If I could turn back time

Puffin the camper van was fired up and off we set to visit some of our old haunts from the past. 50 odd years in our past to be precise.

Destination Kinver,  Staffordshire, where I grew up and spent my childhood creating havoc. If i hadn’t left when I was eighteen, I’m sure I would have been run out of town by a mob with pitchforks.

Kinver Edge

Kinver Edge was the the reason for our visit. In particular the Rock houses on the Edge. Now owned by the National Trust who restored the site having been gifted it in 1967. It was opened to the public in 1997. The Holy Austin Rock houses were cave dwellings carved into the sandstone that had been occupied from 1617 until the final residents were moved out in 1964.

Yes you are reading this correctly, I lived in a village were people lived in caves. I went to school with cave dwellers. Once the caves were empty they became our playground. Being soft sand stone all the walls had names carved in them by generations of kids including mine, but I couldn’t find them.

This is well worth a visit if your in the area. The restoration is amazing.

 

As dogs weren’t allowed in the rooms we took it in turns to walk around. Of course once the Extreme knitter got into the the room with the sewing machine she was gone for ages.

The Extreme knitter resting with Elsie and in there somewhere is Ruby.

 

The trip was completed with a visit to Bridgnorth and a ride on my favourite funicular.

We hit the Wall

Morrisons at Hawick was our first port of call in the morning to use their facilities yet again. I like to think of Morrisons as our version of Walmart in the USA, although they don’t let us stop over in their car parks as Walmart do.

I had a plan. not a good one, but a plan all the same.

We needed to be beside the seaside and on our way we stumbled across Hadrians Wall.

Hadrians Wall

A section of Hadrians wall at Cawfield

Apparently Hadrians wall took six years to build. I imagined that after 2 years Mrs Hadrian was losing her patience with him taking so long on his DIY project

“Hadrian”.  “you had better get that back wall finished before my mother visits”.

I set the Sat nav for a seaside destination and followed the back roads that she suggested. (yes, I do call my Sat nav a “she”) which isn’t normally a good thing, but this time she surprised us with a fabulous trip. It was obvious we weren’t going to reach the seaside before nightfall, so we scouted around for somewhere to pull over for the evening. After inspecting many places that neither of us could agree on, we eventually found a large parking area at one of the highest point of the North Pennines called Killhope Cross on the A689

Killhope Cross

We parked up just as the sun was setting. The beauty of places like this is the dark sky. As night fell it was pitch black and the cloud less sky was awash with stars.

The only thing the extreme knitter was concerned about was that the strong wind might blow us over.

About 10 pm the gas ran out, so in the pitch black with the rain and wind lashing down on me, I ventured outside the camper van to swop over to the spare gas bottle.

Why doesn’t the Gas ever run out during the daytime.

 

 

The Lakes

After all the excitement over the last couple of days and having wild camped in a carpark for two nights. We decided (well the Extreme knitter decided ) that a rest up on a camp site would be required. Northwards again with the Lake District as the next destination, we turned of the M6 towards Keswick.

We were heading for the Waterside caravan park situated beside Ullswater, but by mistake saw a sign for the Waterfoot caravan park and turned in. It wasn’t until I had paid for a nights camping that I realised we were on the wrong site. However the silver lining was that this site was cheaper and the facilities were excellent, so I paid to stay for a further two nights. The luxury of massive shower rooms in a spotless heated facilities block was compelling after two nights spent in a hotel car park and it gave us a chance to explore a small part of the Lake District.

The Waterfoot park

After a hearty breakfast and taking Elsie for a walk, a drive to Keswick was our first port of call. Keswick must be the outdoor equipment centre of the world, every shop seemed to be selling expensive clothing and hiking boots. I realised that everybody in the town was dressed in outdoor gear including us and the last time we visited probably 20years ago everybody either had a Labrador or a Golden Retriever on a lead. Now it appears that the popular dog is the Cockapoo. I’ve never seen so many in one place, so Elsie fitted right in with the “in crowd”.

