When the weather is too hot that even with aircon on it’s unbearable….its time to take to the car…smaller space to keep cool…..so off we went to Woburn Safari Park….A few shots from today….wildlife doing what wildlife does🤣🤣🤣 Not great photos because it was busy today so no opportunities to photograph with the window down….so everything’s taken through the window….. Bears playing hide and seek up a tree, bears doing what bears do reaching fruit from a tree, tigers, rhinos, lions sleeping in the shade, the new dwarf buffalo with mum….
Dwarf buffalo calf.Rhinos in the shadeTiger sleepingA bear reaching for fruit
While one lion acts as lookout the rest sleep.
I spy a bear! Watching me! Pretends to sleepIt wouldn’t seem like a good visit without a stripe or two!!
We seem to have had a year of planning….weve planned a trip to Egypt – changed our mind because of the war and recommendations not to go to the areas we wanted to visit…..we’ve planned a trip to China but decided to wait until we don’t need visas as it’s quite a saving….we’ve planned planned a trip to Thailand Island hopping but we were both under-enthused as we’ve visited quite a few islands before….. we thought about once again returning to Alaska but when we mentioned it to good friends we decided we’d all go together either next year or 2028 …..so where were we going to go…..ummmm
Out of the blue John said….”let’s go to Mauritius”…Yes! What a great idea….so we have booked a hotel on the beach in a nature area with giant tortoises and nature walks….you can even horse ride along the beach….so I might have a dream come true..
We booked with Mercury Holidays online and so far it has been straight forward and easy. The website was very easy to navigate, it was easy to personalise and a good choice of flights with baggage included, a good choice of transfers. The paperwork, flight, hotel and transfer details were emailed to us immediately along with the codes required to check in and also to reserve seats…..Perfect.. 14 days of unadulterated luxury….more details to follow.
In the meantime we are editing, printing, mounting and framing photos for our first sale at BDHRA ( Bedford Disabled, Horse Riding Association) on Saturday 4th July at Balls Lane Willington Bedford UK…..if you’re around we’d love to see you.
Just to let you know we have a new logo for 2J’s World of Adventure…We hope you like it…
Since returning from Scotland we have been busy printing and framing sone of our favourite photos up. On Saturday July 4th at 2 pm, in Balls Lane Willington, we will be selling them at the Bedford Disabled Horse Riding Association Summer fete.
The large A2 frames contain A3 prints and will be sold for £25.
The medium sized A3 frames with A4 prints will be sold at £20
The smaller square frames with 20x20cm prints will be sold for £15
Mounted A4 photos with no frame will be sold for £10.
There are plenty more to choose from these are just a few…..if any take your fancy and you wish to make a purchase please contact us by emailing
2jsworldofadventure@gmail.
com
Or better still come and see us and help support a charity we are passionate about.
We breakfasted at the apartment and wandered across to the car in the carpark. It’s a pay at exit- very easy, just tap your car reg in and it I mediatly finds your car and states what you owe…a quick tap with the card and our £10 was paid….
We headed off to Brampton station….on the line to Newcastle. It has a beautiful over bridge….
…and a handsome man taking photos from it !!!
……then on through some delightful countryside and little hamlets before getting to to Armathwaite…..
A quaint station with a bright yellow signal box which offers tours on a Sunday. This station is on the Settle to Carlisle line. Like all stations on this line it is nicely kept by The Friends of the Settle to Carlisle line. This group do a fantastic job in keeping the stations authentic and the gardens cheerful.
We circled back around to Carlisle and took a rest before strolling across the road…a few short strides to Nando’s for supper.
We left the apartment fairly promptly in the morning….
…and said goodbye to Carlisle for another year..
As we headed off out of town and for some time we followed a van which made us all laugh …especially as John loves bacon
We took the motorway towards Kendle and on to Kirby Lonsdale before heading towards Ingleton we saw a good many sights on the way…including some Galloway Belted cows…which really stood out on the hillside.
