Scotland - Visiting Edinbugh

Day 1 in Scotland involved merely getting north of the border and finding our accommodation in Edinburgh. That went fine, even with major construction on the roundabouts just where we had to turn off the M720 and having to wait for almost 2 hours for someone to show up and let us in to our room at the Guest House.

Day 2, however, we spent the day walking around Edinburgh. Surprisingly for a city of over half a million, it is quite possible to walk most places. A day bus pass helps connect more distant locations, but otherwise, you can walk everywhere.

One place we visited was the Botanical Gardens. The Gaelic for Edinburgh is Dun Eideann and that made me think of Dunedin in New Zealand, a city we visited over a year ago. That NZ city had quite wonderful botanical gardens and it was interesting to compare the two. Dunedin is considered the “Scottish” city of New Zealand (Christchurch being the “English” city). The botanical gardens we visited here were very nice and I’d probably say the NZ version was more spectacular, but that could be the setting and the terrain. Rhodos and many other flowers were out, the rock garden was very nice and it was generally just a pleasant place to wander around in for awhile.

Sir Walter Scott is recognized with an impressive statue/monument on Princes Street (named after the sons of George III) and we walked by a pub named the Conan Doyle. Continuing the literary theme, we note that JK Rowling lives/has lived here, along with other notables as Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith, all authors I’ve read recently.

The city has a reputation of being somewhat chilly, located as it is on the edge of the North Sea, but it was almost hot the day we were there. Walking down Princes St in the afternoon, I was really too warm and I regretted not having my hat along.

We finished off the day visiting with a former student of mine who lives and teaches in the City. It was good to catch up after 18 years.

Tomorrow we’ve decided to head north and have a driving day. The plan is to get to John O’Groats on the northernmost tip of Scotland. Maybe a day trip to the Orkneys might work too.

The Border Regions

After our abbey ruins double header Saturday, we ended up camping just south of Rievaulx Abbey at a real commercial “holiday park”. It was a zoo. Fortunately, we were able to camp off in a field with about 6 other tenters and it was nice and quiet there. Elsewhere there were literally hundreds of tents and trailers (caravans), with kids running around everywhere squirting water and making noise. Our corner of the campground was very peaceful.

The drive north in the morning was through some really quite attractive terrain – pretty much towards Darlington and north-west to Hexham, just south of Hadrian’s Wall. We found a campground within a few hundred meters of The Wall, hiked for a couple of hours along The Call and visited the site of one of the Roman castles (Chesters?) built back in the 2nd century. Quite interesting and almost 2000 years old. Hadrian’s Wall, for those who might have forgotten, marked the northern boundary of the Roman Empire in this part of the world. There is a walking path along the Wall that crosses England at this point and we enjoyed wandering along a couple of miles of it.

Our camping that night was very quiet but with the usual heavy dew in the morning. Nothing but the muttering of Roman ghosts to disturb our slumbers.

Our next day was a drive up towards the coast to Alnwick to resupply (where we apparently missed an interesting castle which we will have to visit on our way back south in a few days) and on to Lindisfarne Castle and Priory. The castle is relatively new by the standards of this country and stands on a rocky promontory out at the end of a sandy island that can be reached only a low tide. The Priory has been part of the religious culture on Holy Island for the usually expected centuries. Apparently the ruins of such places are favourites of mine.

Towards Berwick-upon-Tweed we found, after some driving back and forth, a very nice campsite out in the country almost on the Tweed River near the site of a 1820s suspension bridge connecting England and Scotland. I think it’s now called the Union Bridge and at the time was the longest suspension bridge in existence. It’s not that long – under 100 meters, I’d say – but it merited another of those “Weak Bridge” signs we’ve been seeing. We drove across it anyway in the morning. Fortunately, our car is small.

In the morning, we spent an hour or so walking around the walled city of Berwick-upon-Tweed where one of our neighbours from home grew up and then wandered our way along the coast into Edinburgh where we have accommodation for the next two nights.

The Yorkshire Dales and Area

We’ve spent 3 days or so wandering around “The Dales”. The wandering started in the south in what’s called Wharfedale. From our campground, we were able to hike along the Wharfe River towards what we hoped was Bolton Abbet. Unfortunately, in the time we had available, we only made it as far as Barden Tower and we didn’t see the actual abbey ruins until the next day as we left for the more northern Dales. Bolton Abbey is apparently the oldest abbey ruins in Yorkshire. I don’t know how to distinguish – everything here seems to go back to the 1100s or 1200s….

