Chas and Katrina "Never stop exploring": August 2011

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Days off in Northumbria

Our days off in Bellingham coincided with the English bank holiday weekend and as Chas' bike needed a new spoke in the rear wheel it was an opportune time for our host Bill, to show us some of the Northumbria countryside. This included a day driving to the Lakes District to visit a climbing friend of Bill's.
Previous posts have commented on the Scottish and English weather and tonight it was confirmed on BBC news that this summer has been the coldest since 1993, with 25% more rainful and 25% less sunshine than average. We can only hope that autumn brings more settled weather as we cycle south to Colchester on the last leg of our circumnavigation of the North Sea. Tomorrow we catch a train through the very built up areas of Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesborough and come out the other side onto the Yorkshire moors.
Surprisingly England is proving to be the most difficult to forward plan campsites. We have needed to spend quite some time on the computer sorting out our daily itinerary because there are no comprehensive campsite maps and information. Our plan is to complete the cycling in Colchester, where we started, on the 19th of September

Roped in to timekeep at a National Series Roller skiing event

Alston- England's highest town

Lakes District countyside

Keilder forest stream

Friday, August 26, 2011

Edingburgh to Newcastle

After a fabulous few days in Edinburgh, unfortunately it was time to head south once more. To exit the city with little hassle we used the local Scotrail commuter train to get us into the countryside. We thought the £4 each was well worth it! The day we left was very pleasant with a nice ride along a disussed railway line for part of the way and believe it or not we were back into shorts as we made our way to Dunbar and a local campsite. The welcome from the Scottish manager was overwhelming, one would have thought we were long lost cousins. Chas' old climbing buddy Bill had decided to bike with us from Dunbar to Newcastle and we met up with him the next day.
Another milestone was reached the following day when just before Berwick on Tweed, we crossed the border into England. Our Scottish section, although with much rain and mixed weather, had been great and were frankly sad to leave.
From Berwick to Newcastle many small villages and castles were passed..typical old English architecture from days past.
Bill provided us with transport to his home in Bellingham where we are now spending a few days in the area before he gets us back on track south of Newcastle.

Dunbar harbour and ruins of Dunbar castle

Dunbar harbour

Bill, Chas' climbing buddy after he joined us in Dunbar

Another country lane

Coldingham Priory

Crossing the border into England

Looking back towards Berwick on Tweed

Farm cottages

Coastline south of Berwick

Bamburgh castle

One of the many old English pubs

English seaside essentials...!!!

Grain harvest in full swing

Warkworth Castle

Main street in Amble

Newcastle upon Tyne

The many bridges over the River Tyne

Kielder Castle

Friday, August 19, 2011

Edinburgh and the Festival

Arriving in Edinburgh the festival was in full swing. The population increases from its 800,000 residents to a staggering 2 million people, coming from all parts of the world. It is a stunning atmosphere with street theatre and thousands of organised events including all the Fringe festival activities. Traditionally the main event is the Military Tattoo held each night in the Edinburgh castle and is fully booked months ahead for the duration of the festival. How ever we were told that there are sometimes return tickets so we rocked up to the ticket office and as luck would have it there had just been 2 tickets returned which we grabbed... We didn't observe any empty seats in the arena and consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time.What an amazing evening of music, lights, action and fireworks, An event that should be on every ones bucket list. We spent 2 days soaking up the atmosphere of this great carnival event. Let the selection of pictures tell the story.

Aberdeen to Edinburgh

Having made our way through Aberdeen we headed down the coast to the camp site marked on the map at Cove Bay. After much looking around and asking we established that there was actually no camp there. This was the first time the maps had let us down. No trouble we thought. We will just get a hotel for the night. The first big hotel we found was fully booked but the girl rang around and eventually after some anxious moments found us a room at the Cove Bay Hotel- our first night in a bed since we left the hotel in Colchester. Making our way down the coast we passed through the town of Stonehaven, where we walked up to the remains of the Dunnotter castle, which is built right out on the coast. All these towns were old fishing villages with protected harbours still used today. Approaching Dundee we banged into Colin who was a local cyclist who helped us negotiate our way through the city. He also took us to see Captain Robert Scott's ship 'Discovery' which was built in Dundee and visited Port Chalmers on the way to the Southern Ocean. We decided that we didn't want the hassle with all the traffic coming into Edinburgh so we caught the train the last few kms into the central city. We were lucky to have somewhere to stay, as it is right in the middle of the internationally famous Edinburh Festival and Military Tattoo and accomodation is almost impossible. Chas' friend Trevor, rang an old friend in Edinburgh and she has put us up for three nights, which has been wonderful. Without it we would have to have caught the train straight through Edinburgh and out the other side without stopping. More on Edinburgh in the next post.