I would drive 500 miles - Day 3

I'm still in Manchester, no baby bro, yet. And no Covid, yet. It's just a matter of time before we all get it, I know. But I'm dodging it atm, I am knackered though. Could be that I did nearly 8000 steps yesterday, after weeks of doing 1000 here and there. My right foot is not playing ball, except when we went foraging, it was fine. I do not understand, but there's lots I do not understand!

Back to Scotland, and we are in Scotland! Only the casual 69 miles today, nice. If you know you know, if you don't, don't google it, or do?

The day began with us getting up before sunrise, which was around 07:00. I do my usual, and we bolt out the door. We are flying into the twilight? Is it still twilight if it's dawn? Insert Twilight Breaking Dawn reference, I've only ever seen the first one, Twilight I'm 100 years old and like this 16 year old, problematic.

We are facing west as you can see Portpatrick is on a peninsula that faces Ireland, 23.21 miles away, and on a clear day I think you can see the Ilse of Man, 45.31 miles away. We snap some pinkish orangey skies and walk down the path. All the while Sofia is rueing that walking down this cliff path just means we have to walk back up it for breakfast. There are interesting tidbits inscribed on the steps and where the steps turn. I think it was to do with the rocks, and where the various bits of the landmass had been attached to millions of years ago.

We can indeed walk down to the harbour bit. We do a lap, capture the sun rising over the buildings. Not quite as dramatic as we'd hoped but lovely all the same. We note some funny words on the rocks, see pic below. I think they were to do with sea birds, or you know profanity, who's to say?! Sofia spots a dolphin bin that reminds her of her childhood, I think she sends it to Khamilla? My memory isn't what it used to be. We walk back, and suffer the ascent. But we make it, and it's A-ok.

It's at this point we committed to the quest to see a Shag.

Breakfast is in a grand old ballroom type place, see photo of the hotel. It's a grand old building, that's in need of a little repair here and there. The radio is playing and it ranges from golden oldies to modern pop, and peculiar choice, but nice enough. We note that there are some reserved tables, in the window no less! Savvy traveller, knew they wanted breakfast with a view of the see. We go grab yogurt, juice etc. I want a cooked breakfast today, but I can not find plates. Then I spot one of those catering bins that store plates, keeping them warm, inside I find my plate. And get too much food.

A young man swings by and takes our coffee order, he's super polite and apologetic. After I power through my breakfast I'm back to the buffet for some fruit, maybe juice. There's a man in clear confusion, I think he's after a plate. His wife asks him "What do you want!?", he replies "A plate...", I interject and point to the catering plate container thing. To which they reply "You've been here before!" I retort "No, but I did stand here about 15 minutes ago having the same crisis as you sir". We finish up, grab our gear and head out.

We are taking it a little easier today. Focussing on seeing the stuff around us without having to worry about getting to our next warm bed before all the eateries are shut. We head to Morrisons in Stranraer to refuel. I think we dipped in to grab our lunch, Sofia opting for salami, stinky cheese, and a baguette. I got salad, and two wellness shots. One with tumeric, the other with CBD. I'm driving so I steer clear of the CBD, lest it send me into some kind of chilled out trance situation. Who wants to be relaxed whilst driving? Certainly not me!

Back on the road we roar down to the Galloway Forest Park, it's one of a few designated dark sky areas in the world, on a clear night the stars are supposed to be quite something. But we're not stopping the night, because we're campers, we're super camp but not campers. Much like you can have soul and not be a soldier, or ham and not be a hamster. I digress.

We head for Loch Trool, and so begins the single track situation which means driving becomes all the more involved. 

As you can see narrow, limited view of the road ahead, and it's two way.