The following day saw us heading South towards Windermere and the lakeside area known as Bowness on Windermere.

The drive from Ullswater to Windermere took us over Kirkstone pass with it’s rugged tight twists and turns. The steep inclines meant puffins gearbox was used to her full extent.

What can I say about Windermere. Well, It is what you would expect it to be on a Saturday. Busy, very busy and picturesque in the sunshine

Dubs in the Middle

This trip is out of sync with my other posts as it happened today. Normal service will be resumed.

They never tell you when you’re a teenager that when you become, shall we say “more mature” that although your body is sagging and aching, inside your head there is still an eighteen year old trying to get out.

Well they probably did tell us, but when your eighteen you never think your going to grow old.

We decided to release our younger selves and go party. Saturday morning and we drove Puffin up to the posh end of town pulling up outside the house we affectionately know as the “Crazy Shack”. We were picking up our feral daughter and our equally feral granddaughter.

The sounds were blasting from the camper stereo as we started our family road trip. Fifteen minutes later we pulled in to our destination.

http://dubsinthemiddle.co.uk/

Yes, we were getting down with the kids at our first ever VW festival and virtually on our doorstep. This was a day visit to break us in to festival life gently.

The Dubs in the Middle VW Festival at Evesham

We took the posse of younger people with us just in case we were turned away at the gate for being too old.

My first wrist band

The vast array of VW vehicles kept me busy while the rest of the gang bought various items of clothing from the trade stands.

Toyota engined Doka Bay

Toyota Engine

Splitty with barn side doors

Immaculate Beetle engine

There was a Foam pit, but sadly only for the little ones.

Live bands were playing in the two Marquees.

One of the advantages of taking a campervan to a festival is being able to have a cup of tea, a piece of homemade cake and an afternoon nap to rest our weary bones before we party on with the kids later.

Unfortunately, early evening and our energy levels started to wane and we took the unanimous decision to head home.

Sadly the Extreme knitter and I would have to miss one thing we wanted to experience as it didn’t start until 11pm. “The Silent Disco”

I found the concept of the silent disco fascinating. I presume my younger reader will know all about it, but for the more elderly reader I will explain. You walk into a marquee with a mass of writhing bodies, strutting their stuff on the dance floor and the DJ is spinning his sounds, but the room is silent. Everyone is wearing a pair headphones that connect them via Bluetooth to the sound system. Not only that there are three separate channels, so you could be dancing to Abba, your partner might be jiving to Buddy Holly and your drunken mate would be head banging to AC/DC. How weird is that.

If this technology had existed back in the fifties it could have caused problems. Imagine asking your date for the evening to step up onto the Tower dance floor at Blackpool. Headphones on and your date selects the tango and you select the waltz.

I think the gang enjoyed the day

We all highly recommended The Dubs in the Middle Festival. We could have rolled up at the 8am start and stopped until midnight all for £5 with loads of entertainment, food, shopping and loads of cool VWs to swoon over.

Like a night in the Forest

After leaving Castle corner caravan site we headed into the Galloway forest area on the A712. Along this road are various stop offs, like the deer park, the goat park, Bruces stone and the visitors centre.

The Goat Park

I eventually turned off the A712 on to a dirt track. Two miles along the track is the payment machine and after paying our £2 fee we were driving “The Raiders road”, basically 10 miles of forestry track.

Halfway along the track is Otters Pool with a toilet and parking area. This was to be our overnight stop for the night, but it was teeming with day visitors who departed about 5pm, leaving behind the remains of their picnics, litter and broken chairs. There was a group of lads who were camping out in a tent with a large fire. It was obvious that they were there to party the night away, so we decided to move on further along the Raiders road and found a car park at the end of Stroan Loch.

Otters Pool

It’s a shame that Otters Pool is so neglected and the main culprits are the locals. It will eventually lead to camping restrictions like the ones being enforced in the Loch Lomond area. (sorry, rant over)

The Otter statue and Ruby

We were alone in the parking area at Stroan Loch and the sun was setting  across the Loch. The forest area is a designated dark skies area and as night fell I scanned the sky, but unfortunately the clouds blocked my view of any stars or galaxies.

