Wednesday, May 19, 2004
We're back! Somewhat red and slightly burned but we had a fine time nonetheless.
Left the house at 10.30 on Saturday morning, fully stocked up with goodies and petrol and trooped off along the Edinburgh City Bypass towards the Sherrifhall roundabout, then off down the A68 towards Coldstream, where we stopped and had tea and sandwiches in the bus while Ben had a runabout in the playpark. It was scorching hot and both fans were in full use in the bus as we set off again for the Heatherslaw Light Railway.
One end of the railway is in Etal Village, which is just splendid. Alas we had not time to stop - we had a train to catch:
Leaving Etal, we (ahem) sped up through Ford and Lowick towards the A1. We really did speed actually - honest. The bus seemed to have no problems hitting 60 on the wee country roads - must be that lovely, aerodynamic hightop. Off down the A1 we went, just for a few miles until we hit the turn off for the Northumberland Heritage Coast.
This really is spectacular - Gail and I had been down this way just a couple of weeks before Ben was born and had been planning to return. Bamburgh Castle towers over the whole area and looks as if it's been in a million films - which it may well have. Aha! Just found this.
One of my favourite things about Northumberland was the flag:
We soon arrived in Beadnell and found our site - confusingly though it was right next to another one, also at the very end of the road, next to the beach. I forgot to take a picture of the noticeboard, which had our name on it and told us where to park...right next to the entrance and less than 60 seconds from the beach...which was nice.
First on the agenda was a quick trip to the beach for a run about - it's a fantastic, clean beach, and mainly sand too! Very unusual for Britain...
Dinner was a very tasty affair - chicken kebabs done on our disposable barbecue, though not very easy to keep Ben away from the heat! Afterwards we fought with the awning...we've had it for a few months but haven't got around to trying it out. With no rain or wind we figured it was as good a time as any to try it out. Again, another thing probably best done without the "assistance" of a small boy.
It should look like this when it goes up...but for some reason the little kid on the bike wasn't included with ours...
Anyway, the much vaunted "figure 8 rail" didn't really do the job (never mind "didn't really" - it was just plain useless) and so we ended up with a freestanding rather than a driveaway awning. I've emailed the people who sold it to us to find out what's going on.
(note the splendid weather and delightful blue sky!)
Ben eventually crashed out at around 10pm - not great and fairly stressful. What made it even worse was that the Eurovision Song Contest was on the radio, so we couldn't even listen to Bob Harris. We settled instead for a selection of these fine albums:
I opted for the "upper deck" sleeping arrangements - including views of the campsite and sand dunes. The only problem with this arrangement was the lack of a mattress - two half-inch camping roll-mats placed on top of each other are really no substitute. Ben was also quite taken with the upper tier of the bus...
By morning, Ben had made himself quite at home in the bus and on the site...
Seahouses proved to be diverting for all of 45 minutes, the Marine Life Centre - which doesn't even have a website! - was part of the "surf goods (6 t-shirts, some wax and 3 hats) and general tat" shop and so we decided to wander back towards Beadnell.
The rest of Sunday was spent in the awning, from whence we could see this:
In need of refreshment after such exertions, we went into Beadnell itself, which was lovely. There we visited the quite excellent Craster Arms, a proper pub with a huge beer garden and the delightful capacity to allow children in up until 9pm. Hoorah!
Monday was an early start to get washed up, packed up and on the road in time to get to Lindisfarne and off again before the tide cut us off.
The journey over the causeway...
To be honest, we weren't all that impressed with Holy Island. I'd visited years before but unless you want to (a) look at religious bits and bobs;(b) buy rubbishy souvenirs or (c) pay vast amounts to get into places (you or) your small boy won't appreciate then it's not much cop.
What is good though, is the fudge from Sally's Gift Shop, which we had in the camper van in the car park (£3 for a whole day, bargain!) along with one of the splendid individual coffees we'd been enjoying over the weekend:
On the way back home we stopped off at Floors Castle in Kelso for a wander round the garden centre and a spot of lunch. We arrived home at the back of three and as I type this final bit, on the 31st of May, we've still not finished getting all the stuff out of the van.
