Journey No 13 – 8th to 10th October 2010
8th October 2010
Departed Carrick Castle at 6 am to take ‘Harrie’ to the Motorhome Workshop in Carstairs near Lanark to have a Habitation check and a replacement rooflight fitted above the sitting room area. The original one had repaired cracks in it from before we had purchased the van – it was water tight but was showing its age and didn’t look very nice! By lunchtime everything had been done with excellent service and we were on our way to have a few days holiday before going home.
That afternoon we visited Rosslyn Chapel in Rosslyn near Edinburgh that was founded in 1446. The guided tour was very helpful to understand its history. The stonework in the chapel is exceptional as it is all carved. You are not allowed to take photographs inside the chapel.
After this visit we drove to the Historic Scotland property – ‘The Chesters’ Iron Age Hill Fort near Drem and walked around it – it was pretty cold so didn’t hang around. We decided to stay the night in the secluded car park there that holds just 3 cars. We had a very peaceful night.
9th October 2010
In the morning, we drove to North Berwick, east of Edinburgh, and visited the town and harbour – it seemed a nice place to visit. The famous bird sanctuary Bass Rock is situated just south of the town. We refuelled with 36.47 litres (£43.00) of diesel at North Berwick – 117011 km.
Our next visit of the day was to Tantallon Castle built in the 1350’s – another Historic Scotland property south of North Berwick. This was a mighty fortress set on a rocky headland with the sea behind the huge curtain wall.
After lunch we drove to Dirleton Castle and Gardens, another Historic Scotland property fairly near North Berwick. This castle has sat on its rocky perch for almost 800 years and was in its day a place for gracious living as well as for defence.
Our next visit of the day was to the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune Airfield in East Lothian. We spend the last two hours that the museum was open there, which was in fact a bit of a rush as there is so much to see.
Our first visit was to see Concorde and to go on her – quite an experience…
Concorde flew supersonically at more than twice the speed of sound at around 1350 mph. It took just 2.75 seconds for Concorde to travel one mile at Mach 2. The first commercial flight was on January 21st, 1976 with British Airways flying from London to Bahrain.
Following our visit to the Concorde Experience, we visited the commercial and military areas. Some of the planes we saw included the Comet, Vulcan (photo below), Tornado, Phantom, Lightning, Harrier, Spitfire, Messerschmitt Komet and many, many more…
We had a very busy day with all our visits so decided to park up at The Chesters again for the night that was close by.
10th October 2010
In the morning we set off to see Edinburgh Castle but on the way we thought we would stop off and see the 14th century Craigmillar Castle just outside Edinburgh looked after by Historic Scotland. This is one of Scotland’s most perfectly preserved castles. As it happened they were having a medieval day of jousting, firing crossbows and playing bowls…
After a fun filled and educational morning we headed off to Edinburgh to visit Edinburgh Castle. After spending some considerable time trying to find somewhere to park, we eventually gave up and decided to ‘do’ Edinburgh Castle another day and probably by car using the Park and Ride service.
So we drove on to see Linlithgow Palace on the west side of Edinburgh at Linlithgow going via South Queensferry to see the bridges close to.
We stopped for lunch between the Forth Rail Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
When we arrived at Linlithgow we had no problem parking Harrie in the car park on a Sunday.
Linlithgow Palace is an enormous building that took two centuries from 1424 – 1621 to reach its present form. It is a very complicated building based around a central courtyard and very easy to get lost in as it is so big. The palace was developed by James I (1406-37), James III (1460-88), James IV (1488-1513, James V (1513-42) and James VI (1567-1625). These were truely royal lodgings and the Great Hall was used for sittings of Parliament as well as banquets.
This Historic Scotland property is well worth visiting, it is magnificent!
We decided to drive home after this most enjoyable visit as the weather on the east of Scotland had been overcast and cold whereas the west side where we live was sunny and warm, so after refuelling in Balloch with 25.44 litres of diesel (£30.50) – 117205 km we arrived home at 18.40.
Total mileage for the this trip was 507 km / 317 miles. Fuel consumtion for the trip was 23.22 mpg. Total mileage to date = 117265 km / 73291 miles.
