Home Sweet Home and Sunday Bloody Sunday!

Good Friday - we set off on our intrepid adventure to Scotland. Heading towards York we found that everyone else was doing a similar thing and we couldn't find an inn for the night, not even a stable (am I getting my holidays confused?). We skipped crappy York (since we couldn't stay, please dont tell us how great it is!) and found a sleepy little village called Richmond. Drawn in by the name, we immediately fell in love with the cobbled streets and maze like lanes. We stayed the night and explored the castle the next day. There is a lovely town square and a river that runs through the countryside. It does remind you of Richmond in Sydney (Home sweet home). I had always assumed that the name had something to do with the river, but in fact Richmond comes from 'Riche-Mont' which means 'Strong Hill'. The castle is built on the hill - naturally.

RACHAEL ON A RICHMOND STREET

VIEW FROM ON TOP OF RICHMOND CASTLE

VIEW DOWN TO THE RIVER FROM THE 'STRONG HILL'


We continued North through the Yorkshire Dales which had a barren beauty all of their own. More like wasteland than countryside. We travelled through Penrith and up to Scotland through Carlisle.
YORKSHIRE DALES (BRONTE COUNTRY)


Across to Stranraer in the South-West corner of the country. Lots of little sleepy fishing villages and wooly sheep.
FISHING VILLAGE OF PORT-PATRICK (SOUTH WEST SCOTLAND)


On Easter Sunday we decided to travel by Ferry across to Belfast - Northern Ireland, just because we could! We had high hopes....but Easter Sunday in Belfast meant that NOTHING was open...NOTHING! Sunday Bloody Sunday. Even if something had been open there isn't that much to see anyway. We walked around and saw the sights and met a weird guy who insisted on telling us everything about Belfast history and proud academic tradtion and all he knew about 'Kelvin' and 'Thermo-dynamics', both of which came from Belfast university in some way. Of course Rachael was far too nice to say goodbye to the 'Genuinely Mentally Ill' and Ben was off to the side laughing, so we cashed in a good 25 minutes with Cyril and now have his address and a list of books we should read on Thermo-dynamics, and then write to him and tell him how we got on! We will definitely send him a postcard! (Rachael still doesn't know what Thermo-Dynamics' is - Can any of our readers help us?). If you want to write to Cyril let us know and we will email you the details. Classic!

REALLY COOL FERRY (STRANRAER TO BELFAST)

The ferry was really the best thing about Belfast. It had gambling, shopping, Hungry Jacks, a childrens play centre, two bars, a cinema and a VIP lounge.

BELFAST CITY HALL

BEN WITH COOL BELFAST STREET ART

RACH WITH THE BIG BUOYS (BELFAST CATHEDRAL IN BACKGROUND)

RACHAEL AT FRONT OF QUEENS COLLEGE BELFAST


So ends the first three days of our Scotland adventure. It gets better!
We miss you all. Five more weeks of work (four for Rach) then we travel Europe.
Ben and Rach

PS - Hi to Rach's sister Mel in Perth who wanted to be on our famous Blog!