Scotland - days one and two

Actually, the title isn't strictly accurate - our first night was spent in England, near Carlisle, at the Metal Bridge Inn.

This is an old Coaching Inn, tucked up almost underneath the M6 as it crosses the River Esk. They are taking full advantage of their position to offer a motorhome park up for those travelling to or from Scotland. Someone with vision levelled an area to the back of the pub and marked out about 20 decently spaced pitches. No charge is made, but it is the unwritten understanding that you visit the pub for a meal and a few drinks - and the food was excellent!

Of course, there are no facilities such as toilets, electric hookup etc, but there is a waste dump station and if you wished to pay there was a shower in the B&B part of the Inn. However, all modern motor homes are perfectly capable of surviving a night on battery power alone, We have an on board toilet, hot water system, shower, fridge, solar power (which happily recharges the leisure battery for all our modern computer/phone/camera/Bose Soundlink (bluetooth speaker) recharging requirements), inboard and outboard gas cooking, and also leisure battery charging from the engine alternator whilst driving. And, in an emergency, I have a 100 watt stand alone solar panel that I can suction to an outside wall. Oh, and I also have a small inverter that can power Ann's travel hairdryer or even in an emergency, our microwave. However, I prefer to keep our off grid requirements to a minimum - we don't have a power hungry television, for instance, and have found you can actually go more than one day without a shower.

This all sounds perfect, but not quite. There was a constant all night drone from the nearby M6, but actually you did get used to it and we slept quite well.

So that was Tuesday night. On Wednesday we had a relatively short journey to our next stop at Grey Mares Tail. On the way we called in at the Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum - a small aviation museum whose main claim to fame is the Loch Doon (see much later) Spitfire. This was raised from the loch and rebuilt, but not to a flying state. Also on outside display were a GE Lightning, Canberra, Buccaneer, Super Sabre, Fairy Gannet, Hunter and a Saab Viggen

Imagine a line from Carlisle to Edinburgh, well this is half way along it. It is a Scottish National Trust property, but without the property. It is called a waterfall, but is in fact a cascade, and is one of the tallest in the UK. The walk up to the top is.....below my age group! I made it half way, but then discretion became the better part of valour. As I write there are 5 vans parked up overnight, and the weather is benign. Dinner was a rather pleasant prawn Keralan coconut curry with rice.

Tomorrow we head over to the East coast to North Berwick (not Berwick on Tweed) south of Edinburgh. As an aside, did you know that Berwick on Tweed is still technically at war with Germany? At the declaration of the Second World War discussions were being held as to whether Berwick was in England or Scotland, so it was listed with the Channel Islands, Isle of Man etc. At the war's end, it was forgotten to put it back in. Anyway, I shall ease your building curiosity to assure you Berwick on Tweed is in England, but its football team plays in the Scottish leagues.