Heading North to Scotland

Thursday 01 September


Our plan is to head north, to Scotland, and explore the most northern parts of the UK in September, hopefully before the weather gets too cold.  Then we will head progressively back south, heading over to Ireland for 3 weeks or so, and then to Southern England, to escape the worst of the the UK winter.

Thinking we'd got up early enough to have breaky, pack and return the flat in the same state it had been left for us, we freaked out slightly when the driver from the motor home rental company turned up an hour and a half early to pick us up. Luckily he was able to stay parked out the front for us to get everything together.  We were sad to be leaving the excellent Flat at Boss house - Thanks again to David and Diana, Charlotte and Paul.

Getting out of London book about ¾ of an hour, even though we'd missed the peak traffic by then. It is such a busy city.

Arriving at the motor home rental company, Amber Leisure at Luton, slightly starving as we hadn't had time to eat breaky, we completed all the paperwork and were shown our new home for the next 3 months - the Rollerteam 600G. This motor home is basically like the one we had in New Zealand for Easter, so slightly smaller then the European one, but still roomy enough with two double beds.

Once we had some food on board we did a big shop at Tesco's then headed for Cherry Hinton near Cambridge, our first stop about an hour away. We'd been told that the sites belonging to the Caravan Club were excellent throughout the UK, so we headed the one at Cherry Hinton and signed up as members. If the quality of this site is indicative then we will be extremely happy during our 3 months.

Also if the behaviour of all UK campers is similar to this site, we will sleep soundly and noise policeman Bill won't have a job to do.  The site is actually full over the week-end as there is an Airshow on in nearby Duxford.

Friday 02 September

It had been a bit cool overnight but the sun is out and the day warming up as we caught the bus into Cambridge.  The school year hasn't started as yet so there were a lot less bicycles then Bill can remember on a previous visit. But still, a lot of people get around on bicycles here.

We were soon accosted by a young fellow with a clipboard telling us all about the punt rides we could do along the River Cam to see the different colleges from the water. As it's the thing to do here we happily accepted and were not disappointed. 

Our punt driver was a young Iranian born, Canadian man studying interior design at one of the colleges. He did very well to manoeuvre us skilfully past the punts piloted by amateurs who thought they'd try their hand at punting themselves. It is actually quite difficult to do and requires great arm strength and balance. And if you go without a guide, you don't find out about the history of the colleges and the bridges you travel under. 


 There are 23 bridges over the Cam, and we saw about half. The classic piece of information being when the oldest bridge was built over the River Cam, they decided to call the town Cambridge.

A visit to the chapel at Kings College is a must. Commenced in 1441 by King Henry VI, it took nearly a century to be completed. The magnificent fan vaulted ceiling is second to none and the elaborate 26 sets of stained glass windows allow a lot of light to penetrate. There are also a lot of very large statues and carvings adorning the walls rather then marble or gold. Once outside the chapel you can walk around the outside of the college buildings, but only senior members of the college and their guests are permitted to walk on the grass!!

For the first time in 3 months (apart from the week in London) we ate an oven cooked meal – roast turkey breast and veggies – as the European motor home only had the cook top. We are most excited by this.

Saturday 03 September

For the past 2 nights we haven't been able to lock the driving cabin as the alarm keeps going off. Calls and emails to Amber Leisure haven't been helpful so far but we might have sorted the problem with them this morning. It is a very complicated system of turning the vehicle on, then off, then pressing the alarm button until it flashes and then locking the doors remotely. We'll see if it works for tonight.

We had nothing much planned for today so just went for a walk to the local town, the Tesco and back for lunch. The day had started off cool and overcast but quickly heated up when we were out.

Tonight we've been invited to a BBQ with some of Bill's past work colleagues. The hostess and her family are Indian who cooked up a storm of delicious finger foods and curries. It was so lovely to relax and chat with others for a few hours plus enjoy some great tunes by the 3 piece band set up in the back yard.

When we arrived home at around 9pm, we were greeted by several rabbits hopping about on their nightly foraging.

Sunday 04 September

Packed up and headed off towards York which should take around 4 hours. We encountered some rain along the way, some of it quite heavy, but arrived with a clearing sky.

There aren't many toll roads in the UK so we're happy to use the major motorways. We passed a lot of farming land, some cattle and sheep properties and Robin Hood territory in Nottinghamshire. There were also several occasions of driving through incredibly high cow or pig poo smells, presumably used to fertilise the fields. It reminded us of Belgium where we saw liquid fertiliser being sprayed in the fields producing a similar aroma.

Arriving at our camp site, Beechwood Grange at York, we were happy to see the familiar Caravan Club buildings, signs and amenities. We seem to be the youngest residents on site which suits us fine, however, everyone keeps mistaking us for Kiwis, not only our flag but our accents. We're not too happy about that so might have to look for a Flying Kangaroo flag quick smart.

