10th August - Manor Farm, York
Left Mansfield early for York as we had
been told it was a very nice town. We set ourselves up and then road into town
along the river. Nice but super busy. I went to a Jorvick tour
which was about the Vikings who apparently used to live in the northern part of
the UK many years ago. The set up was pretty good, they even had a "ride" that took you through a typical Viking town, including someone taking a "no 2" in a typical out door toilet at the end, with sound effects...classic.
The “shambles” is
this little street that apparently is always filmed if anything is in York, I
didn’t really see the big deal but I guess it was kind of cool with the little
shops and old school streets.
Shambles
York Castle
11th August – Durham Tees Valley Airport,
Durham
After a long think of where I could spread the ashes of my
Grandad I had finally found the perfect place. The Durham Tees Valley airport
(which just so happened to be on the way from York to our next stop in Durham) and was also known as the Middleton St George airfield which was used during World
War 2. As it turns out, papa Doug actually flew out of this airfield during his
service with the 419 RCAF squadron.
The St George Hotel in the background of some of the photos
was apparently the officers mess back in the day, the actual air strip was a
few miles from here. Some old buildings are scattered around the area but is
difficult to tell what they were or if they were in use during WW2.
Every year the remaining survivors and relatives would stay
at the hotel for rememberance day, some stay for a week. We got talking with
the one of the employees there who seemed to know a bit about it.
11th to 13th August – Forbes
Manor, Durham
After our beer in Doug’s Memory we
drove to Steve and Michelle’s place (their in-laws). They took us to Sedgefield with James,
Molly and Joan (Michelle’s mum) for a typical Sunday lunch. A great roast with
Yorkshire pudding and after a few pints we went to their friends house, Gavin and
Kate, for drinks……..whether they liked it or not. This was after Michelle damn
near rolled out a moving taxi to run up and scare the shit out of Kate whilst she
was parking her car.
They had a beautiful home with large windowed ceiling above the living area and beautiful kitchen but most importantly a kick ass back yard which I immediately explored.
The backyard
The Ashes Day 4
Nat went on a girls day with Michele to
Whitby (which apparently was a slight let down for all as it was packed out
with yobbos) and then went onto Runswick which was a beautiful seaside town.
I on the other hand, thanks to Steve
and Gavin, was able to go with the boys to the fourth day of the fourth Ashes
test. It was a fantastic day out, the ground was small ish with a capacity
crowd of around 17,000, so you were close to the action no matter where you
were.
The morning session was great, was able to see the Aussies bowl out
the English after some spirited batting by the English tail whilst enjoying a fosters (which is bloody everywhere and brewed in
England). It then rained
during the lunch break and delayed the start by 45 min or so, which I chalked
down as yet another typical English experience. After a burger and a few more beers
I enjoyed the great opening spell by Warner and Rogers, by tea I was pretty chuffed
and Steve and I were talking about the next days play.
Some more beers and a burger at tea, cause why
not when your team is finally showing some form, and by the time we left to catch the taxi at
about 6:15 it was 2 for 160 odd and the fifth day was looking to be a
cracker….
The game was extended to 7pm because of the rain, by
the time we arrived at Gavin and Kates place to meet the girls, it’s the
damndest thing,……….. I have no memory of
what happened next and so I say again was a fantastic day!
Actually I spent most of the night
sulking outside or in the next room NOT watching us loose the last wicket in
what I think is one of the worst loses for us in a while. To be in such a
strong position and crumble at a critical moment in the game and at a point
where we needed to show some fight and gain some momentum into the Australia’s
series is worrying.
Despite all that the actuall day, which
I spent mostly with Steve as there were two seats by them selves, was actually
pretty amazing. It was my first ashes experience and what a day. Typical Aussie
style I wore shorts and thongs because "since when is it that cold at a cricket
game", all I can say thank god for the
beer blanket.
Special mention must go out to Steve
Forbes. Despite him being English the day at the cricket with him was bloody awesome, terrific bloke. The decision to grab the pre-booked taxi which prevented me from seeing the
forgettable black afternoon (with the English crowd) has made me forever greatful. I think
however his son is still not talking to him……….
Gavin and Kate again made us feel all
very welcome (again) and put on a fantastic spread. We look forward to meeting up with Malcom (Gavins Dad) in Sterling.
Cathedral in Durham
13th August – Acomb (Near
Hexham)
A stop over really ready for Hadrians wall tomorrow. It wasn't a very clean site. I had started my old man routine and went back and had a snooze, then we walked down into Acomb and had a drink and game of pool in a small pub, again something here about Nat beating me but I can’t remember.
14th August – Dunstan
caravan park, Hadrians Wall!!!!!
Drove out to the Housestead Roman Fort
along Hadrians wall. Walked through the ruins of the old fort and along some of
the wall. It was very beautiful and scenic with surrounding countryside. We became
a member of the English Heritage which means free entry to hopefully all the
castles in England and some discounts for the ones in Scotland and Ireland.
Again much to Nats delight. We paid 84 pounds and as I write this we are down
to 44 pounds already with many more to visit.
