Blogs from Ayrshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 2

We woke to a....wait for it....wait for it....sunny day!!! Got in a nice dry pleasant run! Woohoo! Then off on our road trip to the other coast. First stop was Craiglethan Castle. This one was built beside a ravine which is unusual. It was built by the most famous builder of defensive castles although this castle did not survive the wars (ironically). Next we went on to Bothwell Castle to represent Patrick and Catharine! It was very cool. There was the original Donjon from 1242. Then the castle was built up from there in the 1300's and the chapel was added in the 1400's. Building projects back in the day seemed to last decades. The first Lord or Baron would start but it would be his son that saw the project through to completion. Anyway, the ... read more

After two nights in the castle we headed to Scotland to visit some old friends. We brought some warm, sunny weather from Tennessee with us. We stayed a few nights in a caravan on Loch Goil but decided to leave a day early because of the midges. We have nothing to compare with the midges in the states, thank the lord. They are small flies that like to bite and they were everwhere. One of my favorite moments so far on this trip was four-wheeling, and yes the grannies went with us. They did slow us down a little, though my mom was reprimanded by our guide for reckless driving. :D Brian... read more

Final Blog Update 18 August 2011 Wednesday -27 July Day Trip to the Orkney Islands Today we set out early at 6.30am from our B&B in Tain to drive to the highest point north in mainland UK called John o Groats. Even though it was only about 100 miles, the road was narrow, steep and windy and the scenery was really beautiful in the bright, morning sunshine. The unusually sunny morning made the views even nicer. We followed the cliff tops of Scotland all the way north, looking out over the North Sea. We could see three oil rig platforms in the distance. We arrived at John o Groats about 8.30am for a 9 am ferry departure. The little harbour was quite dissappointing to look at – not much at all and the only castle on ... read more

After three years in the UK we’re getting through our ‘to do’ list of experiences but one which we hadn’t been able to make so far was the Super League ‘Magic Weekend’. To explain: every year the English Super League (ie the UK equivalent of the NRL) picks one weekend of the competition and holds all 7 games in one stadium. This used to be Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, but in 2009 Millennium was swapped for Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. Murrayfield was again the host for the 2010 ‘magic weekend’ and with Ariana convinced that watching four games of English club rugby league back-to-back on the Saturday was a good idea we had the makings of weekend away. Add in two days of car hire and a night at a B&B on the Isle of Arran ... read more

Thursday 17.12.2009 Day 64 Pool We were good and did all our washing and while washing we played pool and it was 2 all so we decided not to play another game and keep it as a draw but we both insist that we would have one the last game! The area we are in is where Robbie Burns lived so there are lots of things about him around here. It is 200 years since his birth this year so they did home coming to Scotland to commerce his birth. Robbie Burns is Scotland’s most famous poet and one of the most translated poets mostly due to his most famous work Auld Lang syne. ... read more