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The 3rd of July.....and its another birthday for me!!
But no time to celebrate....yet,we are off to Bonnie Scotland and we have sights to see on the way.Bruce and Anice are also heading to Scotland to pick up their grandaughter in Glasgow as she is going to stay for 10days with them.So they won't have any peace for a while yet having got rid of us and a 12 yr old teenager moving in.
With RR loaded up we hit the road with the first stop to be a public garden that we had missed during our trips up to the lakes.
The garden was on the A592 road we wanted to initially take so that was convinent.
As we were so early we were clearly the first to visit the garden for the day as we surprised a team of tree trimmers cutting back some overhanging branches.
The garden was beautifully laid out in the form of an English country garden with many of the plants just coming into full bloom.Last night Jane had said we would find dahlias growing in the garden and we were interested to see how big they grew in the Lakes climate.Not too big as
it turned out and about one third of the size of what we produce at home.They were still a way off full bloom but even then we doubted that they would grow much taller.It does really demonstarate the difference in the growing climate between Tauranga and the Lakes District.
We were still the only car in the park when we left although we were thwarted in trying to exit because the tree fellers had moved their truck into the middle of the small exit way and were initially oblivious to us waiting for them.
Then we were on our way over the Kirkstone Pass at just ober 500ft.Now again this height is inconsequential in NZ but here there were warning signs of to beaware of treacherous conditions in winter!!
Unfortunately like many of the higher roads we have been over in the UK and Ireland the roadbuilders did not think of the tourist who would like to take in the scenery and take photos as there have rarely been lookouts at the summits.
So we stopped at a place where the narrow road widened slightly thinking that there had been little traffic so far that if we slightly blocked the
road we wouldn't be doing so for many cars.Funny how one can be so wrong because suddenly when we stop and are out observing the panoramic views and taking photos the road becaomes the M1 !!!
The drop down the other side was on grades of 25% which is low gear driving especialyy when the road twists and turns.
At the bottom the views out over Lakes Ullswater were very picturesque and as we looked on a sailboat left the shore trying to catch what liitle wind there was.
Near Penrith we joined the M6 to hasten the journey to our next attraction,GretnaGreen just over the border in Scotland.
This was the town that people used to run away to and get married when the laws for getting married at a certain age and with consent were harsher that they are today.The church at the entry to the town boasts of the thousands of weddings held there but today it seemed very quiet now that the marriage laws are more liberal.
While we were in the area and with a little bit of time on our side we decided to go on a few more miles to the town of
Lockerbie and the site of the first modern day act of aeroplane terrorism when on the 21st Dec 1988 a PanAm 747 was brought down in an explosion that was blamed on Libyans,one of whom is now serving a sentence in a Scottish jail.
Getting to the town could have had us in a disaster of our own had we been seconds earlier on a section of the highway just before Lockerbie town.
We rounded a corner on the highway to see a car that had been towing a caravan come adrift from the van ending up crashed into a bridge barrier.There didn't appear to be any other vehicles involved and a truck and a couple of cars in front of us stopped to lend assistance.We drove on as there appeared to be enough people to help at the scene.
We found the Garden of Rememberance on the outskirts of the quiet township.It is included in the towns cemetary which seemed very appropriate considering the effect it clearly had on the town and its residents.It is a very peaceful place with the names of all those killed both from the aeroplane and those on the ground in the houses that
parts of the plane fell onto,all listed.
We got talking to the man who looked after the small display of pictures and photos about the disaster inside a small building at the memorial gardens.He took us through the two small rooms answering our questions on the disaster.He wasn't living in Lockerbie at the time but nearby and had been involved in the cleanup in the days and weeks after.
He mentioned that last year he had escorted a number of men who had been the body retrievers after the disaster who had returned to the site to try and get over the mental trauma they are still going through 20 years on.
Visiting the town certainly brought home what must have been a dreadful sight with pieces of the plane dropping onto several houses with the most significant being an engine with 100 tonnes of fuel destroying 3 houses as it crashed to earth and gouging a giant hole in the ground where the houses had been.Absolutely dreadful!!
Today the streets have been repaired and other houses built so it looks like nothing ever happened.
We headed back towards Carlisle on the A74M.The accident had been cleared and there was
just a police car waiting for the tow truck to pick up the badly damaged car.
