Aberdeen

Yesterday I visited Stirling castle, which is touted as one of the outstanding castles in Scotland. And it was. I briefly visited the Church of the Holy Rude, which is significant because it still has its medieval timber roof. From Stirling I drove to Loch Lednock Reservoir. I spent a few pleasant hours walking around the loch. In case you are wondering, Loch Lednock featured in a TV programme I rather liked, so I was keen to visit it. The remainder of the day was taken up in a 2 1/2 hour drive to Aberdeen. I discovered today that most of the attractions in Aberdeen, and the tourist office, are closed on Sunday. I should have checked. Nevertheless, I had a very pleasant day- it was cloudless and warm. I was almost tempted to swim at the beach near the city centre, except that the water did look a little murky and no-one else appeared to be brave enough to go in. In the late afternoon I drove to Braemar, west of Aberdeen, in the Cairngorms. Pictured are my car & tent in Braemar.

Stirling

The nicest weather on my trip so far, warm and sunny. Since the weather is so nice, rather than going to Glasgow after Edinburgh (my original plan) I headed to Stirling. Stirling is home to the national swimming centre, which includes an olympic swimming pool. So my first stop this morning was the pool. From there I drove to Callander and then to Aberfoyle, over the Duke Pass, another "classic" UK touring route. Callander and Aberfoyle are in the Loch Lohmond and Trossachs national park, so it was all very picturesque. Later in the afternoon I walked up Ben Leni, also in the national park. In the bright sun it was quite hard going but the views from the top were great. The photo is taken from the top, looking east over Loch Lubnaig. The late sunset is great. I am writing this at 9.30pm and it is still quite light outside.

Edinburgh

I love what they have done with Edinburgh- all credit to its decorator. I spent several hours yesterday at Edinburgh castle. Among the many great attractions at the castle the highlight was viewing the Scottish crown jewels. I tried to visit Holyrood palace, but someone important was staying there so it was closed. As a consolation I visited the nearby Scottish parliament building and was underwhelmed. I had a look through the Bank of Scotland museum and the better bits of the Scottish national museum. This morning I visited the Brittania, the former royal yacht (decommissioned in 1997). It is a lot bigger than I had realised. It must have been fun for the royals. I spent the afternoon at Rosslyn Chapel, an amazing gothic church, which was featured in the Da vinci Code. It was genuinely spooky. I caught up with Olly in the late afternoon, as we were both very coincidentally in Edinburgh at the same time. I was having a better time though, Olly had just had a very tough exam.

Scotland

I meandered today from Wooler in northern England to Edinburgh. Along the way I stopped at Coldstream and Traquair House. In Coldstream I had a look at the small and uninsipring town museum. Traquair House was much better. It is Scotland's oldest continously inhabited house, starting life as a royal hunting lodge. It is packed with interesting items accumulated by the resident noble family over the last few hundred years. I arrived in Edinburgh in the late afternoon. In the evening I walked into the old town. Edinburgh is spectacular. It is packed with grand stone buildings and there is not a 60s era concrete box to be seen. It is fantastically coherent and atmospheric. The photo is of Edinburgh castle. This is my first foray to Scotland since my first and not entirely successful trip here 12 years ago. I am really looking forward to a couple of weeks in Scotland.

Durham

I met Jessie and James in Durham on Saturday and we stayed till Monday (it was a long weekend). Our accommodation was an apartment near the town centre. The apartment was luxurious after a few weeks using my tent and staying in hostels. And it had a washing machine, a godsend. We visited the cathedral and castle in Durham on Saturday and Jessie cooked a very nice meal. On Sunday we drove up to Lindisfarne, an island, but it is accessible from the mainland at low tide, which restricted our visit to 2 hours. We walked around part of the island. We went to Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost town in England. We also had an oligatory stop at the "angel of the north" (pictured). Monday was a very nice day. We visited Hadrian's wall; walking on the path next to the wall to the remnants of a roman fort (which counts as a pretty significant piece of roman architecture in the UK). Jessie and James trained back to London in the early evening and I continued going north.

