Wizardry

Sunday 27Aug2017

A bit of a sleep in this morning and we were just ready in time for breakfast at 7:30.  On the road by 8:30 as we had a bit of a drive to do today. We decided to mostly bypass the highways and motorways and do the back roads which provides much more interesting scenery and it did not disappoint.

First stop this morning was Castle Alnwick which is the home of the Duke of Northumberland and is the second largest inhabited castle after Windsor. It wasn’t too shabby a place with very green lawns and smicko state rooms. It was very interesting to walk through the house and the current Duke and Duchess have opened most of their home for the public as a way of supplementing the income as the cost of keeping this property would be enormous. Also it was the location of Harry Potter’s Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, especially the learning to fly on broomsticks scenes.

After our fill of that castle we did a Willie Nelson and found our way to the Holy Island and Lindisfarne Priory ruins. A joy to be competing with the English Tourists on their Bank Holiday pilgrimages. To be honest it was all a bit of a let down, even the famous crab sandwiches were average. Did get to taste some mead and purchased a spiced mead mini bottle to go with the two that found their way out of Castle Alnwick in Larry’s back pack (paid for of course!).

Left the island over the causeway with a few hours to spare before it was closed off again due to the incoming tide and in two shakes of a jiffy we were in Scotland. Well there no dancing girls or ticker tape parades as we crossed the border on a back road, just a couple of smallish signs to advise you had entered another country, you get a better greeting going into Big W. 

We continued our back road adventures into the middle of bloody nowhere. Except this time it was nowhere in Scotland and it was a bleak and barren countryside for a while until we arrived in the town of Lauder which has castle Thirlestane next to it. We drove a way up the driveway but then realised they wanted some cash to go further but bugger that, we reversed a bit and had a chat to a couple of Scottish horses. Very friendly they were and the scratch and pats were appreciated.

Now the next part gets interesting as sign posting leaves a little bit to be desired in this part of Scotland but eventually we found the town of Roslin after a few detours and parked up next to the chapel which most of us heathens only realised is a special place after watching The DaVinci Code.

A very fascinating church with a bucket load of carvings in every surface that can take a scratching or three.  Full of French and Italian tourists so you could not get the ambience of the place as there was more arm waving going on in the church than the goal umpires in a Sydney – Dockers game.

By this stage it was getting a bit late and we still had to find our digs for the night in a little bungalow called Carberry Tower Mansion House. Very flash abode with a lot of history (to be honest every thing in this country has history) as it was owned by the queen mother’s sister and Lizzie and Mags used to visit a lot as kids. Larry had the obligatory couple of pints to see if the Carlsberg in Scotland tasted any different than it does in England and Jenny had another Gin and Tonic to check on that was well.

A very tidy dinner of lamb for Larry and Shetland salmon ( no it wasn’t a small salmon in case you were wondering) for Jenny was consumed and now sitting in the library writing this blog.  A piper just piped a bus load of American tourists into the fancy dining room for dinner.  Bet the food isn’t any better than we had downstairs!

We’ve now made our way back to our little garret in the roof space (probably used to be servants quarters!) but it’s still very nice and we get to use all the same facilities downstairs as the people in the fancy suites below us.