South to England

On leaving Scotland I carried an extra passenger. My eldest son Daniel joined me for the first few days. He had been on holiday from his job in England and I was going to drop him back at the outdoor center where he was working for the summer.

Loch Lomond

We opted to take the longer West Coast scenic route driving out to Fort William and then heading South down through Glencoe and passed Loch Lomond. The scenery was amazing and only spoilt by the incredible number of tourists compared to when I last did this route well over 25 years ago.

Carlisle Park Up

Using the park for night app we made our first stop at Carlisle. Somewhere that I had never stopped before as had always just passed by on the nearby motorway. The local council allowed campervans to overnight in the carpark below Carlisle Castle which was great. It enabled us to walk up into the city and Daniel could tick off another Weatherspoon's visited!

From Carlisle we continued south down into the Lake district another area I had never been and all ways wanted to visit. Again the scenery was amazing but another area that was over run by tourists.

Lake Windermere

Every time we tried to find somewhere to stop the carparks were all full so we were well down Lake Windermere before we could find somewhere to take a break.

The whole Lake District area was very difficult to find a park up for the night so we carried on South and ended up taking a detour to Barrow in Furness. Not somewhere I ever planned to go but again the local council offered parking next to a wonderful park close to the town.

We then continued South and stopped for the night near Cheshire were one of my nephews, James lived. It was great parking on his driveway for the night and having a catch up.

The following day it was a short hop down to a small place near Shrewsbury were I dropped Daniel off.

From here my plan was to head down to Dorset to visit my brother and his wife. On this drive I made the decision to head via the Cotswold's and visit a place called Little Rissington. I had mixed emotions about doing this as it was the place Kate and I were married 27 years ago.

St Peters Church, Little Rissington

In the end I was glad I did. It is such a beautiful and peaceful area, the sort of place were time just seems to stand still. Everything was exactly as I remembered it and for a moment I felt like time had stood still. As I drove away I felt relief and closure that it was the right decision to have made this stop.

Next stop was was my brother, Martins place near Shaftsbury. The plan was to stick around here for a week or so and help him building his new garage. Unfortunately due to the local planning inspectors not giving permission without further drawings this had to be delayed.

At this point a rather major hurdle cropped up in my plans. Apparently I did not have the correct ownership document for the van. Something I would need before crossing to France. It turned out the dealer I brought the van from had entered the wrong address. So I had to start the process of applying for a new one which could take up to 4 weeks. This left me a bit in limbo so I have decided to take a trip down to Devon for a week or so to do some volunteer work. To be continued...