Gandalf the Grey is parked up on a lovely little Certified Location (a 5 van members only site with no facilities other than EHU) in Thurne on the Norfolk Broads. Home Farm is just 45 mins from our house, and although not quite on the banks of the river, the River Thurne is only a couple of hundred metres walk away and we also have a rather nice looking pub a minute way too. A perfect location for us to try out our new wheels!
The best thing about Gandalf is that all our pre existing gadgets have transferred across from Ruby, apart from the tow bar of course. “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” and this is a sentiment close to our heart after a terrific summer of campervanning in dear old Ruby.
We have made one slight change though. Keith, who has only ever been happy bbq-ing on coals, decided to give up charcoal in favour of a Cadac Safari chef. Mainly because the boot is slightly smaller in Gandalf, this saved having to carry charcoal etc around. It’s compact size fits in our boot a treat.
We’ve changed a few other small bits and bobs here and there and I will do a full list of our new gadgets shortly.
On arrival to our site, we set about our first camp set up. We filled with water at the tap as our water tank is now onboard and accessed through the tailgate. Up went the roof, and I soon discovered that my setting up jobs were minimal as now the food boxes live in the cupboards permanently there was barely anything to transfer from the boot! I helped Keefy with the tailgate awning and we fought with the wind and got the canopy up for an hour or so. The passenger captain chair swivels effortlessly and so we were literally set up and enjoying lunch within 30 minutes. Perfect!
We went for a wander round the local area, following a 2 mile geocaching trail and finished with a pint or two at the local pub before making our way back (with takeouts!) for showers in the tailgate awning and then a bbq dinner on the cadac. Everything worked like a dream and we were loving standing up!
We set the bed up early, eager to try out the last gadget – the 3 seater rock and roll seat which transfers into a wider and longer bed than we’ve been used to in Ruby, so we soon crashed out.
I woke in the night to use to the portapotti and couldn’t believe my eyes- the windows in the pop top gave a panoramic view of the blanket of stars twinkling away. I couldn’t resist sneaking out in my onesie through the tailgate awning to marvel at the Milky Way whilst everyone else on site (including my husband and dog!) was deep in the land of nod. I stood in awe whilst listening to the owls circling around us on the surrounding fields. I blooming love CL campsites.
Saturday morning dawned bright and breezy, and luckily for me, Keefy couldn’t wait to get the kettle on- he was eager to make the morning coffee with the added novelty of being able to stand up! I clearly had no issue with this! We decided to have a lazy morning – I read my book in bed whilst Keefy tinkered, and tinkered some more. It was like he had ants in his pants. He tells me he was enjoying having a good explore and fiddle of every nook and cranny of Gandalf- I was enjoying my book so all was well with the world.
At midday we decided to have an early lunch as we’d eyed up the pizza menu at the pub. Brisket, goats cheese and red onion pizza (s) – yes, we had one each 🐷 – inhaled, we set about a 4.5 mile circular walk along with River Thurne and past 3 gorgeous traditional wind pumps.
The weather was just incredible, not a cloud in the sky. The river was busy with holiday makers enjoying the last few weeks of the season on hire boats and the wind, although slightly gentler now, was rustling through the reeds and making the sails tinkle. It felt like the perfect day.
When we got back to Gandalf we decided to get the inflatable Banana chairs out and enter serious chill mode. We really needed this this weekend- it’s been so stressful getting back into work mode after the summer with so many changes to negotiate, it was like our minds were just beginning to process the last 6 months.
Dinner was a homemade curry. Like Keith, the novelty factor of standing up was great! How have we managed 4 years without a pop up?
After washing up we settled in to watch the Michael Mckintyre Netflix special which was hilarious, before doing some star gazing at a sociable time! These Norfolk skies really are spectacular when the conditions are good.
We both slept like logs Saturday night. All too soon though, after a bacon and egg sandwich made on the cadac,it was time to pack up and head home.
Gandalf gave me a parting gift of almost concussion- I really spanked my head hard on the bed section of the pop up near the passenger seat, and almost knocked myself out! 2 minutes later Keith almost broke his wrist getting the awning pegs out! What a pair we are! Despite that though, we’d had a terrific weekend and are thrilled to bits with Gandalf. Absolutely smitten!
Until next time – which will be next weekend as we’ve (hopefully, no lockdown permitting) got another expedition planned- yay!
On Friday we said a very said farewell to our beloved Ruby the VW.
And so, we’d like you all to meet our new wheels, Gandalf the Grey!
When we got Ruby in February 2017 it was an experiment. We had to get rid of Ruby’s predecessor Bluebell quickly. We knew we wanted to try downsizing to enable us to just have one vehicle that we used for day to day and holidays, and store at home but, with Keith being 6 foot 4 we had no idea if it would work.
3.5 years later, 75k miles and 160 nights away, we’ve decided, yes, it does work and we flipping love it.
So why have we swapped vans?
Ruby was ageing, and quickly!
This summer our clock passed 228,000 miles. Everyone says a VW goes forever, and to be honest we’re sure Ruby has got some adventures in her still to come. But as she’s our only drive we add 1000s of miles a month, and we felt it was time to slash our clock basically whilst we still could. We didn’t want to loose our investment in her and wanted to get some money (or a part exchange opportunity) in whilst we still could.
We spent some time whilst in Kent recently exploring some options as to what happens next in our Campervan journey. We thought this may be chance to go a touch bigger, and looked at a brand new Adria Twin, based on a Fiat. Whilst the fixed bed at the back was lovely, the rest of van didn’t feel spacious enough for what was going to be a big difference and many compromises in day to day driving for us. Keith was keen to explore the options of a van with onboard shower and loo, but, seeing as he couldn’t fit in it, it was pointless!
