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The day after checking my sis into Oxford, we went down to the New Forest National Park last Monday. The deer enclosure there wasn’t all that exciting, but the area had some really lovely and calming woodlands, humble little streams, and moors. Managed to sink into some deep thought while dozing on the prickly grass, while wild ponies trotted past.
Wednesday came the road trip proper. With Xi, Kamil, and Randy who was visiting from Holland. On our way up, we passed by the North Yorkshire Moors, a beautiful landscape of heather moorland, complete with grazing sheep.
By the eastern coast was the little civil parish town of Whitby, featured in Dracula, with some well-utilised but clean beaches and rock pools.
It was getting late when we got to Newcastle, so most shops were shut. Grabbed dinner and left; our hotel was an hour’s drive away. Most memorable takeaway phrase from the city were the words on a cathedral banner: ‘Love good, hate evil’.
Drove into Seahouses on Thursday morning, where the boats to the Farnes launch from. Skipper says bad weather, sea swells, no go. So to Berwick-Upon-Tweed we went instead, the most northerly town in England. It has seen many bloody battles between the Scottish and the English, but it’s now a quiet seaside town with historic ramparts and town walls and an impressive-looking Romanesque Royal Border Bridge which we then found out was constructed only in 1847.
At the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick, we hung around puffiny merchandise and natural history books. There was another beach and rocky shore, littered with families and screaming children with spades, buckets and nets. Dead jellyfish aplenty, a few teeny crabs and polychaetes in the water. Did jumping-jack remote-controlled group shots on the rocks while the tides came in from behind.
I like Edinburgh. It’s got a very European feel, and there are pseudo versions of buildings, statues or monuments that they have in London. Very historical. Busiest city we’ve visited so far. Scottish bagpipers round the street corner, shops selling kilts, Tam o’ Shanters, sporrans and other Scottish garb. Went past the statue of David Hume with his lucky toe polished to a golden shine by passers-by wishing for some good fortune. Entertained by bubble-blowing buskers in front of the St Giles Cathedral.