taraabit

Friday 26th July 2024.

We are stopping this evening at Pontygwindy Alehouse which is a pub stop in South Wales.

We drove here via Hereford and Abergavenny where we stopped for lunch in a large car park which also allows you to stay overnight should you wish.

After lunch we wandered into Abergavenny the centre of which is a pedestrianised street that allows the cafes and restaurants to spill out onto the pavement giving it a very European feel.The last time we visited here was between Covid shutdowns and it was very quiet so it was good to see it today busy and thriving.

It wasn’t far from Abergavenny to where we are staying, there is no fee for staying the night and no compulsion to have a meal but we had decided to treat ourselves.

The menu was extensive and it took a while to select our meal, we were both pleased with our choice and the portions were large enough to deter us from having a dessert.

We had just settled back in Homer when we had a WhatsApp video call from our friend Wolfgang in Germany, after catching up on news he said he would like to take up the invitation we had extended a few weeks ago for him to come and visit, so we are pleased to say we will have a guest in August.

Sunday 14th July 2024

We spent today in and around St Ives, mid morning we wandered into town heading for Holt island a nature reserve, on the way we passed a group of enthusiasts with their scooters.

We walked onto the nature reserve which is an island in the Great Ouse albeit only a few metres off shore. It is home to the local sea scouts and they have their own area of the island sectioned off for their hut, a camping area and their boats. Most of the island regularly floods and so there is a raised walkway that leads you around the island, it is a haven for many bird species.

We wandered back into town and had lunch in the Taproom before returning to the vans for the afternoon where we spent some time outlining a future long distance trip in two months time.

We had booked a boat trip on the river at 6 pm and along with a few other people from the rally site we cruised up the river.

As we cruised quietly along in the electric powered boat we could see a hot air balloon in the distance.

On our return journey the flight of the balloon and our boat seemed to merge as the balloon got lower and lower and crossed the river.

The ballon’s appearance bought an additional hint of magic to our trip.

Sadly that magic couldn’t continue as on our return we watched England lose the European Cup Final 2-1 to Spain.

Saturday 13th July 2024.

As the weather forecast was favourable we decided to spend the day in Cambridge, now not wishing to sound negative re Cambridge it didn’t turn out to be the best of moves. Firstly it was something like International Youth Language weekend and there were literally hundreds of youngsters being led in crocodile fashion around the streets of Cambridge, there couldn’t have been many left in Japan and China, Spain was well presented as well. It made walking anywhere very difficult and one older man, a local resident was nearly knocked off his bike by a teenager and he responded with “ why don’t you all bugger off to Middlesbrough” I don’t know what Middlesbrough had done to offend him.

These are just a few photos where the streets weren’t so crowded.It would have been enjoyable to wander into some of the quadrangles but no of course you could only do that if you were prepared to pay a hefty admittance fee plus dogs weren’t allowed so that put paid to that. It was decided to split up so that Alison and Peter could visit and we wandered off around the streets battling through the crowds to look at the exterior of buildings. We were here a few years ago at a quieter time so we already had a reasonable memory of what it could be like.

A little way away from the river is a market area where we bought a small snack for lunch, patatas bravos with aioli that went down well.

After exhausting our enjoyment of jostling streets we headed to Jesus Green a park area next to the river where we treated ourselves to a cuppa.

It would appear that Cambridge is popular with hen parties and there were two groups in the park having a good time plus others we saw in the city.

We travelled to Cambridge from St Ives on a travel system new to us, it’s a bus where the driver can speed up to at least 50 mph without his hands on the wheel.

When the concrete guides run out near the city and when the track crosses roads the driver takes over and drives the bus as a normal vehicle. I assume the track which is wide enough for buses to travel in each direction was originally a railway line.

A good factor was that 3 out of 4 us were able to use our bus passes.

Friday 12th July 2024.

St Ives is a medieval town in the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire. It has a long history with records dating back to 1,000 AD.

The church has seen many changes over its long life starting as a wooden construction before being replaced by stone, it’s interior has been redesigned many times as benefactors have paid for improvements.

This section of town has a few cafes and bars but isn’t its main commercial street, it is however quite interesting historically.

Friday is a market day but on a small scale, I didn’t purchase anything but Peter bought olives from one of the stalls. There were quite a few charity shops and and a Mountain Warehouse outlet that we visited and spent a little money in the local economy.

This was a courtyard which had a variety of small stalls plants, books, trinkets etc and a Kates coffee pod where Peter treated us to a drink.

Beyond this was an antiques centre and Michelle bought a piece of Staffordshire pottery, designed by Alan Clarke who designed pottery for Poole.