That side.....bad
We arrived at the caravan park and then headed down to the beach to check out the Dunstan Castle, we are going in tomorrow so we took some shots from the beach
Not a bad back drop during a game of golf! JB and the Force would like this
15th to 16th August, Alnwick Farm
We got up early at Dunstan Caravan park to actually walk down to the Dunstan castle and check it out.
This is actually taken inside the castle grounds
We then headed to Alnwick which was a small certified site for two nights. Site was quite nice with power and great views.
The site
The view
Unfortunately it was too far out of town to walk it so the next day we drove in to see Alnwick Castle. Nice castle, still lived in by the Percy family (whomever they are). We saw a birds of prey show, did another dungeon show (not as good as Warrick but also didn’t cost anything either) and then left for a walk around small town.
Viewing point on our way to the Castle
We park with the big boys now
17th August – Elford Farm, Sea Houses
We arrived at Elford farm around midday, just hung out in camper, did some clothes washing. Bit of a non eventful day.
18th August – Seahouses Caravan park, Sea Houses
19th August – Berwick upon
Tweed
We drove down the road (30km) to
Berwick. The caravan park was on hillside overlooking town and harbour, quite
nice. 
Walked into town, checked out old barracks and had a hot drink at Café Nero. We didn’t do too many long drives as we had tickets to the Edinburgh Tattoo on the 21st, so we took our time heading north
20th August - Dunbar,
Scotland (just outside of Dunbar)
Scotland!!!!!! We drove to Dunbar for
the night because we were unable to change booking in Edinburgh. A small certified
location on a farm yard. Stopped off in Dunbar on way for sandwich. Seems to be
slightly colder again after just having crossed the border into Scotland. I hopefully
fixed the step into the camper, we kicked the footy and played some badminton
and even a couple games of rummikub, just relaxed and enjoyed the peace and
quiet.
21st to 23rd
August – Edinburgh Caravan park, Edinburgh
Good old Edinburgh. Found the caravan
park fairly early because you could arrive anytime after 9am. I think we
travelled through the ass end of the city as it looked a bit dodgy. The lady who checked us in was some crabby
sarcastic rude english biatch.
The Sun was out, we found a nice spot,
put the awning out and relaxed a bit before catching the bus into town. It was
pretty busy with the tattoo, fringe and comedy festivals on. Nice old and new
town areas. We had a beer with a view of the new town before the show and some Italian
dinner where Nats prawn head (the one she was eating that is) exploded over her
top, jeans and jacket, pretty funny from where I was sitting.
We headed to the tattoo which was
awesome, we didn’t miss anything even with our “restricted view” seats (only seats we could get!). The
groups were from Korea (south), NZ, Mexico and Scotland. The story of the night
was told over the four seasons. Excellent show, would do it again if we came back.
The Lone Piper
Next
day was a bit misty and cold so we just wandered around town and did a bit of
shopping. The next day we went to the castle, great views from the castle of
the city although it was a bit foggy again so it wasn’t very clear. They shot
the gun off at 1pm which they have been doing forever so everyone can have
their watches set at the same time. I liked it, bloody loud…Nat didn’t see the
point of it at all.
24th August – Tayport
We left the craby biatch at around midday from Edinburgh and found our certified location (farm) for the night, we rode the bikes into town but there wasn’t much to see. We could see across to Dundee over the water on the other side. We rode back and stopped off at the Scotscraig golf clubhouse for a drink. It’s the 13th oldest golf course in the world. We then had a new goal to find the oldest and soon realised it was in St Andrews which was a town that we sort of drove past already. We would head there tomorrow.
25th to 26 August – Forfar
Drove into St Andrews before heading to Forfar after the CL owner said it was quite a nice town, which it was. Unfortunately it was foggy again which always makes everything look very dull. Walked around the town, golf course, club house. This is where golf all started (well in this region anyway) Golf was actually banned for a while because it distracted the men from there day to day responsibilities, then they realised how shit boring it was and let it go. There are about 8 courses in the area and "the old course" is apparently the oldest around, mission accomplished.
Many of the photos and paintings are of this little bridge with the buildings in the background, got no idea why but we followed.
After lunch we left for Forfar and arrived late in the afternoon. Excellent caravan park, beautiful and green with fantastic and clean facilities. We are situated just next to a lake as well so Nat and I went for a jog and enjoyed the scenery.
27th to 29th August – Stonehaven
The next day we caught a bus into Aberdeen, walked along coast, stopped for a coffee and saw dolphins jumping out the water. Pretty cool and so many of them. I ordered Nat an “English breakfast equivalent tea” and later realised that they thought I meant the full English breakfast, I quickly told them (although this was about 20 min later) and to their disgust they stopped cooking and gave us the tea. We walked through the town, had lunch at Jaime Oliver's Italian restaurant which was nice and then headed back home. The city was very grey looking with all the buildings having the same type of façade, this added with the grey skies made the city look pretty depressing.
The next day we just chilled, didn’t get out of bed till 12ish and walked around the nearby forest.
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