Spotty Dog! A trip from London to Scotland and back again

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Welcome back to travel time! With your favourite hobos and heroes, jen and jeff...

In the hopes of seeing still more of what the UK had to offer us, we borrowed Russell´s van one last time to head north into the land of william wallace, haggis, thick accents and wonderfully gory and tragically traitorous tales... aye laddies, strap yourselves in, it´s scotland!

We planned to take about a bit more than a week to head through the north of england, a bit of scotland, then back to london. Unfortunately for me, the first test of the Ashes series happened to fall on the first five days of our trip. Unfortunate because the van is a manual, which i can't drive. Unfortunate because jeff and i have always had a rule that whoever's driving gets to choose the radio station. Unfortunate because this meant about 7 hours of cricket a day, everyday for 5 days!!! (and yes for you cricket fans, excepting rain, tea break, lunch and whatever else goes on...)

Bad radio aside, the trip kicked off with a visit to york on the recommendation of several people, including my parents. Unfortunately we could only park for two hours, so conducted a whirlwind tour of the city. We went to the minster, where my parents had insisted we had to go downstairs into the old crypt. We did and it was excellent. You can see the different stages of the building's construction from its foundations from roman times, norman times and the modern day cathedral. There were also many items from day-to-day life in the various times that archaeologists had come across and put on display, as well as the tomb of a saint.. but at the moment we forget which one!

(Change of narrator - Jeff here. Jen didnt get too far did she!)
So back in the van, heading out of York with the exciting first days of the first Ashes test on the radio. Australia have taken a considerable first innings lead, but the question is - can they clench the victory or will they be scuppered by miserable British weather????
We drive the van up and down the amazing hills of the north Yorkshire moors, creating long lines of traffic behind us as the van struggles to make 20km/h up some of the steeper hills. The moors look both desolate and beautiful, and this was on a sunny day (i spent the entire day with the song 'wuthering heights' in my head - jen). In the middle of the moors we take a slight detour to a moor village named Goathland. Here we are amazed by the number of tourists in town, particularly of the grey-haired variety. What is this place we wonder? Jen checks the trusty guide book and relays the fact - 'This is where Heartbeat was filmed'. Amazed, we start searching for Greengrass, though unfortunately without luck. The number of tourists in town means that we have no chance of parking (and hence see the only photo we managed), so continue on through the moors to the coast.

Here we first find Whitby, a fishing and holiday town of historical importance for the building of an Anglo-Saxon Abbey in the 7th century, attacks from vikings, the departure of Captain Cook and the Endeavour to Australia, and the setting of part of Bram Stoker's Dracula. After a bit of a stroll around town we decide to head a bit further north for the night, landing in Saltburn-by-the-sea. (Russell, I know the van already had some rust problems, so perhaps staying in this place over night wouldn't help). With a name like Saltburn it was somewhat surprising to find out that this town was originally created as a holiday resort when the English discovered that salty sea air (or more likely just the escape from unhealthy, industrial cities) was good for the health of those who could afford a holiday. A long pier, a hillside train and the sight of crazy surfers heading into the chilly, messy North Sea are the only attractions, but it did offer a great view for a campstove dinner and sleeping right on the seaside.

The next morning we make it into Scotland, on a surprisingly fine and sunny day. We park the van on the outskirts of Edinburgh, catch a bus into town and find a very funky backpackers hostel complete with television showing the cricket! Back outside, we take in the sites - the imposing Edinburgh castle overlooking the whole city has a stage set up out the front, apparently Crosby Still and Nash are playing that night. Certain that tickets would be well outside our budget we continue on around town. Our Friday night in Edinburgh was a real highlight in Scotland. We head back towards the old town looking for a night time ghost tour which we've seen advertised. This is sold out, but it all turns out for the best. Standing nearby is a rather odd looking character (think of the guy from A Clockwork Orange) who says he also does tours. He states that if we like the tour we can pay at the end, and if we don't like we don't have to pay, but he will track us down and kill us! The tour gets off to a flying start... Whilst the advertised tours have props and costumes and make lots of noise, it becomes apparent that our trench-coated guide is much better - he is an eccentric and hilarious history nerd! After an entertaining and abridged version of Scotland's history we head down into the cellars of a row of old buildings. Here, in the 1980s a series of bridge archways were discovered by accident (they had been built in and hidden as the city grew during the industrial revolution). So in a sense we were now underground and it was dark and damp and of course quite eerie. In these archways we were told stories by candlelight of the poorest of poor people who inhabited these underground arches in absolutely horrible conditions. Here disease was rampant, ridiculously high mortality, reports of baby farms, disease and inescapable fire. Even the constabulary of the day refused to enter the underground, and so it was an obvious hideaway for criminals as well. These insights into the history of the city's underworld are far more chilling than any far-fetched ghost stories could ever be! (For the record, we paid).