We park up at the Glen Trool Visitor's centre and head for the "Martyr's Tomb", the forest is super marshy and interesting looking. We get to the Tomb and it's sombre and peaceful. It is at this point I am overcome by the need to pee, as it's a forest I walk off trail and relieve myself. Remember I said it was marshy? The ground is spongy/bouncy, and clearly full of  water just under the surface. I manager to do what I have to do without sinking and head back to a clearing where Sofia is waiting. The sun had gone so the light through the trees isn't as photoworthy as when we first arrived #gutted. But we take a seat at the clearing, there are logs arranged for just that purpose. Some folks had had fires here, scorched earth, which is apparently a no no. Ray Mears said it best "It should be as though you'd never been there", I'm probably paraphrasing, or misremembering entirely.

Spiders and wood lice run about as we accidentally disturb logs and rocks. So we drive on to the "Bruce's Stone car park. More single track driving, lots of concentration. Pulling over, letting folks past, them letting us past. Getting to the car park, a little misunderstanding about where to park, but no harm, just some huffing and puffing. We then walk the short distance to Bruce's Stone. It's now that Sofia calls her ma, as we are kinda high up and we've got signal. Sofia's ma is called ****la, and Sofia's middle name is *****ina, I think it's nice. But I'm paranoid about giving away too much info online, hence the censoring. I think there was some kind of subterfuge, she told her ma we'd trekked through a forest, or up a mountain. Not driven and taken a few hundred steps. I think she panned the camera round to me briefly, and I did my usual stern wave.

We wander about a bit before getting back in the car and driving on. I think my foot had started to hurt and my mood soured. We missed Lock Moan! Drove on and down a little bridge, before finding somewhere for lunch. Loch Dow? It was a body of water that was used for fishing, only with a permit. But we weren't fishing. We were lunching. As we plough through the long grass, we think about the deer ticks etc that may have been waiting for the likes of us. Brimming with lyme disease! We say we'll check each other once we're at our next stop for the night. Turning a corner we spot a rock, and Sofia is overcome with the joy of nature's seat! We were gearing up to sit on the grass and here's a nice rock for us to perch upon and take it easy.

We crack on with lunch and spot a lone fisherman fishing in the water. He's some distance away, and we fear that he'll tell us off for disturbing his place of fishing. Once done with lunch we hang, and Sofia goes off to take a photo of the water. The fisherman approaches us, and asks us where we've come from? We tell him Nottingham, but we're touring Scotland arbitrarily. He enquires as to how we came to know about this body of water, we tell him we saw it on a map and here we are. That tickles him, he's happy that more people get to enjoy the beauty of the Scottish countryside. He asks us where we're headed. And then corrects our spelling Oban, it's more like Obun than Obaan as we were pronouncing it. We say our goodbyes, and he heads off. Walking back through the long grass we spot a hairy caterpillar, and a tiny frog!

A wild Sofia in the distance...

Onwards, my mood is lifted, funny that I was hungry, and my foot hurt, so I was being quiet and withdrawn. Fill the tank, and I'm back baby! Here's where I run out of memories. I remember stopped a few times, but I may be conflating future stops with the current day. But we did stop at Bell's Memorial, and were tempted to drink the water. We stop and Stinchar Bridge, and walk across the bridge, I think. There's a hole which has some tape over it, which is better than nothing, but still a real ankle break possibility. A dog swings by to say hi followed by their people, who also say hi.

We push on. Make lots of Oliphant comments as we go past Mount Oliphant. It's fun but we're wiped out. Plenty of walking, high concentration driving, and an unseasonably warm September have done a number on us. We make it to Ayr where we are stopping for the night, at a Travelodge. We park up right next to the entrance and go in, the guy behind the desk asks me for my address, I'm confused as I'd booked online, he explains it's a legal requirement, so I hand him my driver's licence. He tells us we're on the ground floor. We go through and crash. But spring back up as there's a Tim Horton's right next door.

If you look closely you can see Travelodge peeking over the left hand corner of Tim Horton's!

