Immersed in History

As usual when we are recommended places to stay with friends of friends, we had no idea what to expect as we drove down the narrow and overgrown track into the home of David and Kat. It had taken a couple of wrong turns and one hair-raising u-turn to find the entrance and now we weren’t even sure the Mog would get down the path.

But as we crept gingerly down the trail we found that it wasn’t as tight as it had looked and we quickly popped out onto an open stretch of lawn next to a bubbling river. A small wooden structure appeared to be the only accommodation and a huge bank of solar panels made it clear that we were firmly off-grid

David’s smiling face greeted us with a warm welcome and Kat came wandering over a few minutes later to greet us. The whole place was tranquil, the sun was warm on our backs and we were nestled in between the rising cliffs and the cooling river.

David bought this piece of land a few years ago and has only just started to develop it into a sustainable eco home. They bath in the river, the toilet is a pit dug in the trees and their house is a container alongside which they have recently built a wooden balcony. They have plans to build an outdoor kitchen but for now they cook over a fire. All their belongings are kept in two shipping containers.

We settled in for a wonderful evening with the two of them, feeling immensely pleased to be in the middle of nature again

As we sat drinking wine and chatting, David suddenly sat upright and pointed at the trees over the river. Just in time we caught sight of two red squirrels bounding along a branch.

The next morning, as I was quietly doing my training on the grass with everyone else still in bed, I saw the squirrels again, this time just sitting pondering the view, seemingly unaware of my presence. It was a real privilege to get so close to these elusive creatures.

We had plans to visit Scone Palace that day but spent so much time chatting to David and Kat that we didn’t leave until 11am. We found that Perth is not a happy place to drive a large UniMog around, with lots of traffic, roundabouts and random roads and bridges with big signs forbidding 7.5 tonne trucks. By the time we reached the Palace on the other side of the city our nerves were a little frayed.

Scone Palace claims to have a long and interesting history with many Scottish Kings crowned there. However the whole place was rebuilt in the 1800s so sadly there is nothing left to see of that history

The chapel in the grounds was still intact

Strangely they made a big thing about the ancient ‘Stone of Scone’ only to then say that no-one knows where it is – the stone on show was a replica and they admitted that they don’t actually know what the real thing looked like. It was all beginning to feel a bit artificial.

Added to this, all the information on the audio guide and the information panels seemed to be limited to telling us how great everything was and how historic and important without actually telling us anything about anything. We were getting a little frustrated by it. But the peacock helped amuse us!

We headed back to the Mog for some lunch before exploring the grounds. It was another warm, sunny day and the grounds were lovely. We started in the formal gardens

Then went on to the walled kitchen garden

We then followed a trail through the woods where we found some pretty bridges

And a small graveyard

We guessed that this gateway was once the entrance to the castle but there was no way of finding out – all we could ascertain from the information provided was that it was all very old and historic!

We finally headed back to David and Kat’s place by early evening via a supermarket where we bought the food for dinner. The four of us spent a happy couple of hours cooking on the fire

Before walking down to the river to watch the sun setting over the cliffs

Our next stop was Hungtingtower Castle, a beautiful old ruin on the right side of Perth – so we didn’t have to do battle with the city traffic again

This castle is owned by Historic Scotland and is very well maintained

We climbed up the spiral staircases to each level, looking down over the stone walls and ornate ceilings

From there we fought our way back into the city to visit the Black Watch Castle

Here we immersed ourselves in the history of the famous Black Watch regiment but not before being grilled on our life stories by the ladies on reception and giving them the details of this blog.

We had intended to walk up the Kinnoull Hill but neither of us had much motivation for such exertions. We were both tired and it was a hot day. So in the end we took full advantage of our current living quarters and went back to David and Kat’s to relax and enjoy the sun for the rest of the day

We were really enjoying our stay here but were keen not to outstay our welcome. So the next morning we said our goodbyes and headed back into the city. Our destination was Elcho Castle, another Historic Scotland ruin

It was actually quite similar to Huntingtower Castle but just a little bit bigger

At one point I lost James but soon found him studying the brickwork in the chimney!

We climbed to the roof and the views over the countryside were spectacular

There was a cottage in the grounds that was in private ownership and we heard from the lady on reception that the family who live there have to organise their days, and their social lives, around the opening times of the castle. We weren’t sure whether being able to live in such a picturesque place would be worth the intrusion but the family seemed very happy with the arrangement

We were now ready to leave Perth and dived into the city traffic for what we sincerely hoped was the last time. We found our way to the Gloagburn farm shop where we bought pies, cakes and gin biscuits, most of which we ate in their car park.

