...and the little mishaps

Apart from the food intake, (which in many cases seems to have followed American trends for larger meals), it does take a few days to re-adjust to the new time, climate, traffic, money, etc.

Then about a day before we were to get to Ardrossan, I got a little 'tickle' in my throat, which I dreaded would become something worse and go down to my chest. That didn't happen, but the dry cough persisted, and despite lozenges and linctus, I couldn't shake it. The coughing became so bad at one point I think I must have strained something inside, and have been in some pain since the last night of the small cruise. It's mostly when I cough, but also painful in the process of lying down and getting up, (can you break a rib by coughing???). Might have to see if there is a local clinic nearby, but of course it's Easter weekend isn't it.

Then, when we arrived here at Northcliff, and were bringing things up to the apartment (wait til you see the photo's), Lee tripped up a flight flight of stairs, and bruised her knee!

Just hope this is the worst that will happen, because there is a long time to go...

Weight Loss and Gain, and little misshaps...

Both of us had maintained our weight before coming away, (mainly through our regular visits to the gym). However, when you then don't maintain that regime, as in sitting in planes for hours and hours, and so on, changes take place!!!

By the time we'd reached London, we realised we were probably a little dehydrated, even tho the cabin crew were fairly good with their offers of liquids. Then we we finally got to the hotel at Heathrow, (which, by the way, we would recommend doing if you come this far), there were bathroom scales, and on I stepped.
I had lost two kilos since leaving Canberra! 

Needless to say that was to change, and for the first 10 days or so, we were locked into cooked breakfasts, and large servings, and the two kilos quickly came back on.

more to follow...

Tea and Hadrian's Wall...

(Sunday, 10th April)
Heading for Dumfries today, via Corbridge, and the A69 to Carlisle. Very pleasant countryside and views across the Pennines. Stopped to look at windmills at Tow Law. Nothing special as we have them back home, but I'd like to know what the locals feel about them. I like their elegance and movement, and there was very little sound coming from them.

Stopped at Corbridge for a cuppa, with a pleasant sunny morning, and sat outside having our tea. Can't yet trust all the places for decent coffee, so tea is the fall-back at the moment.

Tried to find some bits of Hadrian's Wall, but the nearest one was just a ruin of old Roman Baths, but they wanted money to go in and see what you could already see from the car park!
There is a town named Wall on the way back to the A69, and then we had a good run out to the west.
(Lee particularly liked the 'font' on the cups at the Angel Inn where we had tea, hence the photo).

Next stop, Ardrossan, and the wait for the first ferry trip.

Darlington and Dumfries...

Saturday, 9th April

After the "fiasco" of Scarborough and Whitby, we decided to head for Dumfries, which would be our last stop before going further west to Ardrossan, to catch the ferry to Arran.

The Premier Inn at Darlington seems mainly aimed at Business people, but is like most of the chain, very clean and tidy, and some newer improvements on decor.

As we'd had some large meals on previous days, we elected for just an entree each and then me a dessert and Lee a cheese plate. Darlington wasn't somewhere we thought we'd do any touristy stuff, and even tho it was only 10 days or so into our holiday, we had already done a lot of driving, and the getting used to the new car.

Watch this space...

(Friday, 22nd April)

We have returned to civilisation in North Queensferry, across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh. We are here for a week, and have access to their wi-fi, so hope to catch up with more "posts" of the things that we've done over the last week or so. By the way, the trip out and around the Island of Mull was just great!

Captain Cook, Whitby and Scarborough...(Saturday, 9th April)

Having decided we'd go across to the east coast and see Whitby, the day turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. This was one of those gaps of days in our itinerary, where we hadn't booked ahead, and we realised that it was a Saturday.

We left Hull early enough to beat the Saturday traffic, but on getting to Scarborough, we were faced with one of those narrow coastal resort-everything-crammed-on-the-seafront resort type of towns. It is very pretty, but getting parking is the usual problem so we zoomed up into a multi-storey, and went for a walk. We had put our name on a waiting list for any cancellations at the newish Premier Inn, but that hadn't happened by the time we thought of leaving.

Scarborough has it all, donkey rides on the beach, fun parlours (8), cafes, tea rooms, and a very old clifftop-to-beach tramway which creaks and rattles for all its 5 minute journey, and costs 70p each way! Standing atop this scene is the Grand Hotel, probably Victorian (?), and one of the biggest, ugliest buildings of its kind, and totally dominating all around. It must have been heaven in its day, but is gross now.

walkway down to Scarborough beach

 Having gone past the allotted time we'd allowed to hear about cancellations, we moved on to Whitby. Also not a good day to do so, and everyone by then was out for a day at the seaside!! Parking was even worse, but we ended up on West Cliff, which was a good idea in the end as it allowed us to walk along the flat part, and see down to the ocean and the town. Whitby is very popular, for many reasons, and the ruined castle on the hill was used (I think) in the Coppola Dracula movie.

This was also not going to be a good place to try and get accomodation, as every place we passed showed No Vacancy signs. Yet another small plan gone wrong, but never daunted, we decided to move on to Darlington, where we knew they had a Premier Inn. On the way back to the car we passed two men, one of whom was laughing a lot. It appeared his mate had been successfully "bombed" by a large gull, and he'd copped the lot, all over his nice black leather jacket and in his hair. Lee gave him a couple of tissues to help him clean up.

Whitby inner harbour and part of town

Breakwater and beach

 (Haven't worked out how to arrange these photo's any better, so the spacing is not good.

Decided I could do a bit more posting after all, as we have this room until 11.00am (Oban), and they have free wi-fi, so why not?)

The Castle (Abbey?)

Jumping forward to Oban...

I am ahead of some of the other places we've been to get here, but this is just to say that we are going on board the boat for the small cruise today, around Mull, and they tell us we won't have email/internet access in all places.

So, there may be lull in posts until we get back to 'civilisation' again on the 22nd, but who knows?

This room they gave us here at Oban, looks out over all the harbour, and the town. It is really one of the best outlooks we've had, only let down by the bed! Thew tides are amazing and rise and fall quite remarkably.

After all the rich and wonderful food we've had lately, we settled for a veeery nice pizza and a beer last night and were in bed at 7.30pm.

More soon, (I hope)