We had a short “walk” to a small “tarn”, supposedly the highest lake in the area. It was certainly up in the moors. The Pennine Way went by this – more open hill ‘n dale walking.

Eventually, we ended up in the Swale River Valley (Swaledale) in a nice little campground on the edge of Reeth. Our first afternoon we spent walking a loop down the river to another village and back to Reeth. Thinking we needed a day without driving, we elected to stay for a second night and spent a good part of the day walking up the Arkengarthdale to Langthwaite where we indulged ourselves in the traditional walker’s reward, a brew from the local pub, before we walked back to Reeth.

Reeth itself was pretty busy today, Good Friday. People are all over the “village green”, there was a village market going on earlier in the day….this is what replaces the lead mining industry of years ago. Sheep rearing seems to be still in vogue.

Saturday dawned sunny but damp from the night’s dew. We headed east and a bit south to visit the Fountains Abbey located at Studley Royal. I have to admit being a bit curious about the origin of “that” name. Fountains Abbey was very nice – an old set of stately ruins set in a valley, next to a small stream. Just what you’d expect of some old abbey ruins. About half an hour east, we also visited the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey also set in a small valley sheltered by the surrounding hills. This was started in the 1100s and was operated as a Cistercian Abbey for 400 years until Henry VIII abolished such places in 1538 and dismantled the places so that they would not be used again. At its height, there were 800 men living there.

From Wales into the Midlands and North

Part of Tuesday was spent getting out of Wales and back into England. Along the way, we had to stop and have a quick look at Valle Crucis Abbey ruins. This is in keeping with the C3 character of out UK tour (Coasts, Castles and Churches).

From Valle Crucis, is wasn’t long before we were back in England. The first clue was road signs that didn’t have any Welsh on them and the other was busier highways.

We ended up at a campground in the Peaks District, just outside of Hayfield and after some sustenance, we headed off for a hike up into the Pennine Hills (I think they call them “mountains” but I really can’t do that….). We hiked up and along the historical Pennine Way for several miles before supper. Nice but I don’t think it merits a repeat visit.

Wednesday was mostly a driving day and credit goes to my navigator who plotted a torturous route through busy countryside to get us to the southern Yorkshire Dales in the Wharfedale valley – on the Wharfe River. We set up camp mid-afternoon and hiked down paths along the river towards Boulton Abbey. We didn’t get that far, but it was a nice hike nonetheless.

The main question about now is where we want to be over the Easter weekend. Campgrounds are already getting more busy and schools are out for the next week or so.

Noises in the Night

Night in The Dales, indeed in most of the UK we’ve visited so far, has been anything but quiet. So unlike many of the nights around where we live where all we usually hear is the faint sound of a waterfall a mile across the lake.

Nocturnal noises naturally include sheep bleating and new lambs baaaa-ing. This never really seems to stop, day or night. Last night, a few cows added to the farm field cacophony. Near our tent a pair of pheasants seems to have made its territory, and the cock lets loose with his rusty gate call every 15 minutes or so, accompanied with a brief but rapid flapping of wings. We heard the pair walking by early in the morning, both making quiet pheasant clucking noises to each other.

There are at least a couple of species of doves, and they never shut up. They are easy to tell apart from their calls, but they are very monotonous all the same. The Wood Dove, the largest of the doves that I’ve seen, just repeats the same set of phrases over and over, with some individuals stopping/starting at slightly different places in the phrases. I’m actually starting to get a wee bit tired of all their billing and cooing, well, the cooing mostly.

Then there are the sounds of other birds, chirping away during the night or flapping their way through the branches. I have no idea what they are. Critters in the night.

Mt Snowdon

I’m pleased to be able to report that the “Life Partner” and I made it to the top of Mt Snowdon today (Sunday) and back in 5 hours, including half an hour on the summit to have a lunch. I can also report that we did the hike along with what must have been literally thousands) well, at least many hundreds) of other folk, from the out-of-shape to the fit, young and old, and including many who made it to the top on the narrow gauge railway (“To the Summit since 1896”). We were quite amazed by the numbers of people on the trail and crowding the summit. I don’t think I’ve seen a summit quite as busy.

There were other trails coming up to the summit from other directions and they were almost equally as busy. Kind of looked like people on a pilgrimage. There were people everywhere. Guess it shows you what the people of Wales do on a sunny Sunday in April.

The day was cool but otherwise quite decent. We’ve been waiting for a good day, spending cloudy days wandering around “rural” Wales looking at castles and gardens, so when good weather seemed imminent, we drove over to the Snowdon area and consequently didn’t exactly get an alpine start on this one. I think we wandered out of the parking lot at around 11 am.