By now the sky was looking threatening and the poredicted rain wasn't far away.Would this ruin our thoughts of walking some of Hadrians Wall.?
The B6318 is a military road from Roman days and it is as straight as straight rising and falling over the rolling countryside.Those Romans didn't need all the gadgets of today to lay a road in a straight line!!The road follows what is left of the wall although the wall is not straight as it wanders up and around small hills.Perhaps this was to confuse the warring men from the north who were supposed to be kept at bay by the wall.
There are several well signposted stopping points on the road and with the rain almost on us we stopped and ventured off along a track to take in the wall which here ran up a small hill and then petered out.With rain now falling we decided not to walk what would have been a slippery surface and so took our photos and ran back to the car as the rain intensified.
The weather system was following us so
we didn't stop again before we joined the A68 north to the border.We would be crossing the wall again when we return to England after touring the Highlands and hopefully the weather will be better to sightsee some more.
The A68 is supposedly one of a number of main roads to Scotland after the A74M which runs up the west coast to Glasgow.
Now we know the Scots would like total independance and they may think that if they keep the main roads narrow then it will keep the English out but this skinny roadway is not conducive to touring driving especially when huge trucks are hurtling at you in the opposite direction.
Gretchen,who as most of you will know is not the best passenger,and when she let me have a spell at the wheel and even though I kept my speed to 80kph and as far to the left as possible,I thought it best to hand back over after a monolith of a truck almost took us out as it crossed the centreline to keep all its wheels on the road.The problem with the left hand car in a right hand side of the road driving regime is that
the passenger is on the outside and sees everything coming and passing more directly!!!
With a grey leaden sky and rain falling intermittenly the rolling hills of the borders weren't as attractive as we thought they might have been.Perhaps the sun will shine on our return south??
North of the border the towns are few and far between on the A68,not like the roads we travelled in England where a town or village popped up every few miles.
However it all changed as suddenly the city of Edinburgh was upon us and the A68 suddenly became something else and then the road number changed again even though we hadn't turned off it.
This was the largest city we have driven through and even though Stans map is very detailed the maze of roads once we were inside the city's ring road was confusing.
However we pushed on and somehow found ourselves in the right area of the city as there was the Meadows,a huge expanse of green playing area in the city and we knew we were staying adjacent to this park.
As we have done on a couple of occasions,and we should know better by now,we drove past the street we were looking for and took another 15 minutes to get back there as there are always one way,no right turns etc etc when you don't want them.
Our stay in Edinburgh is to be in an apartment arranged through Homelink and belongs to Alan and Alison who are currently on holiday.However their son Ben was there to show us around the 3 bed room'flat'(more like a house!!)which we will have all to ourselves.
All of the buildings around the Meadows are 4 story apartments not unlike the terrace houses of England,just taller and all joined together,row upon row upon row.
We had passed by a Sainsburys on the way in so we went shopping to stock up for our week long stay.Hurrah for the 3 for 10quid bottles of wine special available to us again.With that and Stella at 7 quid for 15 440ml cans(hows that Cormac,quality beer at 50p a can!!!!)we are fully stocked in the liquor cabinet again although we are not sure a cold beer at the end of the day may be as necessary here as in the heat of England.
We didn't have to cook tonight as Jamieson Walker,the Scottish representative at the last 3 World GC champs had invited us to dinner at his home which was just along the road.
Jamieson had stayed with us for a few days before the Worlds in NZ 3 years ago and we made very friends with him then and have stayed in touch.
With the help of Jackie,one of the GC ladies at the Meadows club,they put on a delicious birthday dinner for me,and we had a very enjoyable evening talking golf croquet,whatelse!!!
So it had been another long day on which to celebrate the passing of another year for me and an interesting one with the experiences that we had from quickie marriages to air disasters to Roman road and walls to near misses on the road and a relaxing dinner at the end of it all.
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Chris
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Hadrian's Wall
We toured around Housestead's Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall and found it really interesting (it's been on the History Channel). Paul, our son-in-law and an expert on all things Roman and Greek, says Vindalanda Roman Fort is better. We crossed into Scotland at Carter Bar and it absolutely poured with rain - welcome to Scotland.