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    Poppies in Giverny (29 May 2015)

Roycing around

Having spent many a weekend when growing up in the back seat of a classic car on the winding country roads of England’s green and pleasant land, when Dad mentioned he was off to spend a long weekend doing just this around the picturesque landscape of northern France, I jumped at the chance of being able to turn back time and join him on the 21^st Fougere Rally.

We left Wally (our not so appropriate Clio!) safely tucked up in a Portsmouth car park and met our ride for the trip at the harbour – a 1934 Rolls Royce – nicknamed the ‘Chocolate Rolls’

#ChocolateRolls

More beaches than you can shake a stick at

There were three things we wanted to have out of a holiday...  sun, sea and sand. Now there are a lot of places in the world with those three things, but close to the UK and with great food took some investigating!

Bosa

After much thought, we decided on Sardinia - I think the 100s of beaches, it being an Italian island and close to the UK sold it to us. We only had a week, but still wanted to travel a little bit, so narrowed the best beaches down to four areas - the north west, south west, south east and north east. Sardinia is known for its beaches and clear waters making them appear like emeralds.

Scotland is a long way from Reading!

We didn't find any reasonable accommodation around the border so decided to just grit our teeth and head home... all 650 miles or 12 hours of driving.  We decided to head to Loch Ness via Eilean Donan Castle, one of the most photographed and beautiful castles in Scotland.

After a good breakfast at our B&B having a chat with some Americans, we traveled south over the infamous Skye Bridge. The route, as many in Scotland was spectacular.  The road snaking its way along the Loch Alsh. After about 30 mins or so we came across Eilean Donan Castle.  From first impressions it wasn't as grand as I had expected as it has been used in several movies and promotional videos and images, but if there was one castle you would associate with Scotland - this was it!  We decided to stop and have a look and we were tempted to go in - limiting ourselves to an hour as the clock was ticking to get home - and we were rewarded.

Eilean Donan

Skye

Skye is somewhere we have wanted to visit for some time - drawn by its remoteness, landscapes and recommendations from friends, so it was here that we decided to spend the majority of our Scottish adventure.

We jumped on a ferry from Mallig on the main land - a nice little fishing village and the main jumping off point for many of the Hebridean islands - towards to southern end of the island.

Ferry crossing

The journey to the Isle

The Isle of Skye was our target destination, but we didn't just want to drive like crazy to get there, we wanted to see a bit more of Scotland, so we got off the main road and went for a coastal route, recommended by friends Rhys and Nicole, who had done a similar trip earlier on the year.

On the bonny bonny banks of Loch Lomond

The land of the deep fried pizza

It has been about 12 months since we have posted. The original idea of this blog was to capture our travels... but as we came back early we ever quite got out of NZ. Anyway, as it is about travels we thought why not continue... so here it is... only this time its a bit more closer to home.

We missed out on the Olympics so we decided to try and get tickets for the next international event to hit our shores... the Glasgow commonwealth games. So about a year ago and a half ago, there we were on the phone and internet to our good friends Tom and Hannah booking tickets.  Surprisingly it was fairly easy and we got the tickets we wanted - cycling, gymnastics and hockey (that was a bonus one as tickets were cheap and we needed to fill a day).

Off to the games