We order Timbits, coffee, and some kind of glazed something, or at least we try to via the screens at the front. But when we go to complete our order it crashes and resets. After we run through it twice, we wait for the other screen to become available. The lady at the other screen has two kids with her and they are taking the time deciding what they want. Luckily one the staff spot we're struggling and asks what's up. She offers to take our order at the till. She really did us a favour as we were so disheartened and tired. She asks if we want particular Tim Bits or just a selection, we must have looked confused, she suggests a selection. We wait for a bit our drinks and food arrives. The glazed doughnut is nice, super sweet. The Timbits are various flavours. Cinnamon sugar, birthday cake, etc. We settle on we're glad we did it but probably never again, well maybe once in a while, whence we see one, as their rare in the UK, for now.

We head back to the Travelodge. I do my daily physio routine, before climbing into bed with Task Master on in the background. We are wiped out and the sugar high has worn right off. We were going to hit the town, go to an actual restaurant. But laying in bed we're full of, laziness. After over an hour of lazing we decide to hit KFC. It's just over half a mile away, we're going to grab a bunch and eat it in the hotel room. Once there we order, I get a watermelon and lime refresher. And I leg it across the road to and M&S Foodhall, as I wanted some vegetables. I think I got vague bagged salad and some fruit pots.

Sofia's hopped in the driver's seat, I think and we head back. We have a brief panic that the surly fellow behind the desk will disallow our chicken dinner. He completely blanks us, the perfect crime. We get in and eat too much chicken. But we're satisfied. The fruit and salad go down well too, to offset the greasy excess. Exhausted we call it a day, brush our teeth, and hit the sack. We also had a discussion about the prevalence of sweetener in things, I avoid it as it can aggravate uric acid levels/trigger gout attacks.

This particular Travelodge room smelt like every changing room I've ever been in. Slightly sour. We suspect the room had been flooded and dried out, but not before the carpet had picked up the slight sour twang.

I would drive 500 miles - Day 2

 We woke up in Rickerby Grange, after a night of politely trying not to steal too much of the duvet. But that's another story. Up and at them, we'd booked in for breakfast at some time... I forget when but I suspect we went for 08:30, as that's when I would opt for now, and I am nothing if not predictable.

Brush, shower, lotion, meditate, and out the door. That's my routine at least. Oh clothes, I put on some clothes, I think I was dressed head to toe in active wear, mmm I'm such a yummy mummy.

160 miles, doesn't look that far does it?

We venture downstairs, I'd opted for the salmon, Sofia for the full English. We're greeted by a member of staff who reminds me of a girl I work with, Gina. Except this person has red hair. They confirm our orders, and grab us two coffees. An Asian member of staff serves us our drinks. I was expecting a British accent, but was met with a welcome Southern American, not South America, but Southern North America. Clear as mud. Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, The Carolinas etc. Hope you have an idea of this ladies accent, it's not at all vital to your understanding of the story...

Our food arrives and I remember a switcheroo, they assumed I'd want the fry up and Sofia the smoked fish, you know because of the patriarchy. But it's happened to us before, I can't drink beer because of the gout, so when we're out and I order a gin or spirit and Sofia orders a beer, we're met with the mix up all too often. Back to breakfast. I'm given at least a whole fishes worth of salmon, it's very good. I'd tactically ordered small, because of all the incoming calories...

As I'd driven the day before, 180 miles, but who's counting, Sofia is driving today. Fun fact when my dad added her to his insurance how much do you think the premium increased by? Go on think of a number, maybe even write it down, I'll wait. If you thought of anything greater than zero then you were wrong! The cost actually went down, there you go folks insure your kids significant others on your car insurance, that's the moral of the story.

We hit the road and head straight for the Derwent Pencil Museum, it had been recommended by Bob Mortimer on the Richard Herring Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, or RHLSTP, RHLSTP, at least that's what the cool kids are calling it. We park up, pay to park, nip to the toilets and head in. The lady behind the counter sells us our tickets, we get a free pencil with the purchase, plus there's a quiz to complete. Of course we are doing this quiz!

