49. Day 44 – On the road again from Scotland to Newcastle and onto the North Sea

Friday 18 May 2007

It was raining as we left Orchil Castle in Scotland, after staying the night with Boyd and Jo Ann Munro in their beautiful castle. We had flown over 24 hours from Sydney using Singapore Airlines via Singapore and Paris, then onto a small airline with the strange name of ‘Fly Be’ from Paris to Edinburgh, the day before.

Jo Ann had kindly done the food shopping for us from the order Pip had sent by email. Thanks Jo Ann we really appreciated you doing this for us. We spent the afternoon of our arrival working on the Earthroamer. Pip stocked the refrigerator and put the food into the cupboards. Dick filled up the tanks with water and checked the batteries etc. Fabio even made a new mud flap for the left hand rear tyre – it must have gone missing during the gruelling UK segment.

Jo Ann made us dinner of delicious Scottish salmon and we enjoyed a lovely evening with Jo Ann, Boyd and Arabella.

We departed Orchil Castle at 7.35 am. There was a bit of sun shining through but rain in the distance.

**Earthroamer ready to leave Orchil Castle**

The vehicle odometer was on 37,495kms and we calculated that we had travelled 15,628kms on the trip so far. The engine hours were 519 and it was 53°F outside.

We headed down the A9 to the M9, around Stirling and then on the A720 Edinburgh bypass.

**We headed down the M9 around Stirling in the rain**

The rain started to sock in – but we were used to that for the United Kingdom.

We took photos of the Torness Nuclear Power Station humming away quietly – great for reducing greenhouse gases.

Once again, we were driving in the beautiful Scottish/English countryside – green fields, neat hedges, stone walls and strong-yellow gorse.

**The strong-yellow Gorse that grew beside the roads**

There were quite large fields of canola as well.

We stopped at the Scottish/English border at 10.00am, in the wind and rain and made ourselves a cup of tea and bought a greasy hotdog with onions from a little roadside van parked at the border.

As we headed down the A1 we missed the turnoff, and drove through the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. It turned out to be a good mistake even with the slow narrow streets because it was well worth seeing the town as we crossed the old bridge with the old railway viaduct close by.

**The main street of Berwick-upon-Tweed**

Further, down the A1 as the weather started to improve we turned onto the A19 and followed the signs to the Royal Quays.

**We parked outside the DFDS Tor Line Terminal**

We parked outside the terminal at 11.45 am and Dick checked that the boat would be departing at 3.00 pm and that we needed to be back at the terminal between 1.00 and 2.00 pm.

Dick had remembered that in our “Above the World” book Pip had taken a photograph of Tynemouth so we immediately drove out to the headland.

**Photograph from The Above The World Book**

We parked and walked around, but not too fast because Pip had a stress fracture of her leg and was wearing a special plastic support boot. It was amazing how fast she could walk!

**Pip, wearing her support boot in front of the ruins of the Priory at Tynemouth**

We found the ruined Priory that we had photographed in 1994 so we were able to take the photograph from a different angle.

**The village of Tynemouth with an aquaduct on the cliff which can also be seen in the Above The World Photo**

**The Gibraltar Rock Hotel which Dick phoned to confirm that Pip’s photo was of Tynemouth when we were writing Above The World**

We drove down to the point and Dick went for a long walk out along the breakwater.

**We drove down to the point and looked back at the Priory**

We saw a ferry coming in from the Continent and realised that it was the one we were booked on to travel to Norway, so we drove quickly back to the terminal and onto the ship.

**The Princess of Norway coming into the Tyne River**

They directed us to drive past the big container trucks parked in the hull, right to the most forward position against the huge opening bow. It cost £500.37 for the vehicle and two passengers – about $1,236.29 AUD.

The ship was the huge, Princess of Norway – Norwegian owned. As we moved away from the wharf Dick could not work out how the ship could possibly turn around in such a narrow waterway, the Tyne River – but it did, quite a spectacular feat by the Captain. There was no pilot on board but by using twin bow thrusters and a stern thruster, the ship turned around in front of the terminal in the narrow harbour with only metres to spare between the bow and the stern.

**The Captain managed to turn the ship around in the Tyne River**

**The old Customs House on the banks of the Tyne River**

**Small fishing boats with the Priory in the distance**

**Fishing port on the opposite bank of the Tyne River**

As we moved out through the entrance of the Tyne River to the ocean, we took more photographs looking back at the Priory at Tynemouth.

**Looking at the Priory at Tynemouth from the sea**

We had been concerned about a rough crossing of the North Sea – it has a history for very rough weather. However, we were delighted to find that even though there were some white caps with about 15 knots of wind and some light chop the ship remained steady. We found out later that our Earthroamer had not even been chained down – it just sat there with the braked on and in park – the crew obviously knew that it was going to be a smooth crossing as we had huge trucks behind us and any vehicle moving would have caused extraordinary damage.

The ship is a vehicle and people carrier as well as a huge floating duty free palace with a casino and entertainment. The voyage took about 21 hours and was very comfortable with our own cabin with ensuite.

307kms Today 15,935kms Total since Anchorage, Alaska

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