That looks like a perfect shower position… not!
We found ourselves at Bilbo’s and fell in love with their pop up roofs. Can you believe we’ve had Ruby all this time and never been in a VW with a pop up?! We specifically like the Bilbo roof as it’s side opening which means you get the height right down the length of the van. We ALMOST caved and ordered a brand new, custom built for us, t6 there and then.
It was a surreal moment sat in their show van with a shopping list of toffees what we wanted to be added! But alas, they couldn’t take Ruby as a PX and it was logistically too difficult to PX elsewhere and be without a van for 4 months. In the end the black horse finance that we would have needed to rely on came out at paying over £20,000 in interest. Er, no thanks! That was the end of that.
The very next day I just happened (and this genuinely happened) to see a second hand Bilbo conversion on Facebook marketplace. I’ve never even been on marketplace before! It was being sold by a dealer in Bedford and had only 19,000 miles on the clock! We made arrangements to see it the next day and 10 days later here we are about to be picking him up.
I’ll do another post shortly showing Gandalf off to you properly but the pics below were taken Friday night after we picked him up in the morning, kitted him out in the afternoon and went for dinner down the road in the evening.
We couldn’t NOT call him Gandalf, despite me never naming a car a male name in my life! He’s a Bilbo’s conversion (Bilbos named their company after Bilbo Baggins, a small and seemly insignificant character who travelled across worlds in the famous book Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings- taken from their website). Gandalf is a key character who travels extensively in both Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, both of which Keith particularly loves. There was no way our new van would be named anything else!
We look forward to sharing our switch over with you!
Ruby the VW is parked at Alderstead Heath Club site just off the M25 near to Caterham. Despite its very close proximity to the M25 it’s a delightfully peaceful retreat set within trees and countryside. We’ve stayed here before and we picked it again as it’s very close to Keith’s dad and step mum’s house. We’re down here catching up for a couple of days so other than a pic I took of Ruby using my new night vision mode on my new iPhone there’s not too much to say about our stay here.
But it’s an ideal base for touring Surrey- there’s a number of National Trust properties close by and Gatwick airport is also close (great for plane spotting and using the flight radar app to see whether everyone is returning from!) We were supposed to visit Chartwell whilst here with Keith’s dad but that ended up not happening due us having to whisk him off to A and E after slicing his hand open whilst washing up!
Sunday saw us change location; we moved down the road to the outskirts of Hever, Kent. Our site for the night was the absolutely brilliant Pigdown Farm. It’s a caravan and Motorhome club Certified location (5 van site) and had nothing other than a water tap, bin and basic emptying point. But at £5 a night and more space than we knew what to do with, plus an easy walk to the pretty and very historical village of Hever what more could we wish for.
We met up with Keith’s brother and sister in law and enjoyed lunch in the pub, the historical Henry VIII which sits opposite to Anne Boleyn’s childhood home, Hever Castle.
After lunch we enjoyed a couple of hours exploring the grounds of Hever Castle with our pre booked tickets. We didn’t have Jazz on this trip because we’d read Hever wasn’t dog friendly, but there were loads of dogs out and about so we must have made a mistake. Sorry Jazz, we deprived you of a trip!
Having said that, on our return to the campsite it became clear that not having Jazz was a blessing when our campsite field got invaded by sheep!
We made the most of the fact the campsite was empty other than one caravan literally the other side (probably a third of a mile away!!) by inviting Keith’s brother, sister in law and our friend who live ten mins down the road over for a drink and a catch up which a lovely and the canopy really came into its own as the heavens opened! They were in hysterics as the sheep came! It’s was a lovely afternoon and evening.
Monday arrived and we moved on; our first stop was to Lullingstone Roman Villa,a bucket list visit for Keefy.
Lullingstone was uncovered in the 1930s and is deemed one of the best preserved remains of a Roman villa to be found so far in the UK. It includes a fabulous mosaic floor along with some original paintwork and plaster! Also lots of artefacts have also been uncovered. We enjoyed a brilliant visit here, it blew me away when I got my first view of the villa.
From here we moved onto the nearby Eynsford Castle, equally as impressive because it has absolutely huge (and rare) curtain walls, and they are almost complete. Eynsford is also quite rare because it wasn’t changed or adapted since it was built in the late Norman era.
We had lunch here before stocking up on some supplies and moving onto our next campsite, a 30 minute drive to Hilders Farm, overlooking Bough Beech reservoir. We have electric hook up tonight but no other facilities and at just £12 pn we feel this is a fair price. This site felt much smaller than the previous one (the other one was HUGE!), but we were the only ones here in the end.
A caravan packed up and left after we set up (they were escaping the storm due) and the other caravan was in storage. The weather became slightly mixed but our canopy allowed us to sit out nonetheless. What a great investment that’s been!
We had a bbq for dinner before having an earlyish night. The winds started softly during the night but our tailgate awning did well in it.
Tuesday dawned rainy and we set about our first rainy pack away of the summer! We’ve got it down to a fine art now though and it took us just over 30 mins. We headed the short drove to Penshurst Place and Gardens. When we booked this at the beginning of Aug the Baron’s hall was not open but luckily for us and the wash out that is today, last week the Baron’s Hall reopened so we were able to go and look.
Baron’s Hall is a medieval hall house dating from 1340 and is absolutely wonderful! It’s 60ft high and has a hammer beam roof similar to Westminster Hall (but on a smaller scale obviously!). No pics allowed sadly.
