Celtic Rover
For the first leg of the trip, we head south from Edinburgh to Northumbria, as we have just finished the series “The Last Kingdom”, Lee plans a route to Lindisfarne and Bamburgh Castle, which has an exhibition celebrating the series we have both enjoyed a lot. We take a shell from the Lindisfarne beach for the good luck of St Cuthbert and enjoy the tour of the castle before an excellent Lobster meal, quite the contrast with our frugal camping in a field with just portaloos for facilities.
We head on via the “Grace Darling” museum to another castle at Alnwick, we lots of kids are getting broomstick lessons as part of “Harry Potter” was filmed there.
Walking along the excellent beach at Bamburgh gave us a good view of the Farne Islands, one of my kayaking list I have yet to tick off. As we head south we pass the Angel of the north and add that blessing to the shell of St Cuthbert that Lee has stowed in Nelson for good luck.
As we travel down to Oakham to see my friend Nick and then on to Tring to catch Tony who will join me in Dakar we realise we have a lot of England to see and Cycle as we take country roads around Rutland, the Chilterns and the South Downs, so a few places are added to our list of future trips.
As we go down the road we slowly settle into the routine of setting up camp and cooking gradually packing things away in their proper places and getting used to checking under the car before driving off again.
Finally after a lovely week enjoying the blue sky and perfect temperatures of England we make it to Portsmouth for a great history lesson at the Historic Dockyard with visits to the Victory and the Mary Rose before Lee has to get her train back to Edinburgh and I have to queue up with the camper vans for the crossing to Spain. A perfect start to the trip.
Two nights and a day on the sea before the run down to Spain
Gerry
