High Bield to IoM

A cooked breakfast, an almost tearful goodbye with Ann (who left first, to drive Emily and Jackie to Gretna retail park), and slotting our bags into the car. An hour and a half later we were at Heysham ferry port - a bigger operation than we expected.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Corking day

Image
Up at 0630, chatted to Kevin over breakfast after he'd returned from his spin class at the gym, said our goodbyes with heartfelt thanks and headed off by 0830. 2 hr drive to Cork slightly marred by mistake at bottom of M8 - it does not become the N8! Googlemaps got us back on route and we went to the Park & Ride - L's bright idea to avoid city centre parking stress. €5 for parking and return bus for 2 of us, pleased with that. We hit the English Market first, and have never seen such displays of meat and fish, we think it even beat Bury market. We had a coffee and resisted the cakes, strolled in the city centre, Saint Patrick's street, and climbed onto the City Tour bus. After a cold, damp start the sun came out v hot. We ate sandwiches kindly provided by Noel as we toured the city. The pre-recorded commentary was leavened by acerbic comments from the lady driver - she was very funny. We jumped off at the Cork City Gaol and spent an interesting hour learning about the p...
Read more

Kerry Ring part 2

Image
The pizza last night from the Watch House was excellent, not too big so all crusts were eaten. Boston's Bar, the only pub in town, was a 5 min stroll. A pint and a half of Guinness was consumed. The bar was busy until the gaelic football match finished. There was talk of music later but it didn't seem certain and again we were tired so we didn't stay. The weather cleared, blue sky and distant hills were seen, and it was a lovely evening. The assessment of the Valentia campsite was not so sunny; the showers were fierce with no controls and no seat, and the WiFi was flakey then broken. This morning the cloud was back down with a vengeance, can hardly see beyond the campsite. We exited Valentia via the small ferry and continued along the Ring which frankly isn't that scenic on the sea side; maybe the hills/mountains are good but we can't see them. We diverted to Killarney to find a pharmacy open on a Sunday, to get insect repellent- we are starting to get bitten. Killa...
Read more

Seaside and St Bees

Image
Porridge, coffee, Nic's sooty trousers washed by Ann after stain removal. (Sooty from sitting aft of the steam on the gondola).We had decided to attempt Black Combe, a top not counted as a Wainwright because it's just beyond the true Lake District.  We drove over to Whicham and parked by a church to take the well worn path upwards. On the way we saw buzzards and what might have been a pair of kestrels hunting.  It's supposed to take 1hr 50 to reach the top. After about half that we called it a day, as the ascent through bracken was very steep and the down section looked equally challenging. And the view from where we had reached was pretty good.  We ate our sandwiches and started down the hill. At least it didn't rain, and Nic's newish walking poles proved to be a boon.  At the bottom, we walked some more of a level path to get in a few more steps, and then drove the short distance to Silecroft beach cafe. Wow, what brilliant coffee, beautiful picture windows on to ...
Read more