Blog 12 - UK end to end (have car, will travel)
Hi all,
I'm sitting beside an open fire on a fairly bleak UK day in a little town called Settle, in the Yorkshire Dales. Thankfully, the pint is just starting to kick in. We have just returned from an ill fated attempt to see an outdoor location from Harry Potter #7, and after slipping over, getting rained on, freezing and generally yelling at each other, we contented ourselves in saying we got "close" to it and scurried back to our accommodation.
Greenwich seemed so long ago, but that's where I left off last time. We picked up a car and for what was (we think) the 45th time this trip, packed up our clothes, shoved things into obscure crevices in our bags, threw away things we couldn't justify lugging with us (children excluded). We filled the car up Tetris-like, forced the doors closed, breathed in...and left London.
First stop was York, and we stayed at a really cool Youth Hostel with awesome family rooms. Pleasingly there were quite a few families staying as well and Renae and I tried to matchmake our kids with theirs without looking or sounding too desperate. (Renae: "Hey, go play pool with the other kids". Jess: "oh, I dunno". Renae (head spins around) "PLAY WITH THEMMMMMM" ). Think it went well...
(Cold War Bunker and view of York)
York is a very beautiful place, and has a lot of interesting history. We visited the Cold War Bunker, which was a location where they monitored for any nuclear attacks. Got disbanded after Reagan and Gorbachev kissed and made up. We also visited the medieval tower built to defend York from invaders. So basically we visited a building for a war that didn't happen...and a tower, for a war that didn't happen! Bu we at least got to use our English Heritage cards as these were things that were actually open. Amazing how much shuts down during Winter. Have I simply never noticed this in Melbourne?
We also saw the York Minster church and did a tour of the Rowntree chocolate factory, which began in York. Good tour, kids externally feigned interest whilst I'm sure internally chanting "Make with the free samples!". They did eventuate. Japan makes a wasabi Kit-Kat...
(Mmm, chocasabi!)
We travelled from there to Linlithgow, just out of Edinburgh. We stayed with distant family friends Larry, Mukami and their granddaughter Savannah, whom we had never met. We were made to feel incredibly welcome. Larry and Mukami have both had fascinating lives, and we spent the three nights eating their beautiful food (we supplied wine and scintillating conversation!), and discussing everything from human rights, the environment, Scottish independence, their ability to bypass disaster (in NY for 9/11, missed a ferry that later sank, missed a fire in the London Tube by a matter of minutes...), Mukami's ability to keep the Queen of England's attention... The girls were just rapt to have a 12 year old to idolise and decent movies to watch!
We did see cool stuff in Edinburgh - the castle, the camera obscura (with its optical illusions - see photos), and Linlithgow Palace was really fun for a crumbling ruin - best game of hide and seek! But we really valued our time with Larry and Mukami, so much so that we invited ourselves to Burns night (celebrating the life and poetry of Robbie Burns). There was whisky, there was haggis!!! We met their daughter Laura too and again had a great night! Renae almost remembers it!
(1 o'clock gun, things in the Camera Obscura, Edinburgh castle at night)
(Linlithgow Palace)
And North we continued. The temperature kept slipping, not much, but noticeably so. Had two nights in Inverness and went to Loch Ness. No monster, surprisingly. Jess convinced it's there, because 1000 sightings can't be wrong can they? Inverness a beautiful city and worth a few days if you're in the area. Mind you, if you're in the area and not going to Inverness, where the hell are you going???
(Inverness)
(Wait a moment, isn't that...)
(Urquhart castle, Loch Ness)
...and further North we continued, right to where you can't go no Norther on the mainland and your only option is West. We found ourselves in a little cottage called the Mill House in a town called Portskerra. This was the place we were going to see the Northern Lights!
(Arrived to this...)
(Woke up to this...)
...and guess what (spoiler alert)
WE DIDN'T!!!
Possibly didn't help that people we encountered were saying things like "oh they were out just before you arrived". Like a bloody pantomime ("they're behind you!!!!"). But we checked our app that indicated polar activity, and like Murphy's law, every time there was reasonable activity, it was cloudy, and on the clear nights there was NOTHING! But we still sat in our car, in the dark, getting onset frostbite, waiting...
Portskerra and most of the Scottish North Highlands was closed for winter. So we did a lot of walks, travelled to beautiful places (Lairg, Smoo Cave, the Orkneys - ill upload photos of these places next blog) and saw some of the most rugged, stunning coastal scenery I'd ever seen. I'd imagine it was a bit like the north west of Tasmania. And boy was it cold! As Melbourne struggled to day after day of 44 degrees, we added layer after layer.
(Dunnett Head, the northernest point on the UK mainland)
We saw three of Scotland's "big 5" in the wild (seal, deer, eagle) - the otter and red squirrel proved too elusive. I had a game of golf on UK's northern most course and shot a score that was not appalling (for me anyway). And grew a beard...or my poor version of one.
But it was about relaxing, cooking hearty meals, painting (where we all discovered we had talent in some form!), reading, homework etc. We made coal fires nearly every night, and bathed every second day! We were a generally contented, if slightly smelly, bunch.
We learnt that the hard slog and generally thankless task of applying for house sitting jobs in the UK (to obtain some free accommodation) was rewarded with a 5 week stay in a big house in the Devon countryside that simply sounds too good to be true. We do that post Renae's mum-and-dad visit and pre my mum's visit. Has worked out really well.
The girls are well, getting what might be a second wind after a battery recharge in far north Scotland. Both looking forward to seeing grandparents, looking ahead excitedly to Devon and looking after a collie dog each. Jess pleased that her hair can be put back into a ponytail! Billie still avoiding nutrition like it's toxic. Renae and I haven't killed each other and frankly haven't even come close (we've certainly had ample opportunities to create "accidents" on rocky cliffs!!!). It's tiring, that's all, and hard work.
Onto my third pint now, so may end up here before the post becomes either maudlin or unintelligible. Over half way now. Still got heaps to see and do. Missing you all. Love getting the odd email to hear what's going on.
Love from the Carolin-Vandenbergs!!!
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