The gardens are extensive and we enjoyed a wander around despite the wet weather.
From here, we could have visited Hever as we were once again very close. There is also a carriage route turned into a footpath between Penshurst and Hever Castle. If it hadn’t been so wet we’d have had a wander down that.
We were close to Chartwell and Emmett’s Garden National trust here, so as you can see this area is certainly worth basing yourselves in. Keith’s stepmother tells me them at Emmetts garden is worth a visit for the Bluebells so we will make a visit next spring for sure.
We however moved an hour further south from Penshurst for our third and final campsite of our mini break. We arrived at Devenden Farm just near to Cranbrook, Kent. At just £7pn it was another no frills basic site with just a tap and emptying point, but the views were fabulous across the Kent Weald.
Again the field was large and as we didn’t have hook up we could pitch anywhere. We are both really enjoying these quiet sites. We shared the site with a tent right at the other end. By now the rain had stopped but it was a bit drafty so we got our canopy and awning out to dry which it did very quickly. We managed the awning up until bed time but took it down as it was blowing a hooley!
We cooked a lovely chicken saag curry for dinner and enjoyed watching the sun go down whilst drinking Kent ale and Kent gin!
We slept very well despite the wind and woke up Wednesday to glorious blue skies and sunshine.
We packed up and drove the short distance to Bodiam Castle. What a treat!! Bodiam Castle is a spectacular fairytale moated 14th century castle. The inside is ruins (and also not open currently due to Covid) but the outside is worth a trip alone! We LOVED it!
From here we made the short journey to Bateman’s National Trust site- once home to Rudyard Kipling. I made Keefy laugh as I thought it was the home of exceeding good cakes! But he reminded me all the books I had read by Kipling, my personal favourite being the Jungle Book.
The house itself is a wonderful Jacobean Manor House. It also has a brilliant example of a Oast House; we’ve seen many as we’ve driven through Kent this week. They were built to store hops. We’ve also noticed many of the houses in these Kent villages have slate on the exterior walls.
The gardens were lovely at Batemans and we will definitely revisit when the house reopens as apparently it’s been left exactly as it was during Kipling’s time here.
For now though, it was time to head back home. We’d had a lovely time away again. Interestingly we’d used Ruby differently this time, moving on to a new campsite each day. I was worried about this when we booked the trip however I needn’t have. We’ve got it down to 30 mins now set up and pack away!
The stars of the show were the 5 van sites with no hook up. We are Loving these whilst it’s warm enough to shower in the awning. We perhaps need to consider a larger leisure battery to enable us to do more of these in the future. Who knows. The thing about our camping is it constantly evolves!
Hoping to have a weekend away towards the end of September but for now it’s all about the return to work. So wish us luck on that!
Ruby the VW is parked up on the now dry Stonehaven Caravan and Motorhome club site. We’re just on the outskirts of Stonehaven, on the East Coast of Scotland underneath Aberdeen. The site is a standard C&MC Club site, although after the last few nights of being surrounded by terrific views, we can’t help but feel a bit ‘meh’!
The purpose of our visit here is to visit the quaint harbour and the hidden gem that is Dunnotter Caste. The campsite is ideally located for both of these – just a short walk to the harbour and a little further to the castle along the coast path.
As its Friday we decided to treat ourselves to a nice fish meal in one of the pubs here. Seeing as the campsite facilities were open we also decided to treat ourselves to a long hot shower beforehand so I decided to declare it a date night, and therefore I even put some make up on for the first time in over a week!
We walked along the sea front to the harbour and enjoyed a nice meal in The Ship Inn. Cullen Skink to start and Haddock and chips for main, both of us enjoyed the meal and the view out to the harbour.
After dinner we took a wander around the harbour and enjoyed looking at all the fishing boats before heading back to Ruby for an earlyish night; the weather had turned a bit cooler on the coast and all our excitement of the previous days had begun to catch up on me!
Saturday dawned not quite as bright as the weather forecast has suggested, but no rain which meant our 10th day with no rain during the day. Hurrah! First job was to extract a tick on Jazz’s eye lid. Thank goodness I had my tweezers! We donned our walking books and set off again back into the harbour area, stopping for lunch at The Seafood Bothy – which we’d eyed up last night. They are a converted horse trailer which sell posh seafood lunches for takeaway – and all the seafood comes off their own boat. We ordered two lobster wraps, for collection in half an hour; just time to nip and try a pint of lager in The Maine Hotel bar; 6 degrees north. They brew their own lagers and ales. In fact we’ve noticed more and more local lager becoming more of a thing on this trip. It was very nice and refreshing.
The lobster wraps were delicious. Whilst we were enjoying them the fisherman (and assuming husband of the lady in the trailer) asked us what we’d gone for, when we told him he said “good choice, I caught those lobsters less than 20 hours ago!” Great!!
After lunch we set about our walk to Dunnottar Castle. The first bit out of the harbour was very very steep! But once up on the cliff top it was a fairly easy walk and we were rewarded with lovely views, especially when the castle came into view.
On Wednesday, after all the rainfall, Dunnottar Castle suffered a landslide which resulted in them closing the castle. Saturday was its first day reopening and we could see the damage caused as we descended to the entrance of the castle.
Dunnottar Castle is a hidden gem, let me tell you! We LOVED our visit so much. There is absolutely loads to see including some amazing bread ovens that have survived since the 1400s, an original cistern, brewery! Also some of the walls and chimneys that have survived all these years were just incredible, considering their position on the coastline and the years and years of battering they must have endured.