Left the house at 10.30 on Saturday morning, fully stocked up with goodies and petrol and trooped off along the Edinburgh City Bypass towards the Sherrifhall roundabout, then off down the A68 towards Coldstream, where we stopped and had tea and sandwiches in the bus while Ben had a runabout in the playpark. It was scorching hot and both fans were in full use in the bus as we set off again for the Heatherslaw Light Railway.
One end of the railway is in Etal Village, which is just splendid. Alas we had not time to stop - we had a train to catch:
Leaving Etal, we (ahem) sped up through Ford and Lowick towards the A1. We really did speed actually - honest. The bus seemed to have no problems hitting 60 on the wee country roads - must be that lovely, aerodynamic hightop. Off down the A1 we went, just for a few miles until we hit the turn off for the Northumberland Heritage Coast.
This really is spectacular - Gail and I had been down this way just a couple of weeks before Ben was born and had been planning to return. Bamburgh Castle towers over the whole area and looks as if it's been in a million films - which it may well have. Aha! Just found this.
One of my favourite things about Northumberland was the flag:
We soon arrived in Beadnell and found our site - confusingly though it was right next to another one, also at the very end of the road, next to the beach. I forgot to take a picture of the noticeboard, which had our name on it and told us where to park...right next to the entrance and less than 60 seconds from the beach...which was nice.
First on the agenda was a quick trip to the beach for a run about - it's a fantastic, clean beach, and mainly sand too! Very unusual for Britain...
Dinner was a very tasty affair - chicken kebabs done on our disposable barbecue, though not very easy to keep Ben away from the heat! Afterwards we fought with the awning...we've had it for a few months but haven't got around to trying it out. With no rain or wind we figured it was as good a time as any to try it out. Again, another thing probably best done without the "assistance" of a small boy.
It should look like this when it goes up...but for some reason the little kid on the bike wasn't included with ours...
Anyway, the much vaunted "figure 8 rail" didn't really do the job (never mind "didn't really" - it was just plain useless) and so we ended up with a freestanding rather than a driveaway awning. I've emailed the people who sold it to us to find out what's going on.
(note the splendid weather and delightful blue sky!)
Ben eventually crashed out at around 10pm - not great and fairly stressful. What made it even worse was that the Eurovision Song Contest was on the radio, so we couldn't even listen to Bob Harris. We settled instead for a selection of these fine albums:
I opted for the "upper deck" sleeping arrangements - including views of the campsite and sand dunes. The only problem with this arrangement was the lack of a mattress - two half-inch camping roll-mats placed on top of each other are really no substitute. Ben was also quite taken with the upper tier of the bus...
By morning, Ben had made himself quite at home in the bus and on the site...
| On Sunday we took a walk along the beach to Seahouses, which I'd already visited on Saturday to buy a windreak - we already had one but it wasn't a lot of use to us in the garden shed.
|
 |
Seahouses proved to be diverting for all of 45 minutes, the Marine Life Centre - which doesn't even have a website! - was part of the "surf goods (6 t-shirts, some wax and 3 hats) and general tat" shop and so we decided to wander back towards Beadnell.
The rest of Sunday was spent in the awning, from whence we could see this:
In need of refreshment after such exertions, we went into Beadnell itself, which was lovely. There we visited the quite excellent Craster Arms, a proper pub with a huge beer garden and the delightful capacity to allow children in up until 9pm. Hoorah!
Monday was an early start to get washed up, packed up and on the road in time to get to Lindisfarne and off again before the tide cut us off.
The journey over the causeway...
To be honest, we weren't all that impressed with Holy Island. I'd visited years before but unless you want to (a) look at religious bits and bobs;(b) buy rubbishy souvenirs or (c) pay vast amounts to get into places (you or) your small boy won't appreciate then it's not much cop.
What is good though, is the fudge from Sally's Gift Shop, which we had in the camper van in the car park (£3 for a whole day, bargain!) along with one of the splendid individual coffees we'd been enjoying over the weekend:
On the way back home we stopped off at Floors Castle in Kelso for a wander round the garden centre and a spot of lunch. We arrived home at the back of three and as I type this final bit, on the 31st of May, we've still not finished getting all the stuff out of the van.