The sunset over the Loch

Sunset on Loch Stroan

We woke to find an eerie mist sitting on the water. All was quiet as the road doesn’t open for visitors until 9am. Two red kites circled above the Loch and a couple of walkers stopped to have a chat. Life doesn’t get any better than this.

It’s good that we are comfortable to rock up in a pitch black forest, miles from anywhere without any radio, TV, internet or phone signal and have a peaceful nights sleep. We have an agreement that if either of us feels uncomfortable with an overnight stop, we will move on to find somewhere else.

Puffin covered in dust from the track

We seem to have fallen into the habit of having a lazy start to our days, just being, without any pressing commitments. It was getting near midday when we pulled on to the forest track to continue our journey, so it came as a surprise that I had to brake hard to avoid an owl that swooped down in front of the campervan.

The forest area is amazing and well worth a visit despite the minority of inconsiderate visitors.

 

Castle Corner Campsite

Update on Castle Corner Campsite as of June 2018

Sadly the site owners couldn’t renew the lease on the site and had to put it back into the hands of the land owners. The Caerlaverock Estate.

The Caerlaverock Estate have taken the site over and combined it with the quayside parking area at Glen Caple. Allowing 5 campers to park there overnight. Payment is made into an honesty box.

Although it is good that the camping area isn’t totally lost, we must appreciate the hard work and investment put into developing the site by the young family that ran it. It is unfortunate that this beautiful campsite  had to close down due to various pressures beyond their control. I’m so sad to see it end.

The campervan wheels are rolling again. After our visit last year to Arran we said we would give Scotland a miss this year as we always seem to be returning year on year.

We set off northwards towards the Scottish border. Obviously that memo wasn’t read.

Dumfries and Galloway Forest was our destination which is only just in Scotland.

Last year we passed through here on our way to catch the ferry to the Isle of Arran. After a little research it was apparent that we had missed so much that the area could give.

Our first night was spent at Castle Corner campsite, Caerlaverock. We stayed here last year as an overnight stop before catching the ferry to Arran.

It is a five pitch site used by the Motor caravan club, but open to non-members. It is a gem of a hide away, situated beside the nature reserve and within a short walk to Caerlaverock castle.

http://castlecorner.wixsite.com/castle-corner

Based on the popular German Stellplatz design, the pitches are spacious, each provided with a picnic table. The fresh water, waste water and chemical toilet disposal point is situated near the gateway. A single toilet/wash basin is provided in a log cabin, which is kept clean and inspected on a regular basis.

Once we had settled in we decided to walk through the nature reserve to the nearby 13^th century Caerlaverock castle.

The castle is triangular in shape surround by a moat and run by Historic Scotland.

Library Photo

After the long drive to get here and the walk to the castle we were exhausted, so we returned to the campervan for our evening meal.

We like to live dangerously and tackle change head on. Our first night meal of the usual meatballs and pasta in a homemade tomato sauce was replaced with a healthy option of chicken salad with minted Jersey potatoes. Like a walk on the wild side.

Castle Corner has calming, lay back effect, so we booked an extra night and took time to recover from the road trip to get here.

A full English breakfast started the day. After a leisurely tidy up and taking ruby for a short walk we drove to Dumfries for a wander around the town. As usual Ruby and I stood outside many shops chatting to Ruby’s many admirers. Dumfries is a bustling town with many well looked after Parks.

Robert Burns in Dumfries

Next stop was Morrison’s, where we bought a cooked pork hock joint and some crusty bread rolls, restocked the fridge and food cupboard with goodies.

We drove down to the car park beside the River Nith and had our lunch while watching the world go by.

We headed back to the campsite after having a drive around the surrounding area.

We had a lazy start to the Sunday morning and packed our gear away.

Sad to leave such a peaceful campsite were we are guaranteed a warm welcome, but we will be back again. Definitely recommended as a must visit campsite when in the area.