The Scottish Crown Jewels were hidden here from Oliver Cromwell’s army in the 17th Century. We spent a good few hours here exploring the nooks and crannies, before making our way back along the coast path to Stonehaven. It took about 45 minutes the way each way from the harbour.
We stopped for one last beer on the front before walking back to Ruby via what should have been the Coop. Although. We got distracted by the Carron Fish Bar and its huge sign saying that it had ‘won the best fish and chip shop in Scotland award 2020’ and also ‘top 10 in UK’. I’m sure that it will come as no surprise that we changed our meal plans and went for our second haddock and chips in 24hours! The Carron Fish Bar was also the birthplace of the deep fried Mars bar but Keefy drew the line at me having one of those. We had a very quick walk back to Ruby to be able to enjoy our fish and chip supper with a nice glass of white at Ruby.
All too soon our trip had come to an end. We’d covered lochs, mountains, city and seaside in 10 days and we have had an incredible time! We can’t believe that just 4 weeks ago we were feeling flat and wondering what we could do/where we could go for Summer that wouldn’t just feel like we were doing a 2nd best trip (We’re supposed to be in Yellowstone right now) This reignited our love of Scotland (the weather helped) and we are excited to plan a return sometime soon we hope.
Until Next time
(which won’t be long as we’re off again this weekend)
Ruby the VW Campervan is parked up on the side of Cairngorm mountain, at the ski centre just near to Aviemore. We made our departure from the Loch Tummel campsite this morning reluctantly; where else will we get a pitch with a view like this?! We needn’t have worried, we followed the road toward Tummel Bridge which was stunning, huge line trees lined the road and every now and again the trees would break away leaving stunning loch views for us to enjoy.
We made a stop at Tunnel Bridge to see the old picturesque Pack Horse bridge, dating from the 1700s and sites on the old Military Road.
We followed the Old Military toad over Glen Garry towards the A9. The scenery was just spectacular and I was giddy with excitement, I’ve REALLY missed the mountains during lockdown!
We followed the A9 all the way to Aviemore where we made a quick stop to refuel with both diesel and food and drink. We soon found the deli and got ourselves local cheeses, scotch eggs, sauce rolls, all the Cairngorm gin I could find and fit in!
We then, with the help of the Search for sites app, found our way up to the Cairngorm Ski area car park, sat almost at the top of Cairngorm mountain in the UK’s highest car park, which was to be our home for the night.
Luckily for us the weather had held out up until this point despite a terrible forecast and we enjoyed the scenery immensely on our ascent.
Also luckily for us, that weather changed immediately after we had set up and the heavens opened literally to the second that we’d finished swivelling the seats and unloading food boxes etc off the end onto the front seat. We batterned the hatches down and spent the next 15 hours being battered by a terrific and absolutely TERRIFYING thunderstorm. There was a slight lull about 9pm where we got some nice pics (above), but the rest of the night was absolutely terrifying. I was awake the entire night with Jazz- Keith managed to sleep through the majority. 😂Our neighbours kept their pop top up and survived somehow?Ive never heard such loud bangs and the light show was just incredible even if I was peeking out the side of the duvet whilst reading about Faraday cages. Eventually I fell asleep at 6am for two whole hours and 8am we had a phone call from our next site, Stonehaven. They’d flooded overnight and basically had to close. What on earth would we do next? Our battery was almost flat after a night wilding, running the fridge cool box and lights most of the night; it was 40 degrees in the van and only just 9am yet we couldn’t open the door or windows due to swarms of wee beasties; yes, the after the storm came the Great Scottish Midge. Argh!
Wednesday
So what did we do!? Well; after a slight panic and a brief “that’s it, shall we go home?” we pulled ourselves together, hit the phones and asked for some recommendations on the wonderful VW CamperChicks FB page. Who am I kidding, before all of that we literally abandoned our side of mountain retreat in 5 minutes flat! Ruby was covered in midges inside and out, so my answer was to drive downhill as fast as possible with all the windows open and hope they get blown out! It worked. Boom! In doing this we nearly lost our food boxes too but happily they and us survived to tell the tale and eventually (2 minutes later!) we found lower ground with NO midges and were able to have a sneaky freshen up shower and then a regroup over a midge free bacon sarnie.
Now I’ve recounted the sorry saga it doesn’t sound anywhere near as dramatic as it felt at the time but at the time we were stressed, tired and fed up. Once we sat down with our cuppa we learned that a terrible train accident had happened in Stonehaven, leaving 3 families mourning loved ones; that also helped us find some perspective.
Plan B was hastily formed; and thankfully the local Covid lockdown in Aberdeen made the Ballater Caravan Park have some available pitches for that night. Plan for the night sorted, we cracked on, we would sort tomorrow out later.
We had a stop at Carrbridge, just about 15 minutes out of Aviemore to see the amazing pack horse bridge, said to be the oldest surviving in the highlands, before grabbing a coffee and taking the scenic route across through Tomintoul and over to Ballater. The drive was just incredible- we had awesome weather and the views were just magnificent.
The striking purple heather was prominent for as far as the eye could see. It was Heather so nice to see (sorry!!) The Cairngorms really put on a spectacular show for us.
We made a stop at the grounds of Corgarff Castle; an interesting medieval tower house with a varied past- originally used in the 16th century as a noble residence which turned into an army base for Jacobite sympathisers and then went on to be used by whiskey smugglers.
From here we continued along the very pretty River Dee and made our way into Ballater to Ballater Caravan Park. We were so thankful that they could accommodate us at such last minute that we forgot to double check about pitches and as such found ourselves trying to peg our tailgate awning into hard standing with normal (Poundland) tent pegs! Face palm alert right there! Much to his credit, I think it was the thought of no shower (the facilities were closed at BCP), Keefy achieved the unachievable and got the blasted things in eventually, and peace and order was restored in Ruby the VW after a turbulent 24 hours.
