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Slightly tired we left the ferrie this morning. Luckily getting off the schip was a lot quicker than getting onboard. So at ten we were on our way home. After a stop for breakfast at McDo we were home around 12.30.

It was a great holyday and much too short. We were very lucky with the weather all three weeks and did almost everything we wanted to do. And we have a good reason for going back to do the things we didn’t do this time.

Souvenirs

Until our next adventure 😃

Last night in Newcastle, before taking the ferry back home

We decided to spent our last UK night in Newcastle, having some drinks and eating out. Plan was to find a legal and save camperstop in the city and sleep in the Van there. Google didn’t give us any spots so we decided to drive to the center and go to tourist information to ask were it was allowed to camp over night. After asking several people if they new were the tourist information was we ended up in the library. There was this service point of the city counsel. Almost the same as where I used to work in The Hague. They probably know a lot about city tax, parking permits and possibilities for eldery, but they knew nothing about tourist information or camperstops. She did give us a phone number on a paper and the possibility to call the parking devision for free. And that was it, we had to find out the rest ourselves. So Tanguy made some calls and we could park on this coach parking near the Arena. 

We drove over to the parking and after one look decided that this was not a very save place.

So after two hours of searching we ended up on this small farm camping about eight miles outside of Newcastle. Between cattle and sheep, even with real sheepdogs.

Sheep


Our camping spot

A dog was driving the sheep

After settling in we called a taxi and went to town. The taxi driver was a really nice guy and droped us off at the “under the bridge tavern”. Which was litterly under the bridge and a really nice place with their own brewery.

Tavern Under the Bridge beer

Unfortunately the beer wasn’t really my tast, but the pub was very nice.

We left for some Italian, and then came back for some more drinks. Then the pub closed and we had to go back to the campsite. We phoned the taxi company and had a whisky while we waited. We didn’t want to take the taxis outside because they would be twice as expensive. We rather spend our money on whisky.

This morning after paying for the campsite (we couldn’t find the owner yesterday) we went to this large Asda and then to the largest shopping mall in Europe for lunch. They had a Wagamama there, so that’s were we had lunch 😋.

Wagamama lunch

It was delicious. After lunch there was no time to do some more shopping, we had to go to the ferry.

Driving over the Tyne bridge. One of many bridges in New Castle Upon Tyne


On time at the ferry terminal

We start to learn the drill and were nicely on time at the ferry terminal. Checking in went quick, but then it took forever to get all the cars on board. Looked like they were making this 1000000 jigsaw puzzle. Fitting in one car at the time, then two motorbikes etc. etc., and we were almost the last car to fit in. Just five minutes before setting sale we were onboard the ship.

Boarding the ferry

Finally on board we went to the sundeck to wave the UK goodbye for now.

Bye New Castle, bye UK

Later that night we had a lot of fun on board, I am sure the two bottles of Prosecco had nothing to do with that 🤪. We played Bingo as proper Scots. And lost of course. 

The band was good, and the drunken English girls were great entertainment. In Holland you would think she forgot to put on trousers, but after living in Scotland for some time I know that is not the case 😂.

A good last evening of a great holiday.

Drunk English girls 


Very funny 😄 




Good night

Slowly on our way back to the ferrie

Yesterday morning we said goodbey to the North Coast 500 route and went on our way back to the ferry. We didn’t want to rush so we have a few days for the 460 km drive. We decided to go right trough the middle of the Cairngorm national park. We know the area a bit because we spent lot of weekends there.

I started the day with my first drive ever in Tos, must say I didn’t too bad. Eventhough I only drove it out of the camperpitch and campsite. Then I switched places with Tanguy again. But at least I know now that I can move the van at all, had some doubts about that.

Liane’s first drive with Tos

It was the first day of cloudy skies and rain of the holiday, but the surroundings were still lovely. The hills could be very steep, up to at least 20%, but we made it! We even got trough Devils Elbow 😈

Ski lifts


The steepest slope of the holidays

Tanguy found a campsite via Google. The site said that they would re-open in summer 2017, so to be sure we gave them a call. The campsite was still not open, but we could still camp there, free of charge. It was at an unnamed road on the edge of the Cairngorms. Sounded good enough, so we drove there. It was very small but okay. 

Unfortunately the rain wipers didn’t feel to enthusiastic today. After not being used for so long they just needed a little bit off help every turn. So to help the wipers on their way back we both had to bang on the windscreen to help the wipers over a death point. It worked, but needed to be looked at.

