It's my birthday! Well, nearly. To celebrate, we grabbed the chance of a dry weekend and headed to Sandyhills in Dumfries and Galloway for a long weekend.
This month, Tommy and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we enjoyed a holiday visiting Coldingham, St Abbs, Eyemouth, Durham, Newcastle and Moffat.
Today we visited the birthplace of Robert Burns. It was either that or pack up and go home, so we thought we'd give old Rab a chance.
The Robert Burns Birthplace Museum is in Alloway, just down the road from Craig Tara. We passed it on the way and knew our NTS cards would get us in for free and give us an hour or so's amusement. What we didn't realise was that the museum, the cottage where Burns was born, the monument built for him and Brig'o'doon (the bridge in the poem Tam O'Shanter) were all within a few minutes walk from one another. We tied up the scooters at the museum and went exploring. First up was the cottage. The girls really enjoyed looking around the rooms of the cottage and seeing what they were all used for. The gardens were pretty too, with lots of interesting things to look at, like chickens, the veg patch and an awesome woven sculpture of Tam O'Shanter on his horse, Meg (when she still had her tail!). I originally put these photos in the Craig Tara post, but it seemed a shame to lump such a good park in with a negative review.
We visited the farm on Tuesday, and it was a great day out. A bit pricey at £42.50 for a family but there's lots to do, so we'll forgive them. It's just a short walk along the pavement from the Craig Tara site, so it's a perfect escape opportunity. On Monday, after some biblical rain overnight, we travelled just a few miles back up the coast to the Haven site at Craig Tara, near Ayr. It's not our sort of holiday place at all but we decided to give it a bash. £23 a night for the pitch, which included the use of the pool, soft play, entertainment and there's even direct access to the beach.
I wanted to like it. I really did. But apart from the friendly chap at the touring entrance, there haven't been many redeeming features. It's hard to put a finger on the exact issue, so I'll list some of them below: Here we are again, making the most of the school holidays - last chance till Christmas! This week, we're in Ayrshire. We're currently staying on Thomaston Caravan Site, just a stone's throw from Culzean Castle. It's half the price of the Camping and Caravan Club site across the road, and while it may not have perfectly cut grass and a fancy toilet block, it will more than do for our two night stay.
On our last morning of our stay at Landis Farm CL, Sandra the owner took the Tornado Twins off with her children to explore the farm. They let the chickens out the coop and checked for eggs, met the calves in the byre and got to cuddle the rabbits. The girls had an absolute ball and I can't speak highly enough of this wonderful CL and its fabulous owners. We even got some eggs for our breakfast!
After a surprisingly good 4 days at Haggerston Castle, we had a mammoth cross country drive from East to West of to Dumfries and Galloway and our next stop off in New Abbey.
After passing from Berwick to Kelso to Selkirk, we stopped off at Loch of the Lowes near Peebles for lunch and a leg stretch. The girls disembarked and set off to guddle in the stream while Tommy took some photos and I got the kettle on. |
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