After a shower and a beer, we took a short wander into the town. Ballater immediately stole our hearts with its pretty riverside location, quirky high end shops, 3 delis, a butchers and a lovely looking beer garden. Ballater, being so close to the Royal estate of Balmoral, has a number of shops holding Royal Warrants. If it’s good enough for the Queen, it’s good enough for me, and we set about sampling as much food from the local butchers, delis and bakery as possible.
We ended up eating out at the Balmoral Inn, in their beer garden and enjoyed a very nice meal here, which handily was included on the half price eat out for August scheme. 5 pints between us, a starter and a 2 mains for £34 was impressive, especially given the portion sizes and quality.
We had a quiet night (after the 10:30pm cut off- before that was a bit noisy but we are anti social campers remember 😂) at Ballater Caravan Park .
Thursday dawned a glorious day once again, we couldn’t believe our luck! We packed away, moved Ruby off the pitch into the town car park and headed for the Royal Station. This was once used by Queen Victoria as she arrived for her time at Balmoral. Whilst the building still remains and they have a reconstruction carriage ( we couldn’t see it due to Covid) the station area was very disappointing. We are lucky as here in Norfolk we have the marvellous Wolferton Station situated near to Sandringham. Here though they’d built a housing estate around the platform and other than the concrete platform there was not sign of it previously being a Royal Station. They could have made the whole thing a feature but it sadly hasn’t happened. There is a disused railway line turned into a cycle track and we’ve made a mental note to bring our bikes and give it a go next time.
On our way back to Ruby we managed to pick up rock pegs which was good as we ended up needed them at every site that followed. Phew!
From Ballater we travelled along the Dee, waved at HRH at Balmoral, stopped for a couple of pics at Braemar Castle and arrived at our next site, Braemar Caravan Site. We managed to again secure a last minute pitch here and move our Stonehaven booking forward to the weekend, letting them dry out hopefully.
Braemar Caravan Park is LOVELY. One of favourite sites we’ve been too. Yes, we had marvellous weather which helped, but the pitches were big and nicely manicured, the views were splendid. It’s a bit pricier than we would normally pay but the location was walkable to Braemar and many walks (not all high and steep one either)
We took a wander into Braemar after our lunch and enjoyed a walk down the high street. The views of the River Dee were great, the water cascading under the bridge on the high street.
We did a circular walk taking in the site of the Highland Games, eerily quiet, and a couple of miles down the river. It honestly was spectacular.
After our walk we called in for a drink in a cool bar next to the old station, before heading back to Ruby to discover we had new neighbours.
Click the video to see our neighbours, it’s well worth a watch.
New Neighbours at Braemar Caravan Park
As you can imagine we were giddy with excitement by this point. Keith cooked a phenomenal bbq, dubbed our Royal barbie as it was Angus steaks and steak and haggis sausages from the Royal butchers accompanied by coleslaw, potato salad and Wardolf salad from the Royal Deli. Royal or not, those steaks were hands down the best I’ve ever eaten!
Friday soon came round, and we were up and about fairly early (for us anyway!) as we wanted to do the Queen’s Drive walk from the site before picking Ruby up. The Queen’s Drive can just about be seen from the campsite half way up the hills across the road. It’s a carriage route that Queen Victoria used to enjoy, and we can certainly see why. The views were lovely, and we once again enjoyed walking amongst the purple heather and being alongside the tall pine trees. The scent was delightful.
We also saw two red squirrels during our time in Braemar.
I honestly felt quite sad as we packed up to leave. I could have done a few more days here easily and we both agreed we will definitely make a return sometime – but whether we’ll be as lucky with the weather again, who knows?! Thank you to the camper chick who recommended these places to visit.
Before we left Braemar and the Cairngorms, we wanted to visit the Linn o’Dee, just 7 miles down a dead end road along the River Dee.
The Linn o’Dee is a famous beauty spot managed by National Trust for Scotland. There is a Victorian bridge and the cascading water of the river Dee has carved through to a steep and narrow gauge before spreading out into a shallow section ideal for bathing. Keith remembers visiting here as a child: his Aunty and cousins lived in Banchory for some time and for many years Keith came up and spent summers here during his youth.
It really is a magical place. Apparently Queen Victoria used to come here for picnics and as chance would have it, we also brought a picnic, so we were able to continue our accidental homage to Queen Victoria by raising our (Royal Butcher) scotch eggs to her!
We had a paddle in the river, the temperature was lovely with it being a hot day, in fact I was extremely cross with myself for not having my cossie. I never in a million years thought to pack it. What a wally as that was my opportunity for a wild swim. Instead I rolled my shorts up as high as physically possible and made do with a lovely paddle instead but then sulked all the way to Stonehaven for not thinking to shove some dirty clothes on to swim in.
Keith had to pretty much drag me away from the Linn O’Dee as time was ticking on and we had a 2 hour journey to get to Stonehaven via the very pretty Glenshee ski area.
We both felt quite sad leaving, we’d really had such a brilliant time. It far exceeded any previous trips we’ve made to the East – we know the weather definitely helped, but the food, drink, scenery and wildlife really reminded us of our beloved America. More so than anywhere else in Scotland. We felt proud of ourselves for finding a corner of Scotland that was new to us – we’ve done lots of Scotland trips previously and wondered after our last time whether we’d done it to death. Cairngorms National Park, as Arnie says “we’ll be back”
Ruby the VW is sat proudly upon the banks of Loch Tummel. We are staying at a beautiful campsite just a mile away from The Queen’s View –Ardgualich Farm
We bagged a corker of a pitch and the owners let us park sidewards so we really have a spectacular view! There’s only two other vans parked with us currently on a smallish field so we really do feel like we’re the cats that have got the cream right now!