Anyhow, we can now check off the highest point in the southern UK, the highest point in Wales and on a sunny day to boot.

Wales North

Rather than head further north right away, we drove back to Newport (near St David’s) and spent a couple of hours hiking our around a headland on the Coastal Path. Skies were mostly clear and breezes were light and views were excellent. We then returned to Solva, a small village near St David’s and did another hike involving some field & hedgerow walking through fields and returning along the Coastal Path. The return track was certainly the best part of the walk.

After our walk, we headed east and north and ended up in the small village of Cenarth, apparently famous for it’s salmon run in the Tiefy River and also for it’s coracle museum. It was a quiet night, but damp in the morning with the usual dew. The sounds of the gently flowing Tiefy River were nice to hear during the night.

A short drive brought us to Aberystwyth, a coastal town noted for it’s universities and the National Library of Wales. After setting up camp in the local “holiday park” we drove up the valley and did some walking – not on the walk we had planned, but nice none-the-less. After a walk through some of the town and a pub supper, it was time to retire for the night. Skies were clear overnight, but by morning, it was foggy/cloudy and the tent was partly wet again.

Since skies weren’t really cooperating, we decided to visit castles and gardens for the day rather than head for Snowdonia. Accordingly, we visited Powis Castle & Garden near Welshpool and Chirk Castle & Gardens near Chirk, just south of Wexford. Both gardens were excellent. The castles were interesting as well, but the highlights were certainly the gardens.

In Chirk we also had a look at a couple of aqueducts built by Thomas Telford, a famous engineer.

Camping for the night was a few miles up a small valley west of Chirk at the small hamlet of Glyn Ceiriog. Nothing but the calls of birds in the night disturbed our sleep.

The morning seemed decent, so we headed for Mt Snowdon.

The hike up was successful and is described in a separate post.

We spent the day after visiting a couple of gardens, including one of the best we’ve seen so far, the Bodnant Gardens south of Conwy.

Our next direction is east, back into England and to the Peaks District, east of Manchester somewhere…..

Wales - South

My almost immediate observation about Wales is that it’s much lower stress driving here than in south England. The traffic is less, the roads are straighter and wider and the countryside is very picturesque. Higher, more rolling hills and many more trees (almost forests in some places). Spring isn’t quite as far along here as it was further south, but it’s very green and the views out over the fields and hills are most pleasant.

One nice find was Dinefwr Castle and Park. It’s managed by the National Trust and is set among some hills east of Carmarthen (north of Swansea a bit). What you see first as you approach is the ruins of a castle visible over the trees in the near distance. Have a look at some pictures of the place posted separately.

We drove from there straight out to the coast at St David’s, a small, historic village on the Pembrokeshire Coast, possibly as far west as we can get in this part of the country. The Pembrokeshire National Coast Trail runs all along this area and we spent some time Tuesday afternoon hiking along some of it. Once again, great views of the coast.

Wednesday was a rain day. Although there were showers overnight, the tent was mostly dry in the morning with rain starting later on, after we had done our walk around St David’s Cathedral. Up the road about half an hour was Cilcerran Castle, a neat set of ruins that has existed as ruins since about 1400. We also spent some time wandering back and forth trying to find a place to walk and, eventually, a dry place to stay for the night. We finally settled for the Hostel at Poppit Sands, near Cardigan. Fantastic views out over the bay full of big waves rolling in from the ocean.

After a couple of hikes in the Pembrokshire area, I think it’s time to head further north for an hour or so.

From North Devon into Wales

Quite a contrast from Sunday to Monday morning. We woke up to a very dense fog with no views beyond about 100 feet. So we packed up the wet tent and drove on, heading for Wales.

About 3 hours later, we had done our driving on the M5, passed by Bristol and arrived at Chepstow where we picked up gas and groceries. It was then on to Tintern Abbey, not far away.

Tintern Abbey is an old ruins in a beautiful valley setting on the River Wye. Like pretty much everything here, it dates back centuries, to the 1100s. I'm repeatedly struck with the work it would have taken to cut all those stones and build these magnificent structures, keeping in mind that these were done centuries ago, all by hand. There are also numerous literary connections. Those are not my department.

Literally just down the road was Raglan Castle, which we just stopped by long enough for a quick photo. The current ruins date from the 1400s and later.