Just a few miles from the “camping” we needed to cross another cattle grid. We crossed a lot of them already this holiday so we weren’t prepared for what happend next. When we got off the grid Tos got luanched! All four wheels came from the ground and we fell back down with a hard bang. We were both in shock, what the f*ck happened? We weren’t speeding, the road was okay, but there must have been a dip just behind the grid with a launch platform right behind it. After some seconds we stopped to check the car. The camper part was okay, except for some books who fell down. But the cars exhaust had gotten the full blow. The exhaust is at this stupit place quite low under the nose of the cars, so it’s always the first to hit the ground when anything happens, also this time. Luckily Tos still runs fine, he only makes even more noise than normal. We decided to leave it for now and fix it when we are back home.

The camping which hasn’t been open for over a year


Our camping spot for the night

After we arrived Tanguy had a look at the rain wipers and motor, turned out to be (another) broken wire. He fixed it and now it works perfectly.

That night the wind began to blow and today was sunny but with a very hard stormy winds gusting up to 9 bft. Hard work to keep Tos straight.We passed Edinburgh and are on a campsite in Dunbar on the east coast. It is still very windy but we wil fire up the BBQ later on for the last BBQ mail of these holidays. Tomorrow we go to Newcastle and have a night out.

The bridge near Edinburgh 

Windy, but sunny

Preparing diner

Steak on the way

Preventing the bbq from blowing away

Enjoy 😋

Car problems and whisky

Yesterday evening we booked a distillery tour at Balblair, we wanted to be sure we didn’t miss out this time. The tour started at eleven so the plan was to have breakfast at the local Cocoa Mountain (there are only two shops in the whole world and we found the second one) and after breakfast we would go to Edderton were the Balblair distillery is stationed.

Things turned out differently. After a quick shower Tos was packed well in time and we were ready for that delicious mocca hot chocolat from Cocoa Mountain. So we jumped in the van and drove off, NOT!

For the first time this holiday Tos did not want to started 😢. Turned out the battery was empty because the dynamo did not do what it is supposed to do, charge the battery. We had a quick look and decided to change the starter battery with the extra one for the camping part. It didn’t took too long but we still had to skip the hot cocoa for breakfast to be in time at the distillery. I was a little disappointed by that, but we had already booked the tour, so well, these things happen. 

We arrived well in time at Balblair. And one of the nice things about a campervan is that you can allways make coffee, and so we did. We had coffee and a croissant for breakfast at the parking of Balblair.

Breakfast in front of the distillery

At eleven it was time for the tour. Due to new health regulation laws it is not allowed to make photos inside the distillery, so no pictures from the making process. But it is a nice small distillery, not the most beautiful one we ever visited, but nice.

Cask filling - 45 seconds for 250L whisky

Cask on its way ti the warehouse

Inside the warehouse

After the tour it was tasting time, and of course we bought a bottle. A very special one this time! It is a single cask whisky which we bottled ourselfves. Our names are in the bottle and in the archives of Balblair. So we made a little bit of history today 😊. Bottle 228 of cask 711 from the year 2006 is bottled by Tanguy and Liane Cagé.

We are on the kable and in the books






Pouring the bottle




Labelling


And there it is

After making our own history it was time for some serious Scottisch history, the Culloden battleground. The way there was beautiful again, green and full of Furze (Brem in Dutch). 

Culloden itself was impressive, as to all wars there’s more of a story behind it than just the Scottish against the British. It was the Jacobites fighting for their king Stuart, against the British Government. Both armies contained Scottsmen and British men, but the Jacobite army also contained French and Irish soldiers. Culloden was the last full-scaled battle to be fought on British soil, and meant the end of the Scottisch Clan culture. 

1800 soldiers were killed here within one hour






Fraser - One of the important clans during the battle

We spent quite some time an the memorial grounds, not even trying to imagine how it must have been there on 16th of April 1746.

Being still a bit impressed, and thinking also about the problems with Tos we diceded to leave Inverness behind and started our way towards Newcastle. So we found a nice campsite in Craggie and had a look at the car. We think we fixed the problem with the dynamo for now, and cleaned the bougies. It will hopefully take us home now. And there we will take some more time to solve the problems more seriously.

We had dinner outside in the sun 😊