Day 7

Wake early, lie in awaiting our breakfast. Get organised then down to the B and B breakfast. About 8 choices of cereal, juice, tea coffee, bread for toast, jams and spreads of all variety. Even Marmite! Not that thick horrible Oz stuff, no that squeeze from a jar runny English stuff.
Then out mine host with eggs and bacon. Not that sweet honey bacon you get on Oz, it’s that salty thick English bacon, with crispy fat. Yummy. Thank god we have it only occasionally.
It’s raining lightly as we pack the car so looks like our good luck with the weather is over.
Off to the Lakes District today. We go Via Kendall, cute town with a castle on the hill, then to Bowness, Beatrix Potter capital of the world or so they say.
We in act go south down the M6 to get to the turn off to the Lakes, it’s raining yet such is the capriciousness of the English weather that we see our first blue sky and sunlight. In fact the weather urns better and better, though we do go through more rain on and off.
Lake Windermere is wind swept and rather bleak. See lots of walkers who all seem to be walking on the roads. They then disappear swiftly across a fence never to be seen again. Pass some great stiles, I wish I could pull over and get more pics as some are quite something.
Ambleside has walkers ambling, then Keswick, another market town where we stopped for coffee. I find it hard to realise how many people can make such shit coffee. It’s better than instant, but only just.
WE then pointed Billy to Carlisle on the M6 and off we speed. Happened to stop at Hampendon for lunch. The stodge on offer was simply horrible. Don’t these people know about salads. There was simply nothing that didn’t involve fat, gravy, chips and fat. Oh did I mention fat well they had that too.
Back in the car and much much later we had lunch.
Back in the car and back on the M6, swinging up past Glasgow, not seen, into the longest road works project I have ever seen. Went for about 20 miles, single lane, yet at 40 mph. Not the 25 kph we have back home. Everyone is very well behaved and there’s no pushing in or whatever.
The turn off to Falkirk is blocked so Billy has to do some fast calculating, to get us to the Falkirk wheel. We arrive through Falkirk’s back street to this most wonderful engineering project.
Falkirk was the junction point of the Glasgow to Clyde and Union Canals when canals were the big transport thing. At this point the canals used a series of locks to get the boats from the higher Glasgow Canal to the lower Union Canal. This used to take all day.
They fell into disuse with advent of the railway and the canals were closed in the 1960’s.
There was a resurgence of use, however by that time the locks that took the boats up from the Union canal to the Glasgow Clyde were in total disrepair. As part of Millennium projects in Britain it was decided to build aan alternative lock system to reconnect the two canals, and so the Falkirk Wheel was built. It is basically two long gutters, that can be sealed at each end, that rotate.hen one is up, the other is down. The lower one takes in a canal boat, whilst the upper one does the same. The ends of the gutters are sealed, the whole shebang rotates delivering the top boat to the bottom and the bottom boat to the top, out they go on their merry way. This gets over the 35 metre height difference.
It is here we finally have lunch.
Edinburgh is the nest stop, where we hope to get accommodation for the next few days in the Central YHA. Billy sets course and takes us to the completely wrong place. He simply doesn’t recognise the address we put in, so takes us to the next best thing, which it isn’t. We ring the hostel and they can’t take us anyway. Stumbling round a city you don’t know on a Saturday afternoon is rather trying, and I get rather short. We finally manage to get Billy to take us near the hostel so we can get some alternatives. This is good as it gives me a chance to sit quietly while Sue makes some enquiries. This takes quite a long time, and she finally comes back triumphant. We have accommodation for the next two nights. Tonight we are at New Lanark and tomorrow at Stirling.
New Lanark is about 50 km south of Edinburgh and Stirling about 40 north. Well at least we have somewhere to stay.
The drive to New Lanark takes us back over moor-like country. Quite pretty in the fading sunlight. Yes sunlight with blue sky. I hunt along pretty quickly with a Mazda MX5 on my tail, until I take a corner rather exuberantly and run over a road side sign. I doubt the tyre liked it much so I slow down.
We pass through Lanark, avoiding a couple of turn offs to New Lanark, that Billy ignores.
He then leads us astray once again blotting his copy book for the second time today, by taking us down some back lane, that is a dead end.
Finally at New Lanark YHA, in mill workers cottages for a wool mill. Now National Trust listed a rather grand area, with a flash pub, grand old multi-storied buildings and the old mill.
Our room is overlooking the river and quite spacious.
Some observations on the UK showers. None are the same, all work with some arcane system of rotating dials, which operate the water temperature and the water flow.
Usually if you want it hot it, and here who wouldn’t, takes minutes to warm up. I think they are hoping you will give up and just go dirty. Thing is they are designed such that you have to reach through the stream to adjust the flow or temperature or both whilst awaiting the warm flow. That means freezing arm, or if you are not careful scalded arm. Either, not that pleasant. I believe England have good burns units, however, which is some small consolation.
Our room has a double bunk, so my mattress gets thrown on the floor as I am not climbing down in the middle of the night to pee, for no man or woman. It’s not too bad really, as I get near the window and can open it get some cool air. I find most places here too hot, with central heating and all that.
We have had no news from home, in as much as we see nothing, though we have avoided newspapers and TV pretty much.
WE do know that the miners have all been rescued.