We started the day in Durness visiting Smoo Cave and the “award winning beach” and were glad to see the end of the constant rain which has followed us all around Scotland so far. Smoo Cave, completed with a blowhole, has two chambers, the second which is only accessible by dinghy and was formed by water seepage through a fault line and then dissolving limestone to form the cavern. The cave has a chequered past with a shell and bone midden dating back 5,000 years to neolithic man but is also the stuff of local folklore including residence of the ”Deil” with some fascinating stories about a murder disposing of 19 bodies down the blow hole because he thought no one would find them as all the towns people thought the Devil lived down there and ... read more

After heavy rain during the night, we awoke to a clear day perched on the edge of the car park overlooking the three sisters at Glencoe so we took the opportunity for a 2 hour hike into the mountains following a watercourse. There was some great scenery and numerous waterfalls along the way. We finally made it back to the campervan and ambled into the village visiting the Glencoe Visitors Centre followed by a drive into the village where Andrew made the mistake of ordering a “Real Man‘s Haddock” which turned out to be the size of a Marlin Fillet. We then visited the Glencoe massacre memorial commemorating the overnight massacre of 38 members of the McDonald Clan as they slept including woman and children. They had invited their assailents (Campbells) to lodge with them that ... read more

We awoke refreshed on a rather cool Sunday morning and made our way up to Dunfermline Abbey and the Palace complex. We secured a car park near the children’s playground and walked to the Andrew Carnegie statue and then up High Street to the Abbey. It was a Sunday morning and there was a church service in the Abbey so visit to Robert the Bruce’s grave on this trip. We then visited Andrew Carnegie’s birth house and museum and left with a good sense of his upbringing and early experiences to be able to understand why he was so successful and At the same time benevolent. A couple of things we learned that stood out - his first ever investment was in a start up company which couriered documents and parcels on the new railway networks ... read more

We arrived at Newcastle airport just before lunch time and after raiding an ATM, we made our way to the Airport Metro Station and caught the first train to Newcastle Central. It was very humid in Newcastle and around 28 degrees. From the metro station below Newcastle Central, we climbed the escalators up into the Railway Station where we were confronted with mayhem. Lightning from a thunderstorm had knocked out a train bunch of signals in Yorkshire so the trains heading south to London were all cancelled. We needed to catch any one of those trains for our 25 minute ride south down to Darlington where our Campervan awaits. Amongst all the bedlam at the station, we talked to some railway customer service people who told us to jump onto the train on platform 2 which ... read more

Our preparations are well underway for our Thursday night getaway leaving Adelaide on our Emirates flight at 9:50 pm. Bella is booked in to Beau's Pet Hotel for the next 5 weeks for an experience she wont be forgetting in a hurry.... read more