It was then time to drive to Stirling. This was a bit of a jolt to our systems as Stirling is next door to Edinburgh and we realised with a bit of a shock that we were almost back where we had started nearly three months earlier.

Where had Scotland gone? We had been enjoying our travels so much it had barely crossed our minds that it would come to an end. But now we had to admit that not only were we a very long way from the Highlands and Islands but we were also very close to the English border again.

I tried not to panic – we still had the whole of Ayrshire and Dumfries & Galloway to go – but it was a thought-provoking moment as we considered how much the culture and history had gradually changed whilst we slowly travelled south.

Stirling is a medium-sized city, not a bad place but nothing particularly special – apart from two main attractions, Stirling Castle and the National Wallace Monument. These two things alone are more than enough to make our arrival feel exciting. We parked up in a small car park in the centre of town and settled in for the evening.

As it was raining the next morning we decided to drive to the castle which is always a risk in BigMog – he’s not built for city driving nor for city parking. It was a long and winding route to the top of the hill but when we finally made it to the gates of the castle we were told that we weren’t allowed in – no motorhomes. The car parking attendant was very friendly and helpful though and took great pleasure in directing us to free parking just around the corner.

We laboriously turned around in the busy car park and made our way slowly down the narrow and steep cobbled road until we got to the first left turn which almost doubled back on itself. You can imagine the carnage we caused trying to make that turn with all the other traffic diving for cover as James deftly manoeuvred the Mog around the tight bend.

Once parked up we walked back to the castle and bought our entrance tickets. This was one very impressive castle

The detail on the exterior was breathtaking

The current buildings were constructed in the late 1400s for James IV and were extended by him and his son James V in the 1500s with the chapel being built by James VI just before the 1600s. From the 1100s to the 1700s every monarch was born, crowned or died here and it is a symbol of great pride and independence for the Scottish. They say that whoever controls Stirling controls Scotland.

It was pouring down with rain so we started our tour in the state rooms. These had been refurbished by Historic Scotland in recent times and fitted out as they may have been in the 1500s

So none of what we saw was authentic but it was amazing to finally see what a castle like this must have looked and felt like when it was in its prime

Every room was sumptuous with one having a ceiling painstakingly re-created from the original plaster features

The Great Hall was enormous with a high vaulted ceiling

Along with two thrones and the royal banner hanging on the wall

Next door was the chapel which looked very sparse in comparison

We tried to walk along the castle walls but were getting soaked to our skin so we went back to the Great Hall and sat on a bench over a heater to try and dry out a bit. Eventually the rain stopped and we were able to go back outside to see the walls and ramparts

We admired the views over the city

And looked down over the formal gardens

We then visited the older parts of the castle

Including the re-created kitchens

We only had four hours of parking and before we knew it we were out of time so we jumped back into the Mog and headed to a larger and more spacious car park than we had stayed in the previous night before heading off on foot in search of lunch.

We wandered past a rather impressive building that we couldn’t identify

And eventually found a lovely café in the middle of a retail park which served surprisingly tasty food and the staff were wonderful.

Opposite us was a big multi-screen cinema and James suggested we do something we hadn’t done for over a decade – go and see a movie. I was very excited by the idea and we looked online to see what was showing. The only film that caught our imagination was ’28 Years Later’ but sadly it was not due for release until the following week. We were very disappointed and headed back to the Mog a little glum (we did finally get to see it but not for another month when we were back in England).

The next morning we drove to the National Wallace Monument and had fun and games navigating the roads. We ended up driving through the university campus as it was the only way to avoid a weak bridge closed to 7.5 tonne vehicles.

We walked up the hill from the car park along lovely wooded pathways. Once there the monument towered over us

We bought tickets to climb to the top but I got no further than the first five steps. There were people queued up in front of me, people trying to push their way back down the same steps, high walls on all sides and a low ceiling. I stopped at step five and tried to clear my head, projecting ahead to the great views from the top.

It was no good, I wasn’t going to get any further. So I went back to reception where the kind lady gave me a refund and I sat on a bench outside chatting to my Mum on the phone whilst James went up to look at the exhibition dedicated to William Wallace

Including his sword

And took lots of photos for me from the top

Once he was back on firm ground we were about to head back down the hill when we saw a man in costume starting a theatrical speech about William Wallace and the history of Scotland in the 13th Century

He was very good and we stood and listened to the whole story.