Our journey from Edinburgh was smooth, the A9 winding its way across the Forth of Forth and up through Perth, which provided a handy stop for a stock up of food and drink courtesy of a brilliant farm shop called Gloagburn Farm shop
Let’s just say the card took a bashing but we emerged laden with local meat, cheeses, ale, lager and gin of course. We even got some local veggies and Scottish Strawberries.
We then made our way up through Pitlochry before turned off the A9 towards Loch Tummel.
We made a quick leg stretch stop at The Queens View, we’ve visited here before but the weather was too stunning not to revisit, and were really glad we did.
It’s called the Queens View because it’s said that Robert the Bruce’s wife, Isabella hid in the woods here during the wars of Independence at the end of the 13th century. Later on it was a favourite spot for Queen Victoria and we can see why.
We actually spotted our campsite from the viewpoint which was exciting as we could see we were in for a waterside pitch!
After setting up we enjoyed a lovely bbq including Venison Steaks and salmon, overlooking the shores. We couldn’t believe the view, it was just worth a million dollars; £20 pn seemed too good to be true!
Monday dawned earlier than expected; we had a guest enter.. of the winged variety; a robin flapping around the awning soon got our attention at 6am! Luckily, with some help from Keefy, it escaped and we fell back to sleep for another 3 hours!
After a bit of a chill admiring the view from bed, I cracked on with a Scottish breakfast, complete with flat sausage and black pudding.
We then unpacked the paddle board and I dug out my wetsuit from the bottom of Ruby’s wardrobe- we enjoyed a couple of hours on the Loch – both going on the paddle board and I went for a snorkel too. That Aldi inflatable paddle board really is excellent for our needs. We had lots of fun and even Jazz had a go!
Lunch was a very exciting affair… homemade Haggis and Mushroom pizza, made in our trusty Remoska. All prepared with a view to rival any restaurant we’ve eaten in previously!
The pizza was great!
We then spent a happy couple of hours snoozing and reading and checking on the view.
I’d prepared a beef and ale stew in the slow cooker for our evening meal. Everything was perfect….. until…… our slice of heaven got invaded!! Our 3 vans in a 4 van field (we’d been told this previously by the owner) ended up with 10 crammed in, and with it came a whole host of noise sadly. We footballs flying everywhere, kids charging through our pitch- one even decided our van space was going to be her naughty step!!! We had kids making cycle ramps out of levelling blocks just behind us and my stress levels were starting to rise; I had to employ some deep breathing to calm myself down. At 9:30pm we saw the owner as we took our rubbish up to the bins and she said to text her if it got too rowdy. Fingers crossed we’re in for a quiet night now as the rain has started so that’s thwarted outdoor play. Don’t get me wrong, we like kids; we work with them- and it’s lovely to see them enjoying themselves. But- high pitched squealing after 9pm… personally that’s too late in my opinion: perhaps I’m just a miserable old lady!
Anyway it’s not ruined our stay; we had the best view and it was comforting to know the owner will step in should it inconvenience us later on. But it’s currently 11pm and all is quiet so maybe I was panicking for no reason!
Having had a wonderful night at Fletchers Farm, we hit the road north, Ruby’s wheels heading for Edinburgh. Unfortunately it seemed the rest of the world were also heading north and our 3 hour journey turned into a 5 hour journey. We did however manage to stop off at Carter Bar for lunch and we found the journey along the A66 very picturesque- we normally are on this stretch at midnight!
We arrived at Keith’s cousin Simon’s house in Leith late afternoon and embarked on a lovely couple of days in the sunshine enjoying one of our favourite cities.
We like Leith and as the Proclaimers sang, the sun really DID shine on Leith during our stay. The shore
area is particularly lovely and dotted with bars with outside seating. It felt very continental.
We stocked up on Haggis too- enjoying a full Scottish breakfast and also some Haggis Scotch eggs from the market.
Despite the Fringe festival and the Tattoo being cancelled due to Covid, the centre of Edinburgh was busier than I expected- I mean not as busy as a normal August by far, but still plenty out and about.
The Royal Mile – a bit emptier than a normal August day
We had a nice meal on Grassmarket and did a great 10+ mile walk taking in the sites.
It was lovely to see Simon again too.
Anyone recognise which film was filmed here?
Tomorrow we venture further north again; heading for the Cairngorms.
Ruby the VW is parked up on the edge of the North York Moors, just on the outskirts of Middlesbrough. After a day or so at home washing and reloading Ruby and doing some online lessons, then a couple of days catching up with friends and family in Cambridge and then Newark, we rejoined the A1 and headed North as the rest of the country it seemed headed for the beach!
We arrived in Great Ayton at midday, our home for the night being Fletchers Farm, a Caravan and Camping CL set within a Farm complete with coffee shop and farm shop. As we arrived we got a tremendous view of the reason we’re here; the UK’s Matterhorn, Roseberry Topping. What we didn’t realise was that as well as Roseberry Tooping, Great Ayton is very famous for being the boyhood home of Captain Hook.
Our campsite looks out to Easby Moor which has a large and very visible 51ft Captain Cook Monument stood proudly on top. Although there are usually toilets and shower here, they are currently closed due to COVID but we are happy with just electric and waste disposal.