The countryside was superb
We passed a lay-bye full of travellers caravans ponies and a couple of real Romany Gypsy Wagons. Our Sat Nav showed slow traffic and we soon understood why…
This sight reminds me of when I was a kid and seeing Gypsy Romany Wagons on the move meant Summer had begun.
From Ingleton we passed the very populat tourist/walkers area around the Ribblehead Viaduct. This viaduct has a checkered history behind it….In the late 1980’s it was due for closure, until in 1989 a young politician named Micheal Portillo took over as Public Transport Minister. He agreed with his predecessor to try and keep the line open. He faced 2 problems …the low passenger numbers and the estimated £9 million cost of repairing the Ribblehead Viaduct. Spurred on by Mr Portillo “The Friends of Settle-Carlisle line”, managed to increase the numbers of passengers. Mr Portillo then found a British Rail Engineer who said he could repair the viaduct for £3 million and actually did it for £1.8 million ….thus saving the line. To this day Micheal Portillo is the Honorary President of The Friends of Settle -Carlisle Line.
From here we headed to Horton in Ribblesdale station.
Another delightful station,…
After we had all stretched our legs and watched a train come through the station we headed on to Hellifield station for John to take some more pictures….
Another beautifully authentically kept station, which has so many items from bygone eras making it a very well visited tourist attraction.
From the carpark you can view the station in one direction and the beautiful countryside in the other direction….we sat and ate our picnic lunch looking across “Englands Green and pleasant lands”.
After lunch we continued our trip across The North Yorkshire moors to Steeton Hall Hotel.
We have stayed here before…having booked deluxe doubles we knew exactly what we were getting…This quirky hotel is right up our street…it’s old world ambience is superb….greeted by a very dower Yorkshire lass, who started to show us to our rooms until she realised we’d been before…..The rooms are huge…in-fact Dads is really a suite, where as ours is a bay windowed large room….
Dad’s room has a super kingsize bed, table and bucket chairs, 3 seater sofa…en-suite with a shower which has coloured lights, music, jets all over the place…although Dad did manage to “just shower” in it!!!!!! Our room also has a super kingsize bed with a table and bucket chairs and a single bed acting as a sofa/ bag rack. Our en-suite has a jacuzzi bath with a shower over it….both rooms have sky tv and great wifi reception, coffee and tea making facilities and each room has a phone and plenty of power points.
Throughout the hotel the floor boards all creak endearingly, and I struggled to stop both John and Dad from sliding down the beautiful wooden banisters…..only the mention of splinters where they didn’t want them deterred them !!!!! Honestly you’d think a 73 year old and a nearly 95 year old would know better….they are incorrigible !!!
This hotel is superb value at £69.30 per deluxe room bed and breakfast … 2 rooms B&B for 2 nights £277.20…..
We booked a table in the restaurant and were told it was Wednesday Steak night. After a restful hour or so …. John and I had sirloin and Dad had Gammon steaks which came grilled to perfection with large mushroom, beef tomato, chunky chips, corn on the cob and a sauce….it was really good and all dishes came with a glass of wine, beer, cider or soft drink….the sirloin steaks were under £20 each and the gammon steak under £15 …tremendous value…we couldn’t manage a dessert so we retired to our room for a game of cards…..A lovely day ending in a lovely hotel.