Sylvi has discovered a new low fat snack – Twiglets. They are an acquired taste, but are basically pretzel sticks covered in Vegemite and baked. Not sure why we don't have them back in Oz. So far we've found the cost of food a bit more expensive then Europe, but not too bad really. On the other hand though, the cost of visiting attractions is much higher here then Europe. At least in Europe, the different passes also included public transport.

Our first experience with the UK camp site laundry was only half successful. The washing part was ok but the drier conked out before things were totally dry. Luckily super handyman Bill fixed our portable lines in our “garage” for overnight drying.

Monday 05 September

We had a little rain overnight and woke to more this morning. Plus it's cool and windy. Our clothes hadn't dried overnight in the garage so there was much back and forth to reception to sort that out. Luckily the wardens (that's what they call the Caravan Club site managers) let us use their personal drier while the repair man was called for the site one that had totally seized up.

Semi packing up to drive to the Park and Ride a couple of miles away, we were in the city centre in no time. It's a great service and runs from several locations on the outskirts of the city as cars aren't really desired within the city limits due to congestion.

York was founded in 71AD by the Romans, was taken over by the Saxons in 700AD, taken over by the Vikings in 866AD (and renamed Jorvik), ruled by Anglo/Scandinavian Earls from 1020-60, then from 1314 onwards came under English rule beginning with Edward II. Much of the medieval stone wall still surrounds the city and can be walked on at certain intervals.

It took 250 odd years to build the York Minster, the largest Gothic cathedral in Europe. It is a magnificent building but we only observed it from a short distance inside as we considered the 9.50 pound entrance fee plus 5.50 pound to climb the tower just a bit too much. Not to sound like we are hard up, but that is $45 aussie dollars for the two of us!  The heavily adorned ceilings and stained glass windows we did see were wonderful.

A much better deal was a one hour ride on the HOHO (hop on hop off) bus complete with live commentary. We started the tour outside the Kings Manor, which was originally built as the Abbots House of the abbey of St Mary. Following dissolution of the abbey, King Henry VIII ordered the building be converted to the Northern Headquarters of the King's Council – hence the name. King Henry and his new wife Queen Catherine Howard stayed there in 1541. The building is now part of the University of York. The free Art Gallery is next door.

The city holds many relics of the Viking and medieval days as well as being the home of Guy Fawkes (lover of gunpowder) 1605, Dick Turpin the highwayman 1739 and Dame Judy Dench.

A sadder story is the demise of Terry's Chocolates, a factory that had operated in York for 250 years, and manufactured such sweets as the Chocolate Orange. With much of it's production now undertaken offshore, the factory closed in 2005, and was sold for private development but still currently stands abandoned. York is also famous for the Kit Kat, developed by another local chocolate company, Rowntree's. The say there are 47 Kit Kats eaten every second!

York is said to be one of the the most haunted cities and the instigator of the first ghost tours at night. There are of course many stories of sightings including a pair of legs running about one of the pubs.

A totally real spook story occurred in the basement of a small house where the sarcophagus of a Viking lady was found many years ago. For whatever reason, it was reburied in the same place and remains a part of the house (which, little wonder, was currently up for sale).

This is not the only such story with many bones, artefacts and building remains having been unearthed whenever land is excavated. There is currently an archaeological dig taking place on the outskirts of the city where Roman ruins have been found.

This was one of the best HOHO bus experiences we've had and it obviously helped that York is so full of history. We totally loved it.

Tuesday 06 September

Cold and rainy overnight and more of the same this morning as we pack up and head for Edinburgh, about 4 hours away. Throughout the journey we experienced all the weather elements, especially very strong buffeting winds which Bill had to fight against whilst driving. This motor home is a little lighter then the European one, but still more stable on the road, which is good but the winds still moved it around a lot.

The service stations along the motor ways here are no where near as large as those in Europe, nor do they have as much to offer refreshment wise. There are no McCafes here but they do have a franchise called Costa where we've enjoyed several soy lattes already.

Europe motor ways also had many large pull in areas or rest stops not only for truckers but anyone wanting a break from driving. Often there were toilets, picnic tables and chairs and generally surrounded by trees. Here these are called “lay-bys” and are basically a couple of hundred meters of lane right beside the motor way. Good luck pulling back into traffic as there isn't really a merging lane to let you back in.

We saw lots of fat sheep and cattle grazing in the lush fields and many beautiful stone buildings and walls which look like they've stood there in the countryside for many, many years.

It took us a bit longer then expected to arrive as a long section of new motor way limited the speed to 50mph and every time you come to a new town you have to reduce speed to 30mph. Anyway, we finally arrived at our camp site, Edinburgh Caravan Club Site, still with strong winds and intermittent rain. The facilities here are once again familiar and excellent.


It's good to be in Scotland, but we hope the weather settles down, and we don't freeze in the "top-End" of the UK, which we will travel around over the next 3 weeks or so.


More photos here.