Greetings from Scotland! In light of the fact that we’ve been wandering around the United Kingdom for last three weeks, we thought it might be time to do a proper update about our adventures here. Dustin is working on a short post about our week in London, so I’m going to focus on the road trip we’ve been on for the last couple of weeks.
As our most devout readers (i.e., our moms) might recall, the last time we went roadtripping, we were driving Dr. Spacevan down the east coast of Australia back in March. Compared to that experience – when it was hot and sunny and our only real stress was deciding which gorgeous beach we would stop to swim at each day – the UK has been… how shall I put it? Ah yes, a WET BLANKET. Not that we haven’t been having a lot of fun here, but it is a little dispiriting to realize that we’ve been in this country since July 25th and haven’t had one full day of sunshine the entire time. Most days have been cloudy or rainy, although occasionally we’re lucky enough to experience what the locals call a “sunny spell” – a delightful term that suggests that sunshine is a kind of ailment that besets you suddenly and which you hope to recover from quickly. So it goes in Britain.
Other than the weather, though, we really don’t have any complaints. I think both of us had reached the end of our respective developing world ropes by the end of our stay in Tanzania. When your shower runs out of hot water while you have soap in your hair for the 11th time, the romance of the dev world starts to wane a bit. The UK, with all of its order, tidiness, and properly organized queues, has been the perfect antidote to our developing world burnout.
We didn’t have much of a plan when we arrived here. We knew we’d spend about a week exploring London (which Dustin had never visited before) and then rent a car at Heathrow and spend the next 3-4 weeks driving around the country until we ended up in Edinburgh. My good friend Paul, a Brit I met and traveled with in New Zealand seven years ago and then again in Sicily a few years after that, promised to organize an itinerary for us that would show us the best of Britain, and indeed, that has proven to be the case. We’re covering a big chunk of the country, but obviously there’s a lot we’re not seeing. I was especially bummed about not making it down to Cornwall, but we decided it was just too out of the way to make it worth the trip. We also aren’t getting to Cambridge or Stratford-upon-Avon, two places I visited when I lived in London after college that I’d hoped to go back to. But, as we’ve learned time and again on this trip, we can’t see and do everything, so we put our faith in Paul’s itinerary and headed off in our sexy Ford Focus hatchback into the soggy sunset.
Rather than try to cover everything we’ve done and seen so far on our tour around the country, I’ll mention a few of the highlights below. We’ve also finally uploaded and captioned all of our road trip photos, which you can find in our UK photo gallery.
Oxford
Paul & Karin, our Oxford hosts and UK trip planners!This was our first stop on the road trip. We stayed with Paul and his girlfriend Karin and, in addition to getting a full in-person briefing on the PHTP (Paul Humphrey Travel Plan) that would guide us for the next three weeks, we drank their delicious STRONG coffee and made fun of Paul’s nerdy book collection. (OK, that last one was just me – Dustin was totally pumped to find Cryptonomicon and Guns, Germs, and Steel on Paul’s shelves). We also enjoyed drinking many pints of cask ales from hand pumps (a strict rule with Paul) at tiny hidden pubs down Oxford’s back alleys, and at one not-so-hidden pub (the Eagle and Child, where CS Lewis and JR Tolkien used to do keg stands together). On Sunday we joined P&K at a traditional Sunday “carvery” roast at a country pub along the Thames, complete with Yorkshire pudding, which was neither from Yorkshire nor looked anything like a pudding, but it was tasty nonetheless.
Stonehenge
Highlights included: old rocks, bright lichen, weird Druid demonstrators at the entrance. Honestly, it was cool to see, but I wasn’t totally blown away. I blame our temple overdose in Egypt for killing my ability to appreciate old heavy rocks.
Bath
We stayed in a lovely French-style B&B run by Simone, who loved us at first, then hated us after we ordered Dominos pizza delivery late one night after too much wine. (Eating pizza in your room is an apparent no-no in the realm of B&Bs – Simone gave us a passive-aggressive dressing down the next day with a not-so-subtle subtext of “Americans are idiots.”) We also consumed copious amounts of delicious, naughty food in Bath (Dominos pizza notwithstanding) and, I feel obliged to mention on behalf of my husband, we also visited our first UK Apple store. The other thing we loved about Bath is that there are flowers everywhere there – I’ve never seen so many hanging baskets, window boxes, and gardens of eye-bursting color than we did in Bath. Truly stunning. Finally, the biggest highlight of Bath (for me at least): Jane Austen in DA HOUSE!