Well! after the rigmarole of the previous night we were expecting to be greeted by the manager when we checked out…she had said several times that she would make amends to us on our check out…..umm…NO…. The receptionists knew nothing about the problems we had had…and what’s more the manager didn’t come on duty until 11.am….i was not in the mood to be messed about, so politely insisted that the manager was called….we were told she would be there in 10 minutes….20 minutes later she arrived…she knew of the flooding problem from the day before. She also seemed to know that we had been told that they were going to make amends ….I reminded her of this to which I was to,d “ yes we would like to make amends by offering you a free breakfast” ….as this point I laughed out loud, they could tell from our account we hadn’t had breakfast the day before, she was also aware that we had packed the car up, Dad was in the car and we were ready to leave… my next question was ..at what point was this empty gesture going to be offered to us ….after we’d left, or not at all I suspect….The manager said that they had no jurisdiction to refund us anything, permission would have to be sought from head office….i asked why this hadn’t already happened???? She did say that she did have the power to right off the cost of our evening meal the first night….she then went to do this. We said we expected to hear back from head office, with some further form of compensation for ruining our 2 days in Oban, by 5.30 pm Tuesday 26th May. We thought this was fair. If we didn’t hear back we would write to their head office with a formal complaint and as we had booked through booking.com we would give them a review which explains why no one should waste their money staying at this establishment…I am not prepared to let this drop….Muthu Queen advertises as 4 star, we payed almost £100 a night and for that we expected the facilities they advertise to work…other visitors shouldn’t have to go through what we went through…..as I write this it is 4.30 pm on Tuesday 26th May and as yet we haven’t heard anything….we will pursue this for the sake of others..
Off we went …the scenery was beautiful and we passed-bye some familiar sights…
We took the A85 up to north to Connel then East to Tyndrum before taking the A 82 to Crianlarich. The Best Western ar Crianlarich is a favourite of ours….We stopped for coffee and a loo break. The receptionist and the bartender were the same as 3 years ago when we stopped there..
We crossed the Firth of Clyde on the Erskine bridge and headed on the coast road through Port Glasgow, Greenock stopping at Wemyss Bay …..this is where the ferry goes to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute…the train station is next to the ferry port…it’s an intriguing station, several years ago when we were touring Dad had taken a photo of the inside of the station and had it made into a jigsaw for a present for us…We sat watching the ferry and ate or lunch.
On we went through Largs and on to Ayr….a little time was lost due to road works closing a section of road and us getting a bit lost until we picked up the A77 again….We found The Ayr’s race course easily enough. When there is no racing we like to stay at The Western House Hotel at Ayr Racecourse…..it’s a lovely hotel….superb staff, really nice spacious rooms …and guess what everything works in them….we were greeted like long lost friends, the porter/ doorman offered to help with our bags which we declined….but as we were getting the bags out a young man arrived for duty and helped us anyway…we later met him again in the restaurant …what a helpful chap he was….….the rooms were ground floor and opposite each other as requested….
We ate in their restaurant…a lovely roast with all the trimmings….what a pleasure…the waiters were charming, professional, friendly and full of fun…. What we can say is that the meal for the 3 of us was £30 cheaper than the average evening meal we had had at the Muthu Queen…our rooms were also cheaper in Ayr which really is a 4 star hotel.
Day 14 Ayr to Carlisle
We were sorry to say goodbye to The Western House….we had had a great nights sleep and loved the opulent luxury of a nice duvet, pillows, fluffy towels etc….packed up and back on the road we headed to Greggs for bacon butties and a treat of a sausage roll. We took these on to the promenade road and sat watching the sea and people walking their dogs while we tucked into our breakfast.
We once again headed south and slowly made our way to Carlisle….i had rented an apartment for the next 2 nights ….The Foreman’s residence is very close to the station and right next to The Carlisle Court of Justice.
Whilst we knew it was an upstairs apartment we didn’t realise that the second bedroom was up a second flight of steep steps and it was in the eves …to the extent even at my short height I had to bed over to get to my side of the bed….ummm not ideal but we’ll make do…the blurb on the place had also said on road parking or near bye car park…..ummm…. No on road outside the property it’s a no through road with double yellow lines and the court at the bottom…the road that this is off has 1 hour no return parking, the carpark which is an easy walk is £10 for 24 hours, which is fine…but I do wish that when people advertise their places that they didn’t paint a picture which isn’t totally realistic…..but it’s fine and fairly comfortable….i know I am pedantic about cleanliness and it doesn’t quite meet my high expectations….but it is probably better than our previous experiences at The Station Hotel !!!!!!!
2 J's World of Adventure 