s investigations into the Cousins family history. She had discovered that my great, great, great grandfather had lived in the area and had worked as a man servant for Lord Hallyburton. As we drove into the town, we noticed the little church so we headed for it and started checking the headstones on the graves. After a bit of searching we found what we were looking for – the grave of Louis Pedrana, my great, great, great grandfather who died in 1844, aged 91 years. How exciting !! We assumed Lord Hallyburton would have lived in a fine manor house so we drove around looking to see if we could find it. As we drove up a lane and into a clearing we saw what we thought could be the manor house. We drove up to the front door but no one seemed to be about, so we walked around the side and rang a bell. A woman who was living in a ground-floor apartment answered and she confirmed that we had in fact found Hallyburton House. More excitement !! I’m not going into all the history here, but have the photos and video as a record of what we found.
After picking up our little Renault Clio rental car from the airport, we drove across the brand new Firth of Forth bridge and headed for the town of St Andrews. I was keen to see the “traditional home of golf” – The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews – which I’d seen numerous times on TV. While not a golfer, I can appreciate how special this place is. It would be amazing to see a top pro event here. As well as golf, St Andrews is steeped in history. We inspected the ruins of the St Andrews Castle which has some really gruesome history behind it, but it was also the place where the first Scottish protestant congregation was formed. We also checked out the ruins of the St Andrews Cathedral and were amazed at the vast size of this place.
After a great day out in the Lakes District, we headed down the freeway in the rain to bonny Scotland. We had booked into the Caravan Club Park in Edinburgh – expensive but fantastic facilities and hardstands so we won’t get bogged again. The following morning we set off early for a very full day’s sightseeing in the city. We headed for the street known as the Royal Mile which stretches from the Hollyrood Palace (home of the Queen when she visits) at one end and Edinburgh Castle at the other. In between lies the older part of Edinburgh with many of the buildings dating back to medieval times. We stopped off at Clarinda’s Tea Rooms for a tea/coffee (a MUST according to our friend Maggie) and then headed for a tour of the Palace and the ruins of the abbey next door. (no photos inside thank you !!).
Then we walked the length of the Royal Mile, buying a few souvenirs and a copy of the Cousins family crest (no tartan I’m sorry, otherwise I would have had to buy a kilt and sporran !!@#$). We headed for Edinburgh Castle where we spent a couple of hours of investigating and had lunch.
Finally, we jumped on a bus and headed for the ocean terminal where the decommissioned Royal Yacht Britannia is now a tourist attraction. Stepping aboard this ship was certainly something quite special and we really enjoyed the couple of hours it took us to do the tour (including tea/coffee in the royal tearoom on the top deck of course!). Brother Neville would be pleased we kept up with the traditions of royalty.
After all of that, we were a wee bit exhausted and headed back to our mobile-home for an early night. We’ve decided to stay a few extra nights in Edinburgh and pick up a little rental car at the nearby airport to do some more touring over the next few days.
After leaving Chester, we headed north along the freeway to the Lakes District. Raining all day so we were glad to be on decent roads – at least until we started looking for our caravan park which turned out to be in a very isolated spot beyond the Kirkstone Pass (highest pass in the Lakes District) near Patterdale. Very scary driving the motorhome down the narrow roads, particularly when we encountered a bus, however we got there in one piece and settled into the little pub (Brotherswater Inn) also run by the park owners, to catch up with a bit of internet time and a nice dinner.
The following morning, we decided we’d let someone else worry about the narrow roads, and we joined 3 girls on a full-day minibus trip around the Lakes District. The best thing we could have done. Again it started as a rainy day but gradually came good so we could appreciate the wonderful landscapes of the lakes district. Our first stop was the lake of Ullswater, where Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record in Bluebird in 1955. To Then it was on to Keswick for a boat cruise on Derwentwater Lake followed by lunch and a wander around the town.
Back on the bus, we called to see the Castlerigg Stone Circle (a miniature version of Stonehenge) and then heading back over the hills we called at the Honister Slate Mine and saw them polishing slate for all sorts of uses. Our next stop was at Grassmere, famous as the one-time home of the famous poet, William Wordsworth and saw his grave in the church graveyard. Grassmere is also famous for Sarah Nelson’s gingerbread and Merryl lined up to purchase some. Finally, it was back to Windemere to pick up our motorhome and head off to find a caravan park for the night. This turned out to be quite difficult, as most of the parks were booked out because of half-term school holidays. Got the last site in a Caravan Park Club park near Kendal and settled into the little pub on site for dinner.
Hope you enjoy a selection of our photos and videos from the Lakes District.
Our trip on the car ferry from Ireland was uneventful and we arrived at Holyhead in Wales on nightfall. Fortunately we had booked into a caravan park, and although it took a little finding, in turned out to be a ripper. Best facilities we’ve found in a caravan park and the young owners were lovely. The next day we set out on a course designed by Kathy Vincent (Bribie Probus) which gave us a great appreciation of the Anglesey part of Wales. We’ve taken some photos and videos along the way to give you an idea of the countryside as well as some of the places we stopped at.
Morning coffee was at the lovely little village of Beddgelert (photos and video) and then drove through the Snowdonia ranges to Betwys-y-coed (don’t ask me to pronounce it). We had lunch here, had a ride on the minature railway and checked out a great model railway museum with a number of working model railways. (more photos and video). Then it was on to Conwy where we checked out Conwy castle. Building started in 1283 by Henry 1st and took just 4 years. Truly amazing.
That night we stayed at what we’ve come to expect as the typical run-down UK caravan park. Limited facilities and only a couple of other campers whose help we had to enlist the following morning to push us out because our wheels kept spinning on the wet grass. It rained all day as we drove towards England but we were lucky enough to fit in a canal boat ride across the magnificent Pontcysylite Aquaduct (more photos and video) before heading to Chester for the night.
After our half-day in Dublin we headed west again to resume our original itinerary to drive up the Atlantic coast. Unfortunately another few hours spent on freeways, but we arrived at Galway just on nightfall and managed to find a caravan park at Salthill on the water. Our neighbours were a couple from Mackay QLD in another Just Go motorhome. The next morning we arose at 8am to a beautiful sunrise and set off northwards.
Today we saw the (off-freeways) Ireland we’ve been missing. Fantastic countryside, lots of little towns, church and castle ruins, narrow one-lane bridges and tree-lined roads. We stopped off at a little cafe in Ballinrobe run by a 3rd generation family. Merryl was intrigued by the bottle of milk sitting all day on the table, presumable for tea/coffee topups. Then it was on to Westport, a historical port town with lots of character, where we had lunch.
As we drove on, we noticed a castle off the main road and headed off to investigate. We discovered the the little town of Mullaghmore with its spectacular castle and coastal scenery and you can check this out on the video.
Finally it was on to the popular coastal holiday town of Bundoran to spend our last night in Ireland. This place would be buzzing in summer, but we were the only van in the lovely little Travers caravan park for the night. Topped it off with Irish stew and guiness at the Riverview, a typical little Irish pub. Tomorrow we will hightail it for Dublin where we will catch the searoad ferry back to Wales to continue our trip of Wales and Scotland.