We go through a tunnel that depicts a  graphite mine. We have to duck, the quiz is not easy. It starts easy, but that's to lull you into a false sense of  "Oh she said this was for kids." You know like those quizzes you had on school trips to keep you engaged with where you were. And not just wandering about running your mouth, and eating crisps. I once ate an entire multipack of Wotsits on a school trip, that's possibly why I avoid crisps now, in case I break the seal...

We learnt about pencils in WW2, saw the worlds largest pencil, lots of celebration pencils. We completed the quiz! And the prize was a small bunch of pencils each, well worth it. The museum is a must see, of you're remotely in the are, it's such a little gem. Sofia went to find Witty a gift, settling on pencils. 

Once we were done we headed in Keswick town. To find a Boots, maybe some more food. As we walk around we spot lots of dogs, and middle aged folks. Wandering down an alley we meet a homeless lady, Sofia asks her what she'd like from Greggs. We pop in grab a sandwich and coffee and give them to her. We head back to Boots, and I find a comb. I'd forgotten to pack my brush, disaster I know. I ask about the other mining museums but we opt to hit the road, as there's quite a ways to go and it's past midday.

Very lovely countryside, see video below. We're heading for Portpatrick, if the map hadn't already given it away. We decided to not go straight to Carlisle, because we didn't appreciate how long a drive it would be, ah naivety, you mother of adventure you. We head for Bowness-on-Solway, where we'll get lunch at The Kings Arms Inn, we park up and alas it's shut, around the corner, so is the next pub. We walk on and find the Solway Lounge & Garrison Bistro, brilliant bistro. The lady who took our order was so lovely, and knew everything about the menu. We overheard her explaining they'd opened just before or during Covid. So this was their first proper year. We got soup, and I got the hunter's chicken, Sofia went for a toastie. The soup was great, so fresh and full of flavour. I want to say carrot, ginger, and coriander? It was orange, that I remember. Great portions, good food, nice place. The garrison bears the name of Sofia's niece Maia!

We settle up and get back on the road. Not before snapping a few pics of the coast. I think Sofia was trying to get photos of Chapelcross power station for her food spouse Witty, who looks after it, their Environmental consultants, amongst a plethora of other things, they both wear many hats. The drive stretches on. We stop... somewhere, I wanted to say Newton Stewart, but I can't find the bridge we saw on the map. So perhaps we went to a mythical place that only exists when you really need to pee? Anyhow we wander about, find a public convenience, then see our first castle! Oh I think we crossed into Scotland, we saw a few "Welcome to Scotland" signs, but it was raining so the photos were not great. We did pop into a shop to grab some fruits. We got 15 apples, which Sofia was not really that keen on. But I knew I could eat all 15 then and there so we'd get through them no problem on our trip. Pink Ladies, gala, and braeburn. I think although it may've been just the ten...

It's around now that we get a little antsy about the journey ahead. Sofia had wanted to catch the sun set off the coast of Portpatrick. So we're racing the sunset! We didn't make it. By the time we'd pulled up and checked in, the sun had set. The hotel is old, on a cliff, and we have an enormous room. With a butterfly trapped inside!

We head out and snap a few orangey, pinky sky photos. Not the sunset we wanted but it's nice.

We sit down and google a little. Looks like we can walk down to where all the restaurants are. Once we're at the car it's a little frantic, and I drive down to the front. Parking up it's dark, we can park for as long as we like, but it does say no over night parking. I suspect there are lots of campervans etc. We're heading for The Crown Hotel, without a reservation. It's a Tuesday how busy can it be? Busy but not too busy to find us a table. We're in the corner. I go for a lamb shank, and Sofia goes for a fish pancake?

What do you think it looked like?

I go to order, and grab a shandy for Sofia. A big family rock up and are seated in front of us. The matriarch is American? Possibly Canadian, I can't tell the accents apart. Except for the "aboot" situation. Which I don't remember so I'm going with American. But it's still not that clear because Canada is on the American continent? Anyway they are boisterous and know one of the staff. There's a bit of the bar that's just for empties, not for orders or for waiting about. It says keep clear. A few local old boys rock up, and set up shop there.