We planned to head generally south west into Ayrshire and I have to be honest and say that I never expected to get this far. BigMog’s gearbox had been causing endless problems with crunching gear changes, and sometimes not allowing any gear to go in at all, and the problems seemed to get worse with every passing week. Driving up the west coast we had nearly stopped numerous times to go back to the UniMog specialists in Hull for repairs but every day we decided to try one more day until we finally made it to the north coast.

Once on the north coast I said let’s just get to Inverness and then go back. When in Inverness we decided things had stopped getting worse and we could probably do another couple of weeks so we managed the east coast. But at no point had I ever expected to do anything other than drive straight from Stirling back down to Hull. And yet here we were, heading in the opposite direction towards the south-west coast.

It was looking suspiciously as though we were actually going to make it all the way around Scotland. It was a great moment.

But before we went west there was one thing I wanted to do here in the east. I had had my heart set on visiting Jupiter Artland near Edinburgh but it had been closed for the off-season when we were there two months ago. Now it was open and we were too close to miss out again. So we headed for the closest park-up place we could find for the night – on the edge of Livingstone.

Livingstone was a far bigger and noisier city than I had expected. We parked up in a small car park right on the outskirts and as we drove there the roads were narrow and twisty, giving the impression of being a rural backwater. This could not have been further from the truth! The small and narrow road was one of the busiest and loudest we had camped near and the car park itself was dirty and smelled of stale urine. It was not our finest moment and we were very pleased to be leaving early the next day.

The helpful lady on the phone at Jupiter Artland had said that we would have trouble getting BigMog down their long and winding driveway and suggested instead that we used the Park and Ride, giving us the number of the bus that stopped right outside their gates. It was very exciting, it’s been many years since I used buses and I doubt James ever has.

Jupiter Artland describes itself as a ‘100 acre contemporary sculpture park’ and the photos looked amazing. However, we have had limited success with outdoor sculpture parks with some magnificent fails on the Isle of Mull and elsewhere. But the memories of the awe-inspiring Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden in Cape Town and the fabulous Chapungu Sculpture Park in Zimbabwe kept drawing me in with eternal optimism.

I would say that Jupiter Artland fell somewhere in the middle

The whole park was immaculately kept and wonderfully presented. There were some really beautiful pieces such as the ‘Weeping Girls’

As well as some less dramatic but quite nice sculptures such as the ‘Temple of Apollo’

‘Over Here’

‘Landscape With A Gun’

And ‘I Lay Here For You’ by Tracey Emin

The amethyst grotto was very shiney

And the ‘Rose Walk’ was pretty

I quite liked the temporary exhibition of stuffed animals with slight birth defects but James just stared at it with one eyebrow raised before wandering back outside

And there were some parts that really did nothing for either of us, especially the plastic ‘Love Bomb’

James was rather disappointed by the aeroplane I promised him

And a couple of the signs made us look quizzically at each other!

The whole landscape was lovely though

And the mosaic pond was very colourful

But by far the best part were the ‘Cells of Life’ which is really what the whole place is most famous for

After a very nice lunch in their café – including some delicious parmesan truffle chips – we took the bus back to BigMog and drove to New Lanark. There is a huge car park there that welcomes motorhomes to stay for up to a month. We chose a quiet spot in one of the small overflow car parks slightly up the hill and settled in for a peaceful evening in beautiful surroundings.

New Lanark is a UNESCO World Heritage site, an 18^th Century cotton mill village established by Robert Owen which became a model for industrial communities based on philanthropy and providing decent homes and working conditions for the workers.

We had bought tickets so we knew there was something we could go and see, however New Lanark is also a village where people live and when we first walked down from the car park to the village itself we were more than a little confused by it

The buildings were incredible, beautifully built and in pristine condition

The scale was enormous

We found a sign in front of one of the houses saying ‘Robert Owen’s House’ and it indicated that you needed a ticket before you could enter. We had our online tickets so we entered and had a look around the old 18th century home

It was interesting but we were still no clearer on what exactly we had come to see and what was private property.

Eventually, after much aimless wandering around we found the visitors centre and suddenly everything became clear. We were warmly welcomed and the layout and purpose were explained. With more than a little relief we started our official tour.