Thursday 11th July 2024.

We are participating in an Auto Sleeper Owners Club meet here in St Ives organised by the wardens Barbara and Alan, although we have owned an Auto Sleeper for 18 months now and been a member of the association for almost as long this is the first meet we have attended. We are spending a long weekend here with motorhome buddies Alison and Peter.

Where we are staying isn’t a camp site as such but a field that is set up for meets such as the one we’re on, water and waste disposal is provided but otherwise you have to be self sufficient. The site is only 200 yards from the edge of town.

I had a minor problem with the waste water pipe so I googled DIY stores and discovered there was one about 400m away so after lunch we walked into town.

There are meadows alongside The Great Ouse river which is metres from the site and this low bridge carries the road over one of the meadows.

Before the bridge was built there was a ford across the river, the first record of a bridge dates back to about AD 1100 and was built of wood, a stone replacement was built in the 1420’s. The building on the bridge was a chapel built to take tolls from travellers and was also used for church services and is almost unique. Built for use of horses and carts it took the weight of lorries and buses until a bypass bridge was built in 1980, it is now pedestrianised.

The quay has been in existence for nearly a 1,000 years , merchants came to the town from many parts of Europe crossing the North Sea and travelling up the Great Ouse to moor here. Later barges or lighters went back and forth to the port of Kings Lynne transporting goods such as coal upstream and corn downstream.

Tuesday 18th June 2024.

This morning we drove the short distance to Larne where we were catching the ferry to Cairnryan in Scotland a short 2 hour crossing. We met up again with Adrian and his wife the Dutch couple we met in Bushmills and we chatted to them during the crossing.

Michelle had identified for us a small site a short way after Newton Stewart as tonight’s stopover, however it’s entrance was a narrow drive on the right directly off the A74 and in the busy traffic I didn’t see the entrance and missed the turning. We then saw on our left a sign for a camp site so I pulled in. It turned out this site is enormous and had lots of pitches available so we decided to splash out and stay the night.

Castle Cary Holiday Park is situated outside the village of Creetown in Wigtownshire, Dumfries and Galloway. It is a scenic lakeside park set around a Scottish Baronial style castle dating from around 1580, part of the castle has been converted into The Lairds Inn.

It’s a very large site on an enormous acreage with static caravans, wooden lodges, a large amount of pitches for tourers and a large camping field, as I write this I can see at least twenty rabbits a short distance from the van and a large deer walked past us earlier.

A little research online showed that The Lairds Inn had a good menu so we had a wander up and enjoyed an evening meal and drink.

Tonight’s blog will be the last from this trip of 29 out of 31 days away, tomorrow we will be covering a large distance on our journey home down the A75 and M6. We are having a stopover part way at the two van aire that is the driveway of motorhome buddies Alison and Peter. Services are available and the hospitality superb.We will then arrive home on Thursday.

Monday 17th June 2024.

Our first stop today was Carrickfergus we parked in the car park next to the castle where there were plenty of spaces, we were looking forward to exploring the castle.

I don’t know what it is but sometimes our luck isn’t in, closed Mondays, yesterday we went to explore Antrim Castle and Gardens only to find it had been taken over for a flower festival😵‍💫

We drove on from Carrickfergus to Whitehead which is a large seaside village which hosts a railway museum. We parked on the sea front and after lunch walked the Blackhead Path.

The path follows the coastline and walked along it until we were at the point below Blackhead Lighthouse.

The information we read said there was a staircase of 99 steps to get up to the level of the lighthouse, we assumed they would be at the point below the lighthouse but this wasn’t so. On the route back we found a grassy path that lead to the steps but sensibly decided not to climb them as there were probably 90 more than I’m capable of with my arthritic knees.

From there it was a short drive to tonight’s stop at Glenarm Marina.

It’s a pleasant village with good facilities on the sea front, there is a castle here with wonderful gardens but sadly we arrived too late to go in.

Tonight is our last night in Ireland after spending 28 days here and circumnavigating about 80 % of its coastline, we have had a good time and will certainly return in the future, tomorrow we sail to Cairnryan in Scotland.

Saturday 15th June 2024.

This morning we awoke to another damp grey day we looked on the maps to find somewhere to go and be tourists for a while and the only place nearby was Arthur Cottage. We weren’t sure what to expect and didn’t arrive with any great enthusiasm however that was soon to change as we were taken in hand by the resident tour guide Mary. We ended up spending 75 minutes there discussing a wide range of things that weren’t all on the normal guide talk including the differences and some similarities that we had seen on our travels up the west coast, traditional skills, thatching etc.