Our food arrives, Sofia is blown away by the pancake. It's like a fish pie but under a pancake?! My lamb was flavourful but tough, note to self if you go to somewhere by the sea, get some food related to the sea!

We drive back and hit the sack. We agree to get up early and head out to take photos and see if we can walk down to the village/town from the hotel via the cliff.

I would drive 500 miles - Day 1

So we drove to Scotland, it was pretty, the end.

Ha, you wish, we all know I'm about to write more words than any sane person is willing to read. Insinuations about your sanity aside, welcome back to Ron goes somewhere. This time Sofia is also here...

We wanted to do the NC500, so much so that we talked about seriously once. Looked up car rentals, flights, possible accommodation etc. We did this last thing whence we were super low energy, and the plan stalled.

After a bit of mmmm'ing, we decided to head up the west coast of Scotland and see where we could get. With a loose plan of possibly hitting Jason and Sam's up in Skye, if we got that far. We booked a couple of hotels, with Sofia wanted to leave it open if we stayed in an area or decided to go oscar mic.

My dad was kind enough to let us borrow his Toyota Corolla, a car he's had a love affair with since his first car. Which was also a Toyota Corolla, it was commandeered by the LTTE, returned but was repainted and never quite the same. This version looks a lot like a Scirocco, so much so that in an airport carpark I once walked straight past it as I thought it was a Scirocco.

Anyhow he got it serviced to make sure it was super safe, something he did in Derby, as all other services were unavailable. He didn't want to wait around and they didn't have a courtesy car. So he hopped on a train to Beeston, where I live with Sofia. He then found his way to our house and asked to borrow my car. I'm putting this in so I can remember him rocking up whilst I was in a forecasting meeting with Matt Jones.

Car stocked with clothes, pineapple juice, icepacks, camping stove, moka pot, cutlery etc. We get going about midday, maybe a little later, because I was eating my eggs. I'm driving the first leg. 180 miles to the Lake District.

We did stop for some lunch, Burger King, managed to get 30g of protein with a chicken Royale and some nuggets. There's a hench dude who reminds us of Haran, super hench gentleman/coach. We faff about a bit and get back on the road, I remember my spirits were lifted by the dogs I saw #DoggusIsTheBestus.

We were somewhat bewildered by the state of pop music i.e. Radio 1's playlist. So I think this is where we started station hopping.

As we approach the lakes it starts to get pretty. Mountains on the horizon, bodies of water. It's been several months since I started writing this, and here I am back at it again. But this time I'm in Manchester. An attempt to touch base with my little brother, he's gone to ground. Naturally my final resort is getting myself accommodation for 4 days and leaving an open invite.

One wrinkle, I've probably got covid. My one and only FiFifiFia has it, she's the one I went on this road trip with. Ah yes that's what I was doing.

Elevation, water, dusk, it's all rather nice indeed. We take a few pics, probably deploy the dash cam/active cam/go pro knock off. We notice that the lake district is full of middle aged folks, living their best outdoorsy lives. Driving through Windermere, Ecclerigg, Ambleside. I think we decided to head back, perhaps not to Windermere, as every man, lady, and their dog was there. Ah dogs!

We do a little loop through Keswick and come to our accommodation for the night. Rickerby Grange It's rather nice, there's a code for the door. We park up, grab some supplies and head up. The rooms nice, I cast to the TV and we watch a review vid for the area.

We also decide to head down the road for our dinner, at The Farmer's Arms. It was the late queen's funeral that day. My feelings towards the monarch, will not feature here. But there was a lot of mourning, there was no choice but to know what was happening. Dinner was good, I think I had a sticky toffee pudding? And Sofia embarked on her quest for a good beef pie.

We walked off the road for a bit and got this pic, much happy!

Once back to Rickerby Grange we watch a few vids on what's good to do in and around the area. Avoid the names you know is the advice. So we endeavour to do just that, and hit the sack.