Camp for the night was as a campground that could pass for an estate's country gardens. I don't think I've seen a campground as neat and tidy with such good landscaping. It was right next to the Brecon Canal so we went for a walk and watched the canal boats wend their way along the canal.

At this point, I'd say that Wales is less crowded, the roads are better (ie: wider, straighter and easier to drive on) and the terrain is more forested, higher hills. I say higher carefully, because the highest point in southern UK is found here and I think it might be 700 or 800 feet above sea level. I decided NOT to tackle it today. At 700 feet, I'm not sure I should be bothered :-) [Upon looking more carefully at a good map, I see that the hills here are up to 2500 ft high - better, but not exciting. Snowdon, further north, is about 3500 ft or so]

We managed to get the tent dried out so it will be a dry night again. So far, the weather is being very cooperative.

Hikes & Local Lore

First thing this morning (Sunday), Catherine set off on a hike along the Coastal Trail while I drove the car along to the next little village (Boscastle) and walked back along the trail to meet her. It was a fantastic day – mild temperatures, blue skies, no wind, great views… What more could you ask for?

This was our last hike in Cornwall and as we drove further north, we passed into Devon. Wandering as we usually do, we ended up along the coast just NW of Barnstaple just outside of a small coast village called Woolacombe. We found a campsite near there in Mortehoe, set up camp, had a rest, and started off on another hike along the Coastal Path to a small hamlet called Lee. From there, we were able to hike back to the campground through fields and along Public Footpaths and lanes. Everything is just so green here right now.

While out for supper at the Smuggler’s Rest, I decided to ask the bar lady if she knew the origins of the village’s name – Mortehoe. According to her, the name means Death Valley, and in the old days, some of the locals used to tie a lantern to the tail of a donkey and approaching ships would mistake it for a lighthouse and end up on the rocks, of which there are many sharp ones along this stretch of coast. Once the ship had foundered, they would plunder it. There was a large painting on the pub’s wall depicting these nefarious activities. Truth or fiction?? Hmmm.

Tomorrow the plans are to end up in southern Wales, but that’s what we had planned for today and we’re still not there. So we’ll see.

The Cornish Coast

The trouble with constant traveling is that one day seems to melt into another leaving one trying to recall when, exactly, one did this town, that trail, which castle.... Especially tough with a slowly disappearing memory....

Today, though, we ended up at Tintagel, the supposed location of the (legendary?) Kind Arthur's castle. The location is quite stunning: a rocky outcrop of an "island" attached to the coast with ruins of an ancient castle. The town itself is another in a series of quaint little villages - lots of stone buildings, narrow streets. It's where we will be camping for the night.

Working backwards, we visited Port Isaac, just down the coast, earlier in the day. Aside from being another very scenic fishing village on the coast, Port Isaac is the location where the Doc Martin TV series was filmed. We wandered around the village for a couple of hours and managed to find a couple of the buildings that appeared in the scenery shots. I will post more pictures of this....later.

Our first stop of the day was Trerice, an Elizabethan house and gardens, although the land and buildings date from much earlier - apparently the property was listed in the Domesday Book. [Educational moment: my partner tells me that William the Conquerer did this as the first census for taxation purposes back in 1066 or 1090 or 1100 or so - I'll take her word for that - I'm a science guy].

Backing up to the previous day, we spent all of it hiking part (a very small part) of the South Coast Trail near St Ives. Very scenic (I know, I used that word before - I'm running out of descriptors) but very slow hiking. A fair bit of too-ing and fro-ing and up and down, rocky (did I mention how many rocks there are in this area...). Regardless, a sunny day and an excellent way to spend a day.

I think that pretty much covers the past 2 days. Other than hopes for part of a day hiking more of the coastal trail near here, the next "stop" is southern Wales, probably part of a day's drive from here.

The Metric System You Say???

Traveling in the UK has reminded me that the USA isn't the only country still clinging to the old "Imperial" system of measurements.

Here in the UK, there has been some conversion, but it's a real mish-mash of the two systems. Some examples:

Road distances and signs are in miles. The speedometer in the car is in miles, although the digital display has a metric option. Gas (er... petrol) is sold by the litre. Most liquids (beer, milk, etc) are sold by the pint - imagine, a full pint beer can! I did find a bottle of chocolate milk that was a 1 litre bottle and the Imperial system wasn't even mentioned. I think temperatures are in Celsius, although I'm not sure about that.

Anyhow, it's interesting. But then, the UK just switched to decimal currency not all that long ago.