Excited and amazed by these tales, we heard out into Friday night looking to experience the nightlife. We arrive at Whistle Binkies, one of Edinburgh's more noted music venues. While the music isn't all that exciting tonight, we befriend a couple of locals (originally from England and Ireland, but close enough) and soon find ourselves playing ridiculous drinking games. A good night!

In the shire of Perth we stop in a beautiful small town named Dunkeld, once the capital, but now just the gateway to the Scottish highlands. The timing of our arrival is fantastic - we have enough time to wander around town, throw a couple of pennies into the amazing River Tay in the afternoon, before heading to the pub for some haggis for Jen, and unfortunately just soup-of-the-day for me (haggis on an upset stomach, not the most appealing option!). It appears that all of the town is out for a Saturday night jig and dance as the band takes to the corner (no stage) of the pub playing drums, guitars, mandolins and violins. The next morning, a lovely Sunday stroll through the Birnam forest (famous from Shakespeare's Macbeth "when Birnam wood comes to Dunsinane" - one of the few quotes I remember from high school English!) turns into a soaking as the heavens finally open on us, but worth it as we see deer in the wild (jeff proves quite adept at tracking them - jen). Wet and getting wetter we head for the ruins of the town Cathedral where some of the gravestones are marked with skulls and crossbones. Cold, wet and scared - welcome to the highlands! It is while at Dunkeld that we realise that we have made a mistake the date of with our next plane trip.. Turns out we have to be in Heathrow in a few days time, and here we are moseying about in Scotland! From here on we turn up the pace!

After lots of scenic, albeit wet driving we pass trough Inverness and land our first gaze upon the famous Loch Ness. Despite not seeing "nessie" the loch is still quite a view and worth the trip. And anyway, that night we met a character who was interesting enough. We had pulled into a nearby farm which also operates as a camping and campervan ground. Straight away, a local camper came up to us and said in thick highland accent through our window - "Spotty dog.....". Jen and I both think, "er, what did he just say??", but it soon becomes clear. Between conversations about where to park our van, his trip to Australia and our own travel plans and all the other mysteries of the world this man uses the term 'spotty dog' in every second sentence. It seems to mean 'awesome', 'really', 'thats no good' and many other terms. Altough we never caught his name, it was great to talk to this man and his Estonian partner, and out of it we picked up our new favourite saying!

More driving the next day sees us reaching the area of Glencoe. We hop out of the car at periodic intervals to allow our jaws to drop at the really spectacular scenery. There are repeated sessions of rain-fog-sunshine which help add to the experience!

Heading out of Scotland, we spend our final 24 hours in northern Britain paying homage to some of our favourite Sydney pubs. We drove through several downpours and along narrow country roads to reach camp in the region of 'Annandale', though there are no bands playing. Here we see the expansive saltmarsh and mudflats, which are famous for their massive changes in tide - there have even been reports of loss of life as people wander out unaware of the pace of the tide change. We admire from nearshore, before heading to one of our favourite newtown pubs, the 'Carlisle Castle' - well actually the town of Carlisle and its very significant castle. Figuring this is probably going to be our final castle visit we decide to cough up our pennies and actually go inside. Whilst much of the former fort is now a carpark, the actual castle section is in pretty good nick! So much so that the area was even used as a barracks during world war 2. But it is much older wars that have made Carlisle famous. Being near the Scottish border it was the sight of numerous attacks (some successful) by the Scots, including Mel Gibson, i mean William Wallis. The English won it back at some stage and Lizzie 1 used the castle as a place to imprison Mary Queen of Scots and hence silence her claim for the British throne. Back in the van, for the long trip back into London in one day - and their isn't even any cricket on the radio anymore!


Back in London we do a bit of final catching up with London friends and family. This involves watching the final state of origin match twice in the one day (live at 11am and replay at 8pm), at the same pub! Probably going to be the last real football we see for a very long time as well... We do some laundry, jump on a bus to get to a train to get to the airport, and we're off. See you later Europe - you gave us lots of good times with friends and family, the chance to make some new ones (friends at least), and you took a whole lot of our money!


See you in South America!!! SPOTTY DOG!

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Photos

Whitby, north Yorkshire coast
abbey ruins (left) and St Mary's church (right) on the clifftop