FRIDAY 1st JUNE 2012

BACK TO ENGLAND

Well, today dawned cloudy but with no rain and we set after breakfast to do the hop-on hop-off bus circuit and see the city of Edinburgh.
The first stop was the fabulous Edinburgh Castle, the imposing big place set high on the hill overlooking the city and home to the ever popular Edinburgh Military Tattoo which we see on TV each year!
It is an immense castle and the tour over it takes a couple of hours, so mores the pity, once again our tight schedule meant we just got a superficial look and not the proper in depth tour! That said we got a close up of the famous castle and some amazing views out over Edinburgh!
We again boarded the bus tour and spent a very informative hour or so seeing the major landmarks, including the Holyrood Castle which is home to the Royal Family in Scotland.
It was all over way too soon and we were left with the feeling that we had stuffed up by not allowing at least two or three days to see this fantastic old place! Such history here with all the old buildings, but the way they have preserved so many parks and gardens, making it an attractive city to visit!
Our hotel checkout was noon, so we headed back there, settled our bill and paid for the secure parking! Everywhere you go in the UK you have to pay for parking - sometimes even the Information Kiosks! - so always carry a supply of pound coins!!!!
By this time it was about 12.30pm and we set out to head south and as far as we could get in the afternoon! We entered York and the A68 into the GPS and the resultant info said we would be there by about 4pm! Great! The quickest way would have been to go back across to the M6 but we had already driven that road so we chose the lesser A road!
Bad choice, as it turned out to be the "old" road south, with a speed limit of fifty mph and heavy with traffic and I may well have incurred a fine or two before I realized that this was the limit! Not many speed signs over here - limits are based on seventy for the motorways and divided dual carriageways, sixty for major roads and fifty for the rest - and visitors are supposed to know what's what!!!! Anyway it was a stupidly slow trip behind trucks and tour busses and by the time we crossed the border back into England we were well pissed off and ready for any options!
Unfortunately the GPS lead us astray again as it sent us further eastwards to pick up the A1 motorway, leading us close to Newcastle! Forgetting that we were on a Friday arvo before a four day holiday here for the Queens Jubilee, we accepted the route and for about twenty miles relished the fast speeds before we came across an accident and the resultant traffic snarl!
That was only a minor delay as we then encountered a traffic jam to end all traffic jams and when it ended at the the start of the M1 motorway we had lost over an hour! Bloody hell! We crept along at a snails pace for the entire hour and to make matters worse I was busting for a pee and eventually we had to cross three lanes of traffic and pull up on the verge so I could relieve myself in the bush!!!!!!!
Of course I got very little sympathy and many unkind remarks about my bladder from my travel companions but I toughed it out and continued to maintain my high driving standards!
Once on the M1 we managed to regain some lost time and then Den found a Premier Inn to the north of York and gave them a call to reserve two rooms, so we got to our stopover at about five o'clock, having covered many, many miles and feeling pretty pooped!
Even though we got pretty frustrated with the slow roads and then the traffic jam, the scenery today was again just as lovely as we have experienced all along our trip, which incidentally is nearly at two thousand miles!!!! Superb farmland along the way out of Edinburgh and sensational mountain views as we passed over the Cheviot Mountains, before returning to farming land leading into York!
The views are exactly what we have seen for a lifetime on TV and in movies! It is quite extraordinary and for me at least seeing a dream come true! Amazing stuff and an experience I will never forget!