East coast wandering

 The “No Plan Kids” Had no plan!

Is this the end of the Dynamic Duo?

Will the World spin off it’s axis?

Tune in next time to find out!

Well we are still here so the World didn’t spin off its axis……

So what were we going to do? We still have tickets for the Edinburgh Tattoo at the beginning of August and that is about 450 miles from Portsmouth, so the obvious thing to do was start heading North!

Still a little confused we decided to head for our old stomping ground on the Wirral – Arrowe Brooke Farm. Trevor who runs it has become a good friend now and had no problem fitting us in.

We stayed 3 nights, had dinner with Stewart and Linda (Barb’s brother and sister in law) then breakfast with our daughter Sally at the Marina where she lives on a canal boat.

The Marina and canal boats

In between we though about where we’d been and we realized that we had never been to the North East coast of England.

And the “No Plan Kids” hit the road again with some generally West then North kind of ideas.

Barbara’s cousin Janet lives in a small seaside town, Filey and as that was on the North East coast we found a campground just a 5 minute walk outside of town.

Good Yorkshire summer weather, pouring rain and blowing a gale!

Unfortunately this area is known for it’s bad weather and true to form it rained almost the whole time we were there. We met up with Janet and walked around the sea front then looked for somewhere to eat. Unfortunately it seems everywhere closes at 3pm! Being Monday was even worse as apparently only 2 restaurants are open on Mondays and one was fully booked.

Even the lobsters were turning blue with the cold!

We managed to get a table in the other one and enjoyed fresh seafood there.

Yum fresh fish and chips

This whole coast is famous for holiday resorts and fishing so there are lots of choices for both usually. We headed further North following the Northumberland Coastal Route with glimpses of the cliffs and a gray cold looking North Sea.

Lindisfarne the "Holy Isle" where Christianity first came to Britain

A stop at the “Holy Isle” Lindisfarne was very enjoyable. The island has a causeway to it from the mainland and the tides are posted everywhere because when the tide comes in the causeway is submerged! Even so we saw later that dome foolish people managed to get stranded.

The UK maps always fool us because of the scale. Our Rand McNally maps in The US are about 25 miles to the inch but the UK one which is the same physical size as our US map book is only 5 miles to the inch. As a result places that we thonk should be 50 miles away by road run out to be 10!

Before we worked it out we were on the Scottish Border camping at the “Last Pub in England”!

We met another couple who were touring also and had a few pleasant chats with them. We were both leaving the next morning and gave the usual RV’ers farewell. “See you on the road somewhere”.

We had a little difficulty finding another place to stay between there and Edinburgh, this being the height of the summer season (despite all the rain), plus the Edinburgh Festival is on which attracts people from all over the planet.

We eventually found a little “Ayre” with 4 places in a little fishing village called Eyemouth and fortuitously it was the “Herring Festival” with events like a sand castle competition, rowing race and a Miss Herring Fleet competition. A fun Fair was in town and there were fireworks on Saturday evening. 

Picturesque Eyemouth Harbour

The first people we met were the couple we'd bid farewell to that same morning! They were camped next to us! 

Sand castle competiton!

We had so much fun, found all the little local pubs, ate Lobster salad straight out of the fish mongers shop and met a young couple David and Jenna who were on here first ever RV trip in a rented motor home and struggling to find out how to work all the systems. Naturally we were glad to give them some hints and tips!

Tiny harbour entrance

Quaint back streets

Touching memorial to the victims and family
of the 1881 disaster in which 128 fishermen drowned in a storm.

We only had 60 or so miles to go to Edinburgh and decided to take some backroads. Just a few miles outside Eyemouth we stumbled across another knockout little fishing village called St Ebbs. 

St Ebbs Harbour

Fresh off the boat.

The equal of any we visited in Cornwall I think and seemingly carved out of the side of a rock cliff. Places like these are the reason we don’t plan anything. We would miss them if we had to drive from one place directly to another.

Long live the No Plan Kids!