Road Trip 6: Scotland

We did a lightning fast trip through Scotland.  This is a place we will definitely explore more thoroughly in the future.  We left Hadrian’s Wall and drove into Scotland to find a place for the night ending up in the quaint seaside town of Troon where the local ‘municipal sanitation operative’ chatted with us in what we think was English.  Anyway we could understand about three quarters of what he said and he let us know that it was alright to spend the night in the carpark by the sea.

Troon at sunset

The next day we drove along the lochs of the highlands with a quick stop at Fort William which was swarming with young fit ramblers who had just emerged from the mountain moors. Even with gray skies the area was inspiring.

We spent the night at a campsite in Dingwall just outside Inverness to wake up the next morning to sunshine!  The first time we saw real sunshine in about a week.  What a difference it made in our mood for the pilgrimage to John o’Groats so we could cast an eye on the Orkney Islands from where my ancestor, Robert Traill, immigrated to the Pennsylvania area in 1766.

The ferry to the Orkneys - We will definitely take this on our next visit

Northern most part of the mainland

Hotel at John o'Groats

That is Orkney, 6 miles away

On our return trip south we stumbled upon some Highland Games in Tain and had to stop for a look.  They were fantastic!  Kilts everywhere, caber throwing, highland dancing, races, bagpipes and birds of prey.  Perfect.

An owl that could be out of Harry Potter 

Highland dancing sponsored by a wee dram of whiskey

Throwing the caber

Foxglove was everywhere

What trip to Scotland would be complete without the heather.  We carried a sprig in the van for our whole trip

We found a spot at Hunting Tower outside Perth for the night so we could continue on to Edinburgh the next day.  We woke up to foul weather and made our way through the rain into Edinburgh which being Festival time was packed.  It was impossible to find reasonable parking.   We found some short term parking and spent an hour or two walking the streets to get a small taste of the city.  I sought out Dundas Street and imagined Alexander McCall Smith’s characters walking along living their quietly understated Edinburgh lives.  We didn’t do this amazing city justice but I was glad I could at least have a brief look.  This is another place that we will have to do more thoroughly in the future.

City scenes through the rain

 

So we said goodbye to Scotland with a firm resolve to return.

Road Trip 5: More castles and ‘Pemberley’

On the way north from Oxford we stopped at Kenilworth Castle, another of our free sites, ie English Heritage.  The castle is a huge complex with the first buildings erected in the 1120’s and expanded by King John.  It was the site of the longest siege in British history in 1266, the Lancastrian base for the War of the Roses and Robert Dudley’s, the Earl of Leicester, lavish reception for Queen Elizabeth I in 1575.  Robert Dudley was the ‘Virgin’ Queen’s favourite.  Unlike most of the other castles we visited, Kenilworth had Medieval furnishings and really came alive for us.

Kenilworth Castle

The stables now exhibition center

Ornately carved sideboard

The gardens Dudley made for Elizabeth

The old and the new

I love these arched windows

We drove on through the Peak District of beautiful windswept dales and moors.  Our goal was the great house of Lyme Park, aka Pemberley from Pride and Prejudice.  This was the only great house we visited.  I have some issues with great houses.  Although very beautiful, they were almost exclusively built on profits of war, slave trade and/or industrial exploitation.  Lyme Park was in the Legh family for over 600 years from when Edward III gifted it the 1300’s for services to his son, the Black Prince, during the Battle of Crecy in the Hundred Years War.  In the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, the Legh family made their money from coal mining.  After WWII, the house was given to the National Trust.  Despite my misgivings, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the site where Colin Firth emerged from the lake to meet Elizabeth Bennet.

Pemberley and the Lake

The courtyard where Mr Darcy hurried to meet Elizabeth and her Aunt and Uncle

Beautiful garden

More beautiful country side awaited us in the Lake District.  We had a brief visit to Windermere and I could well imagine the Swallows and Amazons racing around the islands in the Lake.

Lake Windermere

Beautiful hotel in Windermere

We checked out Hadrian's wall and some old Roman ruins of a fort along the wall.  I felt we had come a bit of a full circle as one of my favourite statues in the Fethiye museum is of Emperor Hadrian. 

Hadrian's Wall stretching across Northern England

A house was built right over the Roman ruins

As we were driving along we came across a private castle.  The owners live on the premises but you can hire it out for weddings and parties.  Amazing!

Private castle

Next stop Scotland.

Road Trip 4: Wales with an Oxford detour

Our first stop in Wales was Caerphilly Castle, a 13^th Century castle with elaborate water fortifications of artificial lakes.  Caerphilly Castle was built by a rather unsavoury character, Robert de Clare, though probably he was no worse than other powerful Medieval men of the time.  De Clare lead the massacre of Jews in Canterbury in 1264, was excommunicated by the Pope, spearheaded the English takeover of Wales under Edward I (building Caerphilly to subdue the locals), then got involved in private wars against other wealthy men over land disputes.   The displays in the Castle were very well done, complete with Medieval weaponry.

Caerphilly courtyard

Large dining room

Lakes around Caerphilly

More water defences

Bob trying out medieval weapons

Moat around Caerphilly Castle

Through the cold, gray, dreary drizzle we drove to the centre of Wales to the little town of Rhayader where our friend Peggy lived.  We spent a few hours at the local pub across from Peggy’s house to await her arrival.  It was a great pub and a wonderful place to while away some time on a rainy afternoon.  We were given a hard time about the cricket, Australia having just performed shockingly badly in the latest Test (I mean really – all out for 60 is just humiliating!).  Bob’s counter that the Australian lost was all carefully planned solely to boost sagging British morale nearly caused an international incident – all in good fun.

We had a lovely visit with Peggy in her beautiful 15^th Century Tudor cottage.  It was great sleeping in a comfortable bed after 10 days in our little campervan. 

Peggy's beautiful 16th Century cottage

Peggy suggested we check out the nearby Elan Valley (Cwm Elan) which was quite magic despite the continuing drizzle.  The Elan Valley is the site of much natural beauty and several reservoirs with the wonderful names of Claerwen, Craig-goch, Pen-y-garreg, Garreg-ddu, and Caban-coch.  These dams were used during WWII in the testing for the Dam Busters raid which flooded the Ruhr Valley.

Dam of the Elan Valley

Moors of the Elan Valley

We really liked Wales and wished we could have spent more time there, especially when it isn’t raining.  I was quite sad when we crossed the border and there were no more road signs in English and Welsh and I loved seeing those unpronounceable names.

Welsh place names

Peggy, who is the president of the Mediterranean Section of the Cruising Association (CA, Med Sec) convinced us we had to go to the CA summer party near London.  So we detoured to Oxford so we could make a day trip to London to attend the very pleasant afternoon party in New Maldon meeting new yachties and hearing their stories.

Oxford itself looked a bit seedy from my memories of it in 1988.  Evenso it was good to see again with the boaters on the Thames, the grand buildings and fantastic museums.  We only had a short time in the Ashmolean Museum but saw the fantastic Arundle Marbles and Egyptian papyrus and mummies.

Rowing on the Thames in Oxford

Buildings of Oxford

Beautiful archway

Once again I wish we had more time to see everything but the way north awaits.