Goodbye England, Hello Scotland

    

Saturday - Wednesday, 3-6 May

FRED

Christine fed the starter one last time, so she could have enough to make her two loaves and have time enough for it to rise for baking Sunday evening.

All four of us walked into town Saturday morning.  Terry wanted to purchase motor oil to give Grace a change.  Christine would do some shopping and Sue and I took the opportunity to do some geocaching.  Before we split up, Christine showed us the solar system on their historical church that she was instrumental in getting approval for, purchasing and installing.  It is working extremely well and is saving the church serious money on energy costs.

Sue and I spent the next couple of hours walking around enjoying getting to know Bedworth while chasing geocaches.  We didn’t find the first one but while we were looking, a young woman asked if we were looking for a geocache.  She had found it previously and said she thought it had gone missing because it wasn’t where it had been when she found it.

No cache behind the sign

  We messaged the owner that it needed to be replaced or archived.   The second one we did find the remains of the container which was a magnet.  Sue carries some small Ziploc's with her and we used the magnet and the new Ziploc with a signed log to replace the missing one.  Sue messaged the owner to let him know. 

 

 

 

 

Shackerstone Station

On Sunday, Terry took us to Shackerstone Station, home of The Battlefield Line.  A section of track that has been preserved from a line that first opened in 1873.  We will ride on a coal fed steam engine, named Fred, that will give us a round-trip ride via Market Bosworth to Shenton in Leicestershire.  It is operated by volunteers of the Shackerstone Railway Society.  These trains and cars were in common use in the 1950s era.  Terry said he rode trains similar to these to get to school using a school pass where he grew up.

More stuff

We have to wait nearly an hour for it to return as we had just missed the previous train.  There is a museum, Victorian tea room, shop, and loco shed for us to visit while waiting.  The museum is quite extensive.  Most of it was in a private collection that was given to them when the owner passed away.  Some of the items were on loan as well.  Sue found a pin for her collection in the gift shop.

Lanterns

Switching arms

I liked the sign for the ladies

When the train arrived, the conductor shouted “Shackerstone, end of the line”.  Most everyone got off that were on it and we had our choice of cars.  They were all compartments that would seat six comfortably.  We chose one but did not realize until later that a “First Class” coach was right behind us.  The only difference was the seats looked a little more comfortable and they had armrests.  Fred had to disconnect, go forward and get switched to a side rail, come back and re-connect to our front.  Before reconnecting, they stopped to take on water, can’t make steam without water!  

Video:  Train arriving at Shackerstone

Video:  FRED decoupling

Video:  Engine "FRED" moving to opposite end of train 

Video:  FRED filling up with water for our trip

 

Inside our compartment

Terry checking his ticket

Passageway

It only took about 10 minutes to get to Market Bosworth and take on more passengers.  This weekend is one of UK’s bank holidays and this little station was the site of a Biker Rally.  There were dozens of bikes and bikers and several of them purchased tickets to board the train.  Fifteen minutes later, we were on our way to Shenton.  It was a pleasant ride and we heard the familiar clickety-clack as the wheels went over the expansion gap.  Modern rails no longer have this as they have perfected a way of using high heat to weld the tracks together creating a seamless rail.   The round trip takes just an hour.

On the way home, we convince Terry to stop for a multi-cache.  We locate a signboard with the information to give us the coordinates of where the actual cache is hidden.  It turns out to be nearby and we locate it without much trouble. 

Visiting with Tim and Caroline

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Monday, Terry and Christine’s son and daughter-in-law, Tim and Caroline, came to visit.  We had a nice visit before going out to dinner at an Italian restaurant.  It was different from most restaurants in that they had smaller portions of entrees, and the common thing was to pick any three from a list for a particular price.  It was a great way to try different types of offerings for a reasonable price.  I had calamari, a ragu and lasagna.  Wonderful! 

 

 

Tuesday, May 6, Train travel to Scotland

The train station in Bedworth is within walking distance of Christine and Terry’s home.  We say goodbye to Terry; Christine will walk with us to the station and see us off.  It is a simple walk without luggage but a cumbersome with all our luggage, but we manage it with Christine’s help.  The station resembles a bus stop and our timing is good.  After a short wait and other passengers joining us, we say our goodbyes to Christine and board the train for the short ride to Coventry where we will switch trains to take us to Haymarket, Scotland.  Haymarket is the last of 13 stops before Edinburgh and is where we switch trains to take us to Dunblane, where Sue’s other sister, Kate and her husband Alastair, will pick us up.

We make our switch at Coventry without issue and find our assigned seats in a train that has six passenger cars.  They do have a car that has drinks and sandwiches, but we are prepared with snacks and water that Christine had prepared for us.

The scenery is limited because we have the worst seats on the car.  They are the last two, opposite a luggage rack and as such, do not have a window.  I can however, move around between stops if there is an open seat, or simply stand between the connecting platform which has windows in the exit doors for pictures or countryside views.

I noticed as we progressed north and we moved out of the more populated midlands regions, that more and more stone fences appeared to divide the pastures and farm ground.  Sheep was a common occurrence, often with cattle of different breeds mixed in with them for grazing.  Often, the landscape was so hilly, that grazing was the only practical use.  Wind turbines became a common site but often just a few to an area with only an occasional wind farm of fifty plus. 

Fields of the brightly yellow colored canola were not uncommon.  There were also areas of a bush type plant with gold-colored flowers that painted the hills and stood out.  I later found out that that this is a common Scottish plant called “gorse”, which had several varieties with yellow-colored flowers. 

Train station

 

 

Kids practicing soccer?, Rugby?

Local graveyard

Typical home

Canola field

Train washroom

New housing development

Town scene

      Country scene with grazing sheep

More fields

Another town scene

Likewise

Beautiful country through train window

We arrived in Haymarket around 6PM and had a short wait for our next train to take us to Dunblane.  There were only four our five stops and we arrived a little after 7PM.  Kate, Alastair and their dog, a Jack Russel named Bonnie, were waiting for us.  Sue had met Alastair previously, but it had been several years.  I remembered Kate when we met at their mother’s memorial service in Connecticut.  I was introduced to Alastair, and he was what I imagined a Scotsman to look like with his beard, long hair topped with a floppy hat and a Scottish brogue that was a bit hard to interpret at times.

Walking to a Pub for a late lunch

Pub backbar

Alastair and Sue waiting to be seated. the pub allowed Bonnie to join us

 

 

Their home is in Crieff, a village of about 8,000 situated in the hills, north and west of Edinburgh.  It took over an hour to drive back on the narrow two-lane paved roads but it was still light out and would be for another couple hours.  We are far enough north that the days are very long this time of year.  In fact, we are about the same latitude as parts of Newfoundland, and the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.

Kate had arranged for us to stay with friends of hers that had an annex built on to their home that they occasionally rent out.  It is only a couple minutes’ walk from their home.  Alastair dropped us off there and helped us get settled in.  The annex turned out to be a fully furnished, two-bedroom home!   Complete with kitchen, living room and a bathroom with tub, shower, sink and even a towel-warmer!  We also had our own little garden area complete with a birdbath which drew a variety of birds.  Outstanding!  

 Our Scotland adventure begins!