Arthur cottage is near the village of Cullybackey in County Antrim, it is the ancestral home of Chester Alan Arthur the 21st President of the USA. The cottage and adjoining building are set up to show how the Arthur family lived in the late 18th century, the family weren’t poor and Arthur’s father didn’t emigrate because of the famine.

In 1815 Arthur’s father at the age of 19 sailed to America where eventually he met his future wife who came from Vermont and in 1829 Arthur was born. He grew up in upstate New York and as an adult practiced law, he became involved in politics and became a state senator. After the election of James Garfield to President, Arthur was Vice President but 4 months later President Garfield was shot by an assassins and died 11 weeks later, Arthur then found himself President. He didn’t run for a second term as he was ill and he died not long afterwards.

It was only a short drive to our stopover for this weekend as we have booked on site for two nights. The site is a municipal owned and run site, next to a pleasant park and small pleasure boat harbour on Lough Neagh and the Six Mile River ( wonder why it is called that.)

Friday 14th June 2024.

Heavy rain yesterday afternoon deterred us from visiting Bushmills Distillery, as it was dry this morning we made the effort to walk there.

You can have a guided tour of the distillery but you have to book in advance and hope there is a group large enough. We quickly found out that dogs weren’t allowed anywhere on site so whilst Michelle looked after Layla I went in with the express intention of buying a bottle of Bushmills which we have developed a taste for.

I avoided the bottles at £1,975 each and not wishing to look a cheapskate bought the second least expensive bottle, Black Bush.

Bushmills is an alcohol distillery founded in 1784, it uses water drawn from St Columb’s Rill which is a tributary of the River Bush.

After the visit we continued our drive along Causeway Coastal route, again beautiful scenery with some lovely towns en route.but sadly we couldn’t get on the car parks. Eventually we came across a tiny harbour village of Cushendun.

One car park was too narrow to access but thankfully one a few hundred metres out of the village was large enough for us to park, we took the opportunity to have lunch whilst parked up.

We walked along the beach back to the village, as we went along Michelle found a phone just in the water which we rescued, it was still ok but as it is password protected we haven’t been able to contact the owner.

From this village we turned inland and drove through an area of moorland and beautiful river valleys.

As we approached the town we are in tonight Broughshane we took the opportunity to fill up,with LPG at a very good price, as a point of interest the price of fuel here is far less than in England.

The River Braid is running behind us and in the past the car park and adjoining park was the site of a mill. It’s amusing that about 20 metres from us is the vets, later this afternoon during its opening hours farmers were turning up,with trailers containing lambs, ewes, a ram and calves😊

June 13th 2024.

We’re doomed, doomed and doomed again. Every time we visit cliffs we have awful weather especially rain and today has been no different. In fact it has rained all day today and the wind is currently blowing a hoolie.

We had intended to visit the ruins of Dunluce Castle but unfortunately there was no way we would have been able to get close with the motorhome. However not far away there is a very good car park with two viewing platforms that project just past the edge of the cliffs.

We drove through a few small towns with beautiful sandy beaches but as it was raining heavily it wasn’t worth stopping. We drove on until we reached the town of Bushmills where we are stopping tonight.

After lunch we enquired in the Tourist Information Office how to get to the nearby Giants Causeway, 10 minutes later we were on a local bus that dropped us off at the visitors centre. The coastline here is under the control of the National Trust but as I’ve allowed our membership to lapse we had to pay the full amount to pass through the centre and out to the causeway, it cost £15.50 each. It was still raining heavily and as it is a long walk down to the rocks we caught the shuttle bus for £2 return each.

This place is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a geological wonder with over 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, The Giants Causeway is the result of intense volcanic and geological activity. The Causeway provides a glimpse into the earth’s most ancient past, an epic 60 million year old legacy to the cooling and shrinking of successive lava flows.

In the distance we could see on the cliffs more columns so we decided to walk up and have a look.

They were even more impressive close up.

As you can imagine such a wonderful place has given rise to many myths and legends, one that the coast was carved by the mighty giant, Finn McCool.

We are staying tonight on a car park that accepts motorhomes, next to us is a large motorhome from the Netherlands, the owner spoke to us and explained he had been reading the blog of our travels in Ireland, he commented he had travelled much the same route as we had taken.

It then transpired we are on the same ferry to Scotland on Tuesday. He was heading off to do a tour of the distillery but on his return he gave us his business card and said next time we visit the Netherlands we were invited to stay on his drive, what a kind gesture, one we will seriously consider.