Day 37...In the land where I was born...-2nd August

Had our big breakky (man I'm going to be such a chubster after this!) and headed for Hull Maternity Hospital. It was marked down on our map, after a cemetery and a prison. So we drove along and there was the prison, and there was the cemetery....and then there was a large empty lot - not wait, where is it? The bloody thing had been knocked down! It was still cool to be there though, knowing I was standing in the spot where i had taken my first breath!

The coolest bit though was when we got to my old street. It hadn't changed a bit! It looked just like the photo I saw of mum, who was only 3 years older than I am now, holding Inny by the hand pregnant with me. Weird!

It was a rainy wet day and we drove up through the North York Moors into Scotland. The moor bit we went through was mainly farmland but it was a pretty, rainswept country. We saw real heather for the first time! It was a small dark purple undergrowth. After we had parked for a photo, Nathan pulled out wit a big rev and possible fucked up the clutch! We sat in the isolated rainy hills and fretted while we let the car cool down and I gave him shit. It ended up being ok so we drove carefully on. Phew! The rain once we hit the main road was phenomenal! And freezing - a real Scottish summer! The sheep were all huddled together against the stone walls with this "eeew fuck!" look on their faces.

We had a quick break in Jedburg outside their abby, then drove on to Melrose. The Melrose Abbey ruins are from the 1100's and onwards. It was large and beautiful! It has been said that Robert the Bruce's heart was buried here. Excavators found a heart which they believe to be his, and reburied it there. Cool!

The English and Scottish farmland looks just like those farm friends toys we both had as kids. You know the ones? With the timber and stone fences you click together and the small plastic sheep and cows etc.

We drove up to Edinburgh stopping at Rossyln Chapel on the way. Rosslyn Chapel was in the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail book, and been in other books since (including the crappy Da Vinci Code but we won't talk about it here will we? no!) Its said to have lots of Knights Templar and masonic imagry. We pulled up to visit it just in time, and it was quite busy. It was the best done up church we had since yet, in regards to its ornamentation and effort. Knights Templar aside, it is a really beautiful church. It was weird to be finally standing there after reading about it, but not too much as we had got in at the last minute and the visit was really rushed. It was really hard to get good photos as the lighting was terrible for photography. I took some shots of the green men and the St Clair family so I was happy.

Trying to find accomodation in Edinburgh was terrible! It was a disaster. So we decided to go via Europcar as we needed to get our car checked anyway, and see if they could help us out. We ended up swapping cars for the same model, but a grey one this time. They guy there kept saying "och, aye, oh aye" and I was delighted. It turned out the Edinburgh festival was on, and any place that wasn't booked out was charging three times the price! argh! So the Europcar guy said to head up north and Kinross was only 45 mins away. So we decided to blow Edinburgh off and head north. We have been kind of avoiding the cities as we are finding them very similar. They all have the same H&M stores and LV stores and you don't get that cultural immersion that you do in the country.

Kinross was such a quick drive. It looked far on the map (we are still used to Australian maps). We got there pretty quickly and were quite buggered so saw a Travel Lodge and just bunked there. Did you know you can have dogs with you there? I should have brought Mishka!

On the way to a pub for dinner nearby, we went to the edge of Loch Leven and Loch Leven castlee which was a fortreess and prison from the 14th century. Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned there for a year. It was really beautiful as it was late afternoon and the sunset was hitting the castle in the distance but the loch was in shade. The water of the loch itself was like glass.

Had a quick bite in a really cute pub and a quick argument over food, went home, made up, cuddled and slept.

PS: We tried to do the accent thing in Ireland but there weren't many sayings we could think of. Therefore there was lots of och and ach and argh going on!! hee hee