Bye Bye Scotland!

Awoke later than usual today (could have been something to do with the comfort of the bed and the opulent surroundings :-) to a cooked Scottish breakfast compliments of Shiela the chef and Chris the waiter. Bianca did the big brown eye dog kinda thing but had as much success as Tuppie does. Served in the dining room, it was all rather special. Leigh remarked that it was the best Scottish breakfast he had all week – and that included one he had cooked for himself!

After a reshuffle of the contents of the car boot, we bid farewell to Chris, Sheila and Bianca and headed toward Berwick-upon-Tweed. About halfway there, we stopped at the border between Scotland and England and waved goodbye to Scotland and then continued on our way.



Berwick-upon-Tweed was a cute town, something about it appealed to me. We found the TIC, got our map of the city walls and started our walk at Scots Gate (named because it is the road to Scotland). We got to the top of Meg’s Mount (named for a cannon called Meg which use to be here) and the brochure mentioned a great view of all three bridges across the Tweed. We could only see 2. All was revealed later as we continued our walk and found the third smaller bridge had been completely blocked (view wise) by the newer road bridge.

Some magnificent views of the Tweed meeting the North Sea, and the local swan residents. The land between the town walls and the sea is now used as a golf course, which I guess gets fairly rough and difficult in winter. No retrieving the balls that go over the cliffs into the water, or maybe it’s a deep sea divers playground.

From Berwick-upon-Tweed we headed to Bamburgh to check out the castle. We found it and took some happy snaps of the outside which is all we intended to do. We were planning on a visit to Alnwick Castle later in the day.



Because the road signs aren’t the greatest, we didn’t find the most direct route back to the A1 to continue our journey. Lucky for us this meant we came across the little town with the unlikely name of Seahouses. It did have the Harbour Inn which had a delicious Sunday carvery lunch :)

Onward, the back way to Alnwick. When we got there we found that a zillion other people had decided to pay the castle a visit (it was a Sunday afterall) and the rain was starting to come down. Pass, there will be many more castles for us to see. The Duke of Northumberland will just have to survive without us and we will have to be content with seeing the castle in the Harry Potter movies.

From Alnwick, on the A1, skirting around Newcastle-upon-Tyne, we found our way to Laurel Manor Farm (12 miles north of York) where we are staying for a couple of nites. And it is from our pink bedroom that I am writing this with the golf on TV in the background.

Haste 'ye back!