Yorkshire coast

I stopped briefly today in Whitby, Captain Cook's adopted home town. I walked part of the Clevedon Way, from Robin Hood's Bay (a nice old fishing village with steep narrow streets) to Scarborough (an ugly, depressing town with no apparent redeeming characteristics that I could see- maybe it's nicer in warmer weather?). The views were nice and the weather was mostly fine. The walk took me 6 hours. I caught a bus back from Scarborough to the hostel. I broke my golden rule today and attempted to rely on following a well known path rather than using a map. I wish that I had bought a map.

Lake District to the Yorkshire coast

On Tuesday I drove from the lake district to Richmond, on the eastern edge of the Yorkshire dales, via the Kirkstone pass (and a laundrette). The kirkstone pass is the highest pass navigable by car in the lake district and rises to a dizzying 450m. The view from the top was nice. The trip via the kirkstone pass is one of the "classic" touring routes in the UK. I had not originally planned to travel back through the dales but I had left some clothes in the drying room at the hostel in Hawes a few days earlier, so I did not really have a choice. Wednesday was an "admin" day but I did go to Richmond castle, which is crumbling picturesqely (pictured). In the late afternoon I drove to the Yorkshire coast.

Wasdale, Lake District

Monday morning was wet, so I went to Keswick to do some shopping. Then I drove to Wasdale, which is on Lake Wastwater, the deepest lake in the Lake District. I had discovered two days before that the highest mountain in England, Scafell Pike (977m) is in the Lake District (I really had no idea where the highest mountain was before that), so I decided to climb it. The weather cleared in the early afternoon, although the tops of the mountains were still in cloud. The walk up was relatively easy although it was very windy. At about 700m I entered the cloud cover and visibility dropped to about 30 feet. The wind was the worst I have ever experienced, which made it fun and a bit challenging. I haven't posted a picture from the top of Scarfell Pike, as there was not much to see other than the clouds and a large cairn. I only met two groups of climbers all day as well as one runner! On Tuesday I walked up Pillar (892m). The day was clear so the views from the top were superb. The photo looks south- you can see Scafell Pike, which is the peak in the middle of the photo. On Tuesday night I stayed at the youth hostel and met the first NZers since I left London, a father and daughter from New Plymouth. We had a long chat about trying to drive and navigate in the UK.

Buttermere, Lake District

I have spent the last few days in the Lake District. On Saturday I had a very lazy day. I drove from Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales to the Lake District, the long way round. Rather than considering carbon emissions I took the scenic route up the A591 and A592. I stopped in Windermere for lunch. Being a weekend it was packed, so I ate my lunch and then left. My compliments to Tesco where I bought a very good chicken sandwich for a reasonable £1.80. I stopped and looked at the Casterigg stone circle. It was built around around 3000 BC, possibly to assist with following the seasons or possibly to show off to the tribe down the road. I stopped in Keswick. Keswick is home to dozens of outdoors stores (with some very moody staff) and a pencil museum (graphite was discovered in Keswick). People tell me that the musem is actually very good; I didn't go. I arrived in Buttermere in the late afternoon. Buttermere is located in an isolated valley and is home to a pub, some B&Bs, the youth hostel (where I stayed) and not much else. The weather on Saturday morning was very nice. I set off with my ordinance survey map for High Stile, one of the mountains around Buttermere. High Stile is 807m, so not particularly high but it was a challenging walk. If you ever attempt it yourself, watch out for a low overhanging rock 2/3 of the way up, as it hurts if you hit your head on it. The view from the top was fantastic- see the photo, which shows Crummock Water and Lake Buttermere (at the bottom right corner). At about 2pm the rain started. I walked for a couple more hours and then decided that it was not much fun anymore and headed back to Buttermere.

