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Scotland - Day One - Ren's Arrival and the Trip Up

Here is the first installment of the greatly anticipated (at least by 2 people) Scotland post.

Over Memorial Day weekend a couple of my mates from the States, we'll call them Ren and Elwood, came over for a trip up to Scotland. Our annual beer drinking, chicken eating, race watching weekend, was replaced by Scotch (and real ale) drinking, Haggis eating, and fly fishing.

It didn't start off well. Ren was supposed to arrive at the Nottingham train station at 3:30 on Thursday afternoon. After his own personal version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles (or Buses) he finally made it to Nottingham bus station a few minutes after 4 AM on Friday morning, albeit sans luggage. After Ren got 3 hours of sleep, we got in the car and headed north (in the pouring rain). We were meeting Elwood in Glasgow on Saturday morning, and had planned to see some of the sights on the drive up.

We traveled up the east coast to see the English countryside.

We endured the pouring rain, the cold and the sheep to stop by Hadrian's Wall, also known as the old Roman Wall. The wall was constructed over a 10 year period beginning in 122, and much of it is still visible. It runs almost the entire width of England, and was originally used to divide the Roman Empire from Scotland (probably before it was known as Scotland). Housteads Fort is supposed to be the best preserved of the 16 forts along the wall, so that's where we went. To the left is a shot of Ren standing on the wall. You'll probably notice that Ren is in quite a few of the
pictures. I guess that's what happens when you don't have a camera (or any thing else for that matter).











To the right is a shot of the Fort's latrine. Notice that there is even water in the basin (pretty authentic huh?). It's hard to believe that this place is almost 2000 years old. It's also hard to believe that it's just in the middle of a sheep pasture.

Next we drove along the coast toward Baburgh Castle. It is a castle that sits right on the east coast, overlooking a beach. According to someone, it is the "Finest Castle in England." Unfortunately, Ren and I will never know, since they were getting ready to close by the time we got there. Like us, you'll have to settle for looking at the outside.









Just up the road, is Holy Island. Unfortunately we didn't get to see that either as the tide was still up, and we couldn't get across the causeway. We had to settle for pictures of the water on the road, and a long distance view of the island. Due to the tides, the causeway floods every day, and you have to plan your visit accordingly.

After that, we headed for a night of drinking in Glasgow.

posted by Yankee @ 9:45 PM