Brecon Beacons (Wales)
Although the town of Brecon was a little white-trashy, its proximity to a stunning national park made us forget its shortcomings. (Think: the Fresno of the UK.) We did a beautiful STEEP hike up to to the top of Pen-y-something in Brecon Beacons NP one afternoon. It was cloudy most of the way, but a burst of glorious sunlight at the summit turned the surrounding Welsh hills into a sparkling emerald wonderland. That, plus the giant cones of locally made Welsh ice cream we had post-hike, made this a worthwhile stop.
Snowdonia / Betws-y-Coed (Wales)
Besides the obvious (and already documented) highlight of the Ferret Derby, we stayed in a great B&B in Betws (Mt. Garmon View Guesthouse — highly recommended — owner Petra is a hoot). We also enjoyed a fantastic traditional Welsh dinner one night at the local Betws Bistro, although we opted to pass on the chef’s recommendation of black pudding. (What is it with this country using the term “pudding” incorrectly — especially as a way of tricking people into eating intestines?!) We had planned on climbing Mt. Snowdon (the tallest mountain in Wales) while we were in Snowdonia, but the rainy and windy weather made us lazy, and we decided to do a much more low-key (but still beautiful) hike near Lyn Ogwen instead.
Lake District / Ambleside
A brief “sunny spell” lights up our hike near GrasmereOther than the fact that it RAINS ALL THE TIME HERE, we actually really enjoyed this area. We stayed in another wonderful B&B (Easedale Lodge, where we became BFFs with owner Bob who may be the most adorable man in the United Kingdom), and enjoyed more yummy meals (are you sensing a theme?). We also saw a movie in Ambleside (‘Inception’ — good!), watched half a season of ‘The Wire’, visited not one but TWO of Wordsworth’s homes, and did some lovely country walks in the rain. The most memorable part of our four days in the Lake District, though, was probably our drive up and over Hardknott Pass. I don’t know how to describe this harrowing experience other than as a sum of its parts: pouring rain; a “road” designed to accommodate cars no bigger than wheelbarrows; blind crests; cars coming quickly from the other direction; 25% grades. Dustin drove the whole thing on the left side of the road with a stick shift – and our little blue car is still in one piece. Just one more reason he’s my hero.
Yorkshire / Richmond
Although not technically on the Paul Humphrey Travel Plan, we opted for three nights in Yorkshire to a) visit the Wensleydale Cheese factory (“It’s the cheese, Gromit!”); b) stay at a ridiculous Georgian B&B with a gorgeous garden, three whippets, and two very gay men running the place; and c) to do a walk in the Dales. The latter happened to be our (or rather, my) one and only sunny hike in the UK. Dustin decided to stay in and relax, so I just wandered off one afternoon without a map and ended up meandering through random sheep and cattle pastures, climbing up a steep escarpment, stumbling upon the Willance Leap memorial, and getting lost repeatedly. It was a blast. We also really liked Richmond where, among its many delights, we stumbled upon a live falconry demonstration at the town castle. You know, like you do.
Hadrian’s Wall
We spent two nights at a B&B in the country, about three miles north of Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. For reasons still unclear to us, our bathroom smelled like a petroleum processing plant, but it was still a lovely, idyllic setting with two adorable resident dogs and an owner whose family had been on the land since the 1300s(!). The main attraction in this area is the Wall, something I didn’t know about prior to our visit, but apparently it was built by those over-achievers, the Romans, around 120AD across the ENTIRE northern part of England to keep those pesky Scots off their turf. Big sections of it are still visible and you can do some really cool (and steep!) hikes along it. We ended up hiking more than 9 miles along the Wall, and I have to say, between the desolate Northumberland countryside and the 2,000-year-old structure that kept popping up along the trail, it was one of the more memorable hikes I’ve ever done.
Newcastle
We did a quick overnight in Newcastle, mainly to drink a pint of its delicious namesake brown ale in the place where it was born. We only had a night in Newcastle, but we decided it was definitely a town worth spending more time in. Next time we go, we’ll visit on a weekend so we can see the Geordies really living it up at the pubs and catch some live music at the many excellent music venues in town.
We’re now just across the border in Scotland, staying at another B&B in the country, after driving up the northeast coast of England yesterday via Bamburgh Castle and Lindasfarne Island. We’re heading out today to spend a night in the Highlands, and then we’re on to the Isle of Skye – or the Isle of Skype as my overly technology-dependent brain keeps wanting to type. We’ll end our road trip in Edinburgh for three nights, just in time to enjoy the overlapping Edinburgh International Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In the mean time, I’m on a quest to try kippers and, god help me, maybe even some black pudding. Wish me luck.