Malham Cove

This is Malham Cove, a large limstone outcrop in the Yorkshire Dales. The views from the top are fantastic. It dates back to the last ice age and used to be a waterfall That's all of the information about it that I can remember, but it did look cool.

Yorkshire Dales

I hadn't planned to stay in the Yorkshire dales but I changed my mind when I saw the stone walls, the pretty villages and the views. I've done one fairly long walk, from the village of Malham where I was staying. The views were fantastic but it was very windy up on the exposed moors (where the photo was taken). Driving in the dales is great. Not only is it picturesque but the roads undulate a lot, which makes for a roller coaster type ride. Today I went on the Settle-Carlisle railway, which is considered to be one of the most scenic train trips in the UK. It was great sitting back and relaxing on the train. I spent a couple of hours in Carlisle, which is near the Scottish border. I spent most of that time at the castle, which worked out well as it was pouring with rain and most of the sites were indoors.

National Media Museum Bradford

The only reason to go to Bradford was to visit the national media museum. Zippy & George from Rainbow were exhibited. I assume that they were the original puppets- the caption didn't actually say as much. The museum was interesting but not as good as I had imagined a "national" museum would be (I won't go into the boring details of what I didn't like). But it did have two very good exhibits, one showing the work of Don McCullin, an English photographer and the other on animals and the media, which was much better than it sounds. I escaped from Bradford and went to Malham in the Yorkshire Dales. On the way I detoured to Holmfirth, the village where the tv series Last of the Summer Wine is set. I arrived too late to do very much but I had a bit of a wander around. It is very attractive in a "lots of quaint stone buildings built on the sides of a steep valley" way. It was a lot bigger than I had imagined and with a lot more traffic. Now for the great outdoors in the Yorkshire Dales.

Old York

I spent the day in York yesterday. A very nice day, but a little nippy. The photo is of the Minster (in the distance) from the city wall. The Minster (the cathedral) is the "must do" activity. And of course it was spectacular, with stained glass, ornate tombs, soaring columns etc. But the crpyt was actually more interesting, really a museum with exhibits of items discovered over the last two thousand years (and although they are not explicit about it, clearly some had come from raiding the tombs of some of the former archbishops!). I walked around the walls and generally gadded about town.
I had another go at camping just out of town. A nice place and a bargain at £7. It was not nearly as windy as the last time I camped, which made it so much more pleasant. There were a number of signs warning campers to be "dead quiet" after 11pm- I realy do feel like I'm in the North now.

Calke Abbey

Calke Abbey is located between Leceister and Nottingham. What sets this family pile out from others is that it has been preserved in the state of decay it was found in when the last member of the family to live there died in 1981. At that point he was only living in two of the rooms of the house. The house is filled with hundreds of years worth of collected possessions of the family, including fastidiously arranged displays of hundreds of stuffed birds. It was an amazing building to explore; a treasure trove of all sorts of miscellanioud things, like Edwardian clothes and a pristine 200 year old four poster silk bed, an unusable wedding present that had been left in storage for a couple of hundred years! It's really rather sad to think about the last owner, surrounded by all sorts of precious items but unable to care for them and living in an almost poverty stricken state. The gardens were rather nice. Overall a very enjoyable place to spend an afternoon.

Peterhouse College, Cambridge

An almost decent piece of turf.

King's College Chapel, Cambridge

Cambridge

I arrived in Cambridge early in the afternoon. My first stop was King's College Chapel, famous for it's fan-vaulted ceilings. Some of the colleges were closed for exams, but I was able to wander through Peterhouse and Emmanuel Colleges- all beautifully manicured quads and majestic buildings. Only the students looked out of place, all dressed in jeans and t-shirts. The lawns reminded me of Astrerix in Britain- "a few more hundred years of tender loving care and it should make a decent piece of turf" (or words to that effect). The Round Church of the knights Templar was interesting.