We stocked up on some hand reared pork loin steaks and sausages, along with eggs and homemade potato salad and coleslaw, had a quick lunch before setting off up the lane to begin our circular walk.
We soon passed a farmhouse where Captain Cook was said to have lived and worked and enjoyed five minutes watching the sheep dog and shepherdess round the sheep into a new field. Keith’s never seen this done before and was so excited!
The farm offered our first full view of Roseberry Topping; you can see why it’s described as England’s Matterhorn. As we walked closer we were trying to work out what gave it its shape, was it an old volcano, was it the result of a glacier?
We soon found on our answer on the National trust board as we joined the easier of two paths up. The reason it’s shape is as it is is due to a geological fault and nearby iron mining causing a collapse in 1912. The sheer drop below the summit is staggering!
The path up was steady going but didn’t take us too long, we enjoyed a few scenery stops (catching our breath) and before we knew it we were on the summit.
I had completely not anticipated the summit to be so darn scary! I consider us fairly experienced walkers, but my god; I was TERRIFIED! I completely lost my legs, went totally dizzy and had to basically sit on the floor in the middle and take a few deep breaths. I’m not sure what happened but it definitely wasn’t helped by all the kids up there running around- I’m not joking the edge was a sheer drop and they were running up the edge and back. Even Keith said “I can’t watch, this is an accident about to happen” The view was mighty, we could see all the way to the Sea and for miles into the Cleveland Hills and the Moors and despite being utterly scared stiff, I enjoyed it hugely!
I managed to basically crawl off the top and we took a different path down. This path is not for the faint hearted, and I descended mainly on my bottom much to the amusement of Keith and many passers by. Again, I feel we’re quite experienced walkers; we have decent footwear and have done Striding Edge, Scafell, etc etc. People were practically running past us on the way down – both up and down this trip and very rocky path- and we REALLY struggled!
Anyway; despite the drama of all of that, we LOVED the walk. It didn’t take us long maybe an hour or so up and down, and at the bottom of the hard path was the National trust car park and a little further down, a PUB! Perfect for us to sit and get feeling back to our legs! And an ice cream van too. Proper holiday vibes- who needs a beach?!
We made our way back to the site on an longer route that skirted below Roseberry Topping, through the woods and through a disused quarry racking up about 6 miles by the time we returned to Ruby.
We enjoyed a fabulous bbq and sat and drank in the views around us.
We may well return here as the village of Great Ayton was very pretty and there are lots of Captain Cook sites to see along with a schoolhouse museum, but time was tight for us this time… We have a date with Scotland tomorrow.
Ruby the VW Campervan is nestled between the Apple trees, on a beautiful C&MC certified location on the outskirts of Chester, called Heathfield. This site is a huge orchard and because there is no hook up here we get the choice of where we pitch. We’ve taken social distancing to the next level as you can see.
On the way here we made a (pre booked) stop off at National Trust Speke Hall on the outskirts of Liverpool. The property is a fabulous wooden Tudor property and has some beautiful gardens to wander. Obviously at the moment we can’t go in the house but we spent a very happy hour or so enjoying the grounds, and the hydrangeas were stunning. We also found the moat garden interesting – this was converted from a moat in the Victorian era. We’re going to make a real effort to revisit here when the house is open as it really is a stunning example of Tudor Manor House.
On arrival at the site we were welcomed by the very friendly owner Phil. Little did we know this guy would be our saviour on more than one occasion this weekend! We set up in the blistering heat and humidity, each time it’s getting quicker and more familiar which is good.
Keith prepared a bbq for us for dinner, and we were relieved the humidity died down after a light showers. As mentioned before this site has no hook up so we connected our briefcase solar panel up to the leisure battery and placed the solar panel on the roof.
At this point we realised we forgot some very essential supplies for breakfast, the beans and mushrooms 😂, and so I popped to see Phil to see where the nearest shop was. He said it was too far to walk so offered to drive and get some for us! How nice was that?! Minor crisis averted we settled into a relaxing evening outside enjoy the utter serenity and space of our new home.
Saturday arrived and the weather was mixed – we had a fairly lazy morning and cooked a full English on our new pan- which is brilliant by the way – link here – before wandering into Chester.
Chester has been on our must visit list for a while; Keith being so into history, particularly the Roman’s; makes me wonder how we’ve managed to take this long to visit! Chester is home to the only compete set of city walls and also a number of Roman ruins, including the largest amphitheatre ruins in UK. What absolutely astounded me is that the amphitheatre was found when engineers were building a main road – and while they tried to be sympathetic to these impressive ruins, it’s slightly ruined (pardon the pun) by the constant stream of traffic passing by.
We enjoyed a wander through the city centre to admire the medieval buildings, of which there are loads- Including some amazing timber galleries that still house traders to this day. This was really incredible and actually we feel stunned that this isn’t UNESCO. The Rows as they are called, house many shops and barbers and have been slightly ruined by the sheer amount of billboards displayed but shops need to advertise I suppose. There were some questionable planning decisions in our humble opinions right through the city, but I suppose that could be said all over.
The city walls were impressive, particularly a steep section leading up to the cathedral. At just over a mile in length they took us almost an hour to walk round with picture stops along the way. If we’d have had our way we would have had some refreshment stops too, but, for a city with such impressive history and historical buildings there was a disappointingly lack of historical pubs (and dog friendly pubs to be specific). There is an interesting old pub situated in the Rows, called the Old Boot but not only was this not dog friendly it also was not technology friendly either and with big signs saying no Phones, cameras, cash only etc etc even if we’d not got Jazz I think we may have felt uncomfortable visiting especially when most places are card payments only with COVID etc. Hey ho.