Speaking of currency, this is another country (like Canada) that could well afford to discard some of the smaller coins, like the 1 and 2 pence coins. Interestingly, the 1-pence coin is one of the larger coins and I'm forever thinking it's a pound coin or something important, only to realize (er... realise) that it's nearly worthless to buy anything with.

Southwest England - To Land's End

After 3 days tramping and tubing through London, we’d had about all we could handle of the big city noise and bustle. Picking up the wee rental car at Heathrow, we were off to The South.

Our first stop was my pick – a brief visit to Down House where I could pay homage to Charles Darwin. Down House, for those who don’t know, was the family home for much of the time Darwin was researching, writing and raising a family. It was really quite a thrill for me to walk the paths he walked and to wander through the rooms of the house and his study where he worked.

As a sidebar, I had thought of visiting the grave of Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-developer of the Theory of Evolution - he was buried not far from Bournemouth, but we were not headed quite in that direction, so I gave that one a pass.

We continued on to Eastbourne, right on the English Channel. Our main activity for the day was a several-hour hike on the South Downs Way. Most of this was along hills and dales across the tops of high chalk cliffs bordering the seacoast. It was a windy day, but nice, nonetheless, and we had a good hike. Took the bus back but still quite a walk to where we had left the car.

En route the next day was Stonehenge (significant but not so impressive – somehow I’d expected it all to be bigger), Salisbury Cathedral (quite impressive and VERY old – we’re talking 1200s here) and Old Wardour Castle ruins (driving madly along narrow country roads to get there before closing time).

Our sunny Wednesday was spent driving 2-3 hours down into Cornwall. The highlight of the day was Glendurgan Gardens where we strolled in the warm sunshine through a 25-acre estate of magnificent trees and flowering shrubs. The sounds and smells were wonderful and I’m sure the photos won’t do it justice.

We found a nice campground later in the afternoon (after rejecting a rather scruffy one we came to first…) and enjoyed a traditional English pub supper at The Halfway House on the A394 between Helston and Long Downs. Good ale, good food and fast internet.

Another quite nice day dawned, although misty and foggy for the first bit. We headed towards Penzance (thanks Gilbert & Sullivan) and Trengwiegan Gardens just outside town. After that, we headed back a few miles to hike over a causeway to St Michael’s Mount – an old, restored castle on a rocky island just offshore. Very interesting and definitely an excellent location for a castle. We finished off the day with a quick drive down to Land’s End and then back to our campground to recover. Land’s End, by the way, is the southernmost point in England on the mainland.

Pictures of this part of the trip will be appearing here.

London in 3.5 days

Our last night in London before we pick up the rental car and head out to the (hopefully) peaceful English countryside for a few weeks of random travel.

It's been a very busy 3.5 days and it's about all we can stand of a very big city. Cities aren't really favourite spots of ours but there are many interesting things to see, especially in a place with so much history as London.

The Palace at Westminster (the Houses of Parliament), Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, Hampton Court Palace, the British Library, the Museums of Science and Natural History, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and on it goes... So much to see with time and energy just not up to the available possibilities.

The London tube (subway) has been great. It's fast and easy to use. We did run into some crowds, but the rides are short and the trains are so close together, waits are usually only a couple of minutes.

Views from the top of St Paul's Cathedral were quite nice, well worth the climb of some 80-odd meters from the floor of the Cathedral.

The British Library is a really neat place and some of their permanent displays were real treats (Scott's last diary entries...). Something completely unexpected was the chance to listen in on some of a practice session of Handel's Messiah at St Martins in the Fields, something we stumbled across as we were walking around Trafalgar Square. And I still don't know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. I think the crowds at Piccadilly Circus explain the name of the place. There are tourists everywhere.

Anyway, it's off to Down House where I need to pay homage to Darwin, then a few days along the south coast. It's been great London.

Some initial pictures have been posted here.

Not Again!!

Leading up to the last election (one of the previous three we've had in the past 7 years...), the media consortium tried to shunt Elizabeth May and the Greens out of the Leaders' Debates. The public response was overwhelming and the media goons had to back down. Well, they're trying it again.

The Greens are a national party, running candidates in all ridings, unlike the Bloc. The Greens have intelligent comments about important issues, unlike the tired, old arguments we always get from the "other" parties. And, finally, if we had a decent system of proportional representation in Canada, the Greens would be a sizable party in the House of Commons.

This has got to stop. Demand that Elizabeth May be allowed to participate in the Leaders' Debates. E-mail the CBC and the CTV. Sign the on-line petition at DemandDemocraticDebates.ca and let Canadians hear what she has to say.