We saw the workings of the mill engines

As well as the cotton mill itself

With the brightly coloured reels on display

We climbed up to the roof garden where we had a great view across the whole village

And we saw the old workers cottages

As well as the village store where we found lots of old produce some of which looked vaguely familiar

The Falls of Clyde were nearby and there was a marked walking trail so we headed for the river, seeing the mill wheel as we left the outskirts of the village

The views over the river and the forests beyond were lovely

We found an old hydro electric power station hidden amongst the trees

And then went on to see the falls themselves

We decided on the long, circular walk back to the village and were exhausted by the time we had climbed the endless hills back to the car park

The trails we had walked had been steep, rooty and narrow in places but there were plenty of signs welcoming ‘responsible’ mountain bikers so James decided to go out on his e-bike the following morning

Sadly many of the trails were just too overgrown and rooty for him to get any real speed up

He returned a couple of hours later a little disappointed.

Continuing our tour of the industrial heritage of this part of Scotland, we headed for the highest village in Scotland – Wanlockhead. This place is famous for its lead mines and James was keen to go on a mine tour.

The whole area was beautiful and the air so high up was cool and crisp

We pulled into the museum car park and chatted to the staff about our options. There was no way I was going down a mine but I did want to see the miner’s cottages which were part of the tour. The kind-hearted guide offered to let me join the tour once they had come up from the mine for no extra cost which was very generous.

Off James went down his mine whilst I amused myself in the museum exhibition rooms

At the allotted time I headed off, following the directions the guide had given me and eventually, after a bit of a detour to the wrong mine, managed to meet up with them. There were plenty of old mining buildings

As well as the remains of a beam engine

We finished at the library which housed old books and a lot of history

By the end of the day we were full of knowledge about cotton mills and lead mining and were ready for a rest. We drove a few miles out of town and parked up in a large layby alongside a beautiful, winding road through the Mennock Pass

The whole place was picturesque and rather lovely. The only trouble was, we were not the only campers to have discovered it!

Our last industrial site was the Barony A Frame, another place that I wasn’t too sure what to expect from but which turned out to be quite fascinating

We had a bit of a false start, being unable to get into the car park under the 2m high barrier, but once we had sorted that out we wandered around the small site reading all about the miners and their lives as well as admiring the huge A Frame of the Barony mines

We decided on a change of scenery from all this industrial heritage and drove to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayr

The museum itself was a strange mixture of Burns’ possessions and passages of his literature all displayed together in glass cabinets in a darkened room. It was quite interesting but a bit of background information on him and his life would have helped. We did discover that he wrote Auld Lang Syne though which was a surprise.

From there we walked across the village to the Auld Kirk where his parents are buried

And which inspired one of his most famous poems ‘Tam O’ Shanter’

Further down the road was the Burns Monument and Gardens

With lovely views from the top over the River Doon

And of course we had to stand on the Brig O’ Doon

We then walked a mile or so along the river to the cottage where he had been born. The route was littered with interesting sculptures

And the cottage itself was small and cosy

We had chosen to stay over night in the car park at nearby Belleisle Park. When we arrived we had a very nice view over the park grounds and it was very quiet and relaxed with a few families playing ball on the grass

But it was not to last. We sat outside for a while but at around 8pm a group of ‘boy racers’ arrived and started screeching their cars around the car park, shouting and screaming. This went on until after 3am and we had very little sleep – how a place can change after dark!

By the time I was up and training the next morning, the park had changed back to its peaceful daytime persona and I chatted to a few dog walkers as I trained, even giving one lady these blog details as she loved the Mog so much.

After finishing my training I started browsing through our itinerary, making plans for the next few days. With a jolt I realised that ‘a few days’ was about all we had left. We were now less than 100 miles from the English border and there weren’t many yellow blobs left on our Google Map

I sat looking out over the green parkland musing on just how different the Scottish Lowlands are from the Highlands and yet how different again any part of Scotland is to England. We had been here almost three months now and time had seemed to stand still for much of our journey.

But now we were nearing the end and everything seemed to be speeding up, drawing us ever closer to England where we still had no idea what would be in store for us. Would we be able to fix the gearbox quickly and be off into Europe and beyond in the next couple of weeks? Or would the end of our Scottish adventure spell yet more time sitting around, frustrated, whilst we sorted out BigMog’s health.

Only time would tell so I pushed the thoughts out of my head, packed my camp chair away and set my sites on what the next few days would bring…