How Now Brown Dog

Who’d have thought we’d find an American Indian campsite behind a pub in Sussex? Apparently, up the road from The Dog and Duck you’ll find the cowboy encampment. Who knew ...? Hugo enjoyed harassing the replica horse and the Fluffy One couldn’t help popping his nose inside the tents.

Welcome stranger 

I’ll just take a peep inside

He’s chasing me!

An Old World Ramble

What a beautiful day to spend wandering around the Weald and Downland Museum near Chichester. The sun was shining and the ducks were quacking.

Hugo and the Fluffy One got themselves into a bit of trouble and ended up in the stocks but I managed to extricate them from their bindings and we continued our perambulation around the resurrected buildings.

My, what a big bucket!

In trouble again

Summer in September 

Back with Blogger for Next Trip

Graham, Hugo and I are heading off on another European adventure and I've moved the blogsite back to Blogger as I'm now having trouble with Wordpress. 'It was ever thus,' she sighed.here is the link to the last blog if you want a catch up. Last year’s blog

After a while off the road due to various building works to our new house in Dorset, we are now ready to go off on another set of travels. We're starting in France then down to Italy and maybe Greece if we have the time.

We have some lovely friends looking after our house while we are away.

Follow us if you'd like to keep up to date with what we're doing. I'm hoping to get some great photos of the lovely places we'll be visiting. Here's one to kick off.

A stick on a beach

Dickie Does Dorset

The first time we went to Lulworth Cove a naked man with a gigantic penis emerged from the sea. It was December and the freezing rain and wind did nothing to cause the usual shrinkage that chaps experience in cold weather. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get a photo as by the time I had regained consciousness he’d draped a towel around the offending article.

This time, yesterday, we met a film crew. Not quite as eye-popping but rather fabulous as they are making a movie of the book ‘On Chesil Beach’.  All that emerged from the sea was a rather attractive cameraman in a figure hugging wetsuit, fresh from filming on a rather attractive sailboat.

By coincidence, last night we found ourselves parked up by Chesil Beach when we discovered a place near Portland that is popular with Windsurfers. Loving the visitor’s centre there. Really interesting and attractive stock which is a massive change from most such establishments.

We’re in Dorset house hunting. Having spent the last 20 years in Boscastle we feel it’s now time to move on for a new adventure. The area we’re focusing on is around Hengitsbury Head/Southbourne but we may expand our search. We need somewhere that has beaches, walks, shops, theatres and good restaurants – np biggie. If anyone wants to recommend anywhere please do.

Orkney Field Trip

After Graham arrived at John O'Groats from 1150 mile walk he sat down and had a lovely rest...NOT!

So as not to get too complacent we got into Dickie and headed over to Orkney via the Gills Bay ferry to St Margaret's Hope.

The crossing was about £80 for two people and a 6M motorhome. Hugo the dog was free. 

It's a great place for anyone with an interest in archaeology. Our first stop was on the southern tip of the Eastern mainland at The Tomb of the Eagles. There we found both Neolithic and Bronze Age burial sites. 

We found a lovely place to stop for the night on the side of the road not far from there and had lovely views across to the mainland.

The next day was spent touring the Italian Chapel, the Ring of Stenness, the Ring of Brodgar, and Skara Brae.

We booked into see Maeshowe burial chamber on Monday as you can only see it with a tour guide and we headed off for a drive around the western island to see where we'd end up. We found the Brochure of Gurness and stayed the night there by the beach.

We loved Stenness so much we went back the next day and saw the Barnhouse just 200 m away from it which we'd missed the day before.

Maeshowe was interesting but no photos were allowed. It has some fabulous Viking rune graffiti on its interior walls. It looks a bit like Silbury Hill from the outside.

We caught the evening ferry back and unfortunately a truck reversed into our driver side wing mirror as it was getting onto the ferry. The ferry company was very good and accepted responsibility and will pay for the damage...we hope.

If you are interested in archaeology do go to Orkney - it's very easy to get around and there are lovely places to free camp or other campsites close to towns and beaches.

A Gift at the End of the Road

I drove into John o'Groats feeling very proud of myself for having driven such a long way from Cornwall. The road was pretty straight and pretty quiet which made life easier.

Walking around feeling very pleased with myself, I noticed a group of people arriving in a couple of painted up 4 X 4s. I asked them what they were doing and they had just driven all the way from Bangalore in India. They have been trying to raise awareness of organ donation and their trip is being filmed.

Their trip took them from southern India, across China, Kyrgystan, Russia, parts of Scandinavia, then through Europe to John o'Groats. It certainly makes my trip from Cornwall seem rather a paltry affair. 

I spoke to one of the girls who said they had had no trouble on the trip apart from the odd official looking at their papers rather closely. The people they have met along the way have made it a very special trip, she said.

You can check out their Facebook page 'Gift of Life Adventure' if you want to know more. 

I put Radio 4 on when I arrived at our campsite and there was a programme on about a boy called Martin whose parents had donated his heart after he died. These parents had then met the recipient of his heart. A very touching story and quite timely considering the group I had just met.

Graham will be here tomorrow to end his walk from Land's End.

Carrying on to the Cairns of Camster

One more day before Graham arrives at John O'Groats. I've mastered the art of driving up incredibly thin Scottish roads with passing places to allow oncoming traffic to go past. At first I was terrified as, of course, a giant truck appeared behind me going much to fast for the conditions and gave me 8 miles of high blood pressure until I arrived at my destination.

The place we chose to wild camp for the night was the parking area at the Cairns of Camster, two 5,000 year old burial chambers. It's about 30 miles from John O'Groats and extremely interesting. Bodies were found sitting upright in the entrance way and cremated bodies within the central chamber.  

The cairns have been very well preserved and the sheep were loving it. We even found a couple of lamb's tails that had been disconnected from their bodies. 

You have to crawl in to get into the internal chambers so it's not for the large of buttock. I only managed to get into one with a wider entrance.