Luckily, we accidentally stumbled across Hickeys, a smokehouse situated on the river and below the Roman Gardens (pics above). We enjoyed a drink mid afternoon in their garden and perused their menu which looked incredible. Sadly though, it was full for dinner reservations. I genuinely nearly cried – it’s no secret that our trip to Texas left a lasting impression on us and our tastebuds, and seeing a Texas smoke house in the UK is rare. I was right in the mood for a plate of brisket! I may have communicated this to our poor waiter and unbelievably just as we were paying for our drinks he came over, delighted to tell us that he had managed to move some things about and if we didn’t mind coming back at 5pm they’d found us space in a dog friendly part of the restaurant. Perfect!
I pretty much skipped around the remainder of the walls!
Our dinner at Hickory’s was FABULOUS. Proper proper good! The staff were fab, they fell in love with Jazz and as such he was rewarded with his own bowl of brisket which he inhaled! It was a perfect evening and that meal was worth a return to Chester in itself!
We passed a Motorhome overnight parking spot in Chester here which looked good for future reference.
Back at the campsite it became obvious that something was adrift with our battery in Ruby. There has been not too much sun so the leisure battery was struggling. We also lost our central locking which indicated our vehicle battery was dead. It turns out that our new cool box/beer fridge had been plugged into the wrong 12v plug – thus draining the vehicle battery. This was definitely Keefy’s fault by the way! 😉 there wasn’t much we could do about it until the morning so we had a quiet (and dark) night!
Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny. The campsite owner very kindly agreed to give us a jump start with his land rover. But Ruby’s battery was too flat for a jump. “No problem” Phil said, “I’ll bump start you off”. Then we realised we don’t have a tow ring on the front end. “What about the tow bar at the back” I said tentatively. Don’t worry, he didn’t bump me backwards (sorry couldn’t resist that phrase!) but that’s how at 9.30am on a Sunday morning, much I’m sure to the rest of the campsites amusement, I found myself being towed backwards half a mile through the apple trees, and a very tight gap between trees may I add – our lovely private pitch only private because of all the trees surrounding it! Luckily for us Phil had a garage with lots of boys toys in it and managed to charge our battery with some sort of flash gadget, whilst we enjoyed a cuppa in their garden. And I had a proud moment when my reversing skills got a big thumbs up from Phil and Keefy.
Sorry there is no photo evidence for this; stress levels were a bit high!
Once Ruby sprung into action again we hit the road heading home. We’d had a wonderful 6 days, full of lovely food, drink, walks and scenery and a fair share of adventures too! We’ve just got a couple of days at home before we head off north again on Wednesday so when we got home we had a mad hour emptying, washing clothes and bed sheets and beginning to refill Ruby.
Until next time
Lx
Ps on returning home I’ve managed to rescue my missing Bronte pics – so there will be an update of the Haworth blog shortly with my own pictures on!
Ruby is parked up in the very beautiful Dentdale valley. We made the journey of an hour or so north from Keighley, through Skipton to pick up a new phone following my little accident at the Bronte waterfalls.
We took a stunning drive over the fells and arrived in Dent around 4:30pm following plenty of picture stops.
We’d skipped lunch as everything had taken us longer today, so whilst K set up the awning and canopy I got started on a chicken curry for and early dinner.
Our campsite is a small C&CC certified location in Dent, Cumbria called Mill Beck. It’s surrounded by hills and is absolutely stunning. The field is large and we have hook up and emptying facilities along with a water tap. At just £14pn we are very happy campers indeed. We’re also stunned to say that it’s not full, and that there are 2 free pitches! All the more room for us!
Following dinner we took a wander into the small picturesque village of Dent. It’s got a traditional cobbled section and lots of pretty houses. There are three pubs here but sadly they’ve chosen not to reopen just yet following covid. Whilst we are disappointed as we’d like to pump some money into their businesses, and try the local ale – there is also the Dent brewery here- we do understand that this is a small farming community and they are no doubt worried about tourists bringing the dreaded virus up here.
Aside from our campsite there are two others; one which is really quite busy (High Laning)
We spent a happy half hour wandering the deserted streets taking photo after photo. It was nice to have the streets to ourselves but we felt sad at how quite it was too with the social meeting places all boarded up.
We enjoyed a lovely evening sat outside and enjoying the last of the sun as it dipped behind the peaks and listening to the sheep and owls.
Thursday arrived and with it came rain. We therefore declared a duvet morning which actually we really enjoyed; we’ve been none stop since we broke up for summer (and the run up!). At midday the rain cleared away and out came the sun. This was more like it. Whilst we considered going off for a good leg stretch; there are plenty of routes here to keep you occupied for a week let alone a day or two; we just couldn’t be bothered! There, I said it! We loved our pitch so much and by now one of the caravans had gone and the other was out on a day trip, so we had the site to ourselves. We wandered to the village shop where we found some local meats for a bbq, got our chairs out, and read and napped for the remainder of the afternoon, completely loving the peace and quiet.
Keith cooked up a local Cumberland sausage (when in Rome..) a local steak and a local burger, we sat and chatted and then had a game of monopoly. It was a very relaxing day and just
what we needed before we move on to a time schedule again tomorrow!
We will definitely return when things get back to normal and try the dent brewery ales. We may even try a walk or two too! There is also a heritage centre and whilst it was open, being quite small we felt a bit uncomfortable going in. Dent is also home to the highest station (train) in England. I didn’t realise it’s not actually IN Dent so therefore we missed it this time.
