Campervan trip!!

We borrowed mum & dad's mod-con campervan for the weekend and had a brilliant time on the East Coast with amazing weather! We drove down the A1 past Coldingham & St. Abbs (had a short walk over the cliffs and on the beach), then found an amazing campspot just south of Berwick, right on the coast.






On Saturday we drove across the causeway to Holy Island (Lindisfarne) and had a really nice morning exploring the island. It's really calm & peaceful, we walked right around the headland and got some nice views of the castle and priory. Tempted by a swim in the sea, but paddling was enough to completely freeze our legs so we decided that was good enough :)





After Holy Island we went to Bamburgh Castle - great location, if I had a castle I'd like one in a place like that ;) Enjoyed that, then on to Seahouses - a well-deserved icecream and then a game of crazy golf... fun! We picked up some stuff for a BBQ and then drove further down the coast towards Alnwick, ready for Sunday's plan to tour Alnwick Castle and Gardens! It was a bank holiday weekend so really busy but still enjoyed walking round. The castle would be great for kids learning about castles & history at school - loads of interactive stuff, dressing up, using bows & arrows etc... (ok, I loved it). There was a really cool treehouse at Alnwick Gardens aswell ;)





We drove back inland via the Border towns and had a wee tour around Melrose/St.Boswell's area - Dryburgh Abbey, Scott's View, Melrose Abbey etc. Really beautiful area... it was such a fun weekend!!

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Kilconquhar & Braemar

We had a great couple of days at Kilconquhar over Easter. Gav, Jen & Lochlann were staying the whole week with mum & dad, but we just had a couple of days (work gets in the way of having fun sometimes ;) We had some really nice walks along the coast, played golf at the driving range, did the chain walk at Elie (with Lochlann on my back!) and took him for his first swim in the pool - adorable :) I'm not sure if he was loving the temperature at first, but the plastic ducks and inflatable play ring that mum & dad got him made it all worthwhile... Here's a few too many pictures of him, but he is quite cute - especially in his snowsuit :)

The following weekend we went up to Braemar and did some biking & walking which was as enjoyable as always up there...weather was great again, still some snow on the tops but melting fast!

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West Coast

Richard & I had a long weekend on the west coast with fantastic weather, which was an added bonus! We climbed Ben Lomond on Friday - masses of snow still on the tops, so decided to just go up & down the main route...





Took a cross-country route to try and find a good camping spot but ended up checking into a campsite at Arrochar as it was getting late and we needed some gas for cooking (I managed to remember the stove but no gas...oops). We were asked if we could put up our tent really quickly as it was against the rules to put the tents up after it was dark - I actually thought they were kidding, has health & safety gone MAD?! Perhaps they think people might trip over their own guy-ropes, dive 10 metres, fall down the hill, break their leg & then sue for bad site planning. What a joke. We successfully pitched our tent and settled into a five-star dinner of noodles, accompanied by a shandy - perfect.





On Saturday we had a really nice bike ride near Inverary - circular route ending up back at the castle. It was raining when we set off but cleared up and turned into another great day. Continuing north-west past Lochawe, we stayed in Oban on Saturday and had a fantastic meal at a wee restaurant in town (almost as good as the noodles the night before). On Sunday we took a huge ferry (see boat picture above) over to Luing, pronounced 'Ling', and biked round the island. Somehow managed to get four people & 4 bikes onto the boat on the way there which was a logistical challenge but saved the 10 minutes it would have taken for the ferry to go across and back again :) It was beautiful cycling round the coastal route, with great views over to Mull as it was such a clear day. Slate-quarrying seems to have been the main lifestyle over there 50-100 years ago but most of them are disused now... Afterwards we drove to Easdale, which was surprisingly busy, and had a shop full totally random & quite weird items. Easdale Island is apparently famous for hosting stone-skimming championships - that's my random fact of the day.

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