Big Trip 2024 11 Holy Island Northumberland Chester Zoo Wales Motorhome Touring UK VanLife
Welcome to episode 11 of our big trip 2024 so far we've come up through England and Scotland and spent a couple of weeks on the Outer Hebrides and then we came back to the mainland and back down to Lindisfarne in this episode we visit Lindisfarne Island and we come down to Chester Zoo and then down into Wales we're heading across the causeway to the holy island of Lindisfarne the causeway is tidal so do check the tide tables cuz you can only cross twice a day So we're parked in the Snook which is free but it means it's going to be a bit of a walk to get to the other side of the island but that's okay we like free parking don't we Dave and it's a glorious day might need my sun hat today wow and I thought the beaches on the Outer Hibrides were empty but that's just incredible it's so quiet as well very quiet big blue sky we are in sunny Northumberland yeah absolutely well this is lovely and peaceful yeah you can tell we're back in England because there's a dog poop bag on the floor honestly after a stroll along the beach we walked through the sand dunes and made our way back to the main road the sticks you can see are way markers for the pilgrims route which has been in use for 1300 years and is still in use today so we're now walking England's coast path aren't we the middle of September and it's just a glorious day what's that that's not a seabird I'm used to hearing well there's something you don't see every day a pyramid in England the white pyramid is called Emanuel Head and it's a day mark which was finished in 1810 as a navigational aid what's a day mark it's like a lighthouse but it's for use in the day see how clever I am thank you Google it stands 10 m tall and provides a nice bit of shade on a sunny day for the second time on our trip we found a hide and enjoyed watching the swans and also having another bit of shade in the time it took us to walk across the island the tide came in and the causeway was flooded and we then discovered that we had visited on the one day of the year when the castle was closed typical but at least the priory and the museum were still open and the pub we did visit the pub we did we had lunch in the pub Saint Aiden it looks quite nice against the white background there still very intense monks settled on the Holy Island in AD 635 after the collapse of the Roman Empire Britain was fragmented into small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms Northumbria was controlled by King Oswald and he gifted the island to an Irish monk St Aiden an archaeological dig was taking place maybe we'll see that on Digging for Britain the Lindisfarne Priory escaped the destruction of the Reformation but it did fall into ruin and it wasn't until the 19th century that some attempts were made at conservation get a lovely view of it here next to the priory is St Mary's Church we walked back across the island passing the now flooded pilgrims route that's such a straight line across there to chill out in the van until the tide had gone out and the causeway was passable again so we've just arrived at Sunny Hills Farm Shop sunny Hills is that what it's called i think so i might be mistaken if I'm wrong I don't know it's basically a car park with a nice view of the farm shop which we'll test in the morning and get some goodies from you're right sunny Hills yes I do love a nice farm shop personally I like getting the odd treat and goodies and if they have a couple of really tasty sausage rolls for us to take away for our lunch tomorrow that would be pretty cool yeah all better yeah there we're number four van here tonight aren't we um Yeah and it's free a free stopover we always like free would you class us as freeloaders no have you seen the amount of car road tax I pay yeah i just found it really fuel tax yeah see I just found it really and insurance and all that rest of it no I wouldn't so I read a review on park for night for one of the places to park near here i think it was a bit further south and someone had put uh Northumbria doesn't want you uh you load of freeloaders why don't Just because you Doesn't sound great doesn't it yeah but why well people don't really need a reason why for being miserable do they think up some excuse rather they just don't want you parking where they want to park it might be that or they might be envious of people who can afford to buy a van or you know who knows maybe they just don't like people from outside their village yeah maybe anyway I'm going to prepare dinner now and we're going to chill out yay sunny Hills breakfast was delicious and we did pick up some treats for later all right dear you filming me well I was just filming where we were and now you seem to have come in the picture so yeah mhm then we headed across the country to Cheshire how to clean the window so we've just arrived at a car park near Chester well it's not actually near Chester um well it is it's east of Chester um not far Tarporley um we did try another one near Oulton Park Circuit that we found on Park for Night and it was right next to the road and there wasn't very many spaces and you you could be seen directly from the road uh this one you can still be seen directly from the road but there's been one car go past since we've been here and it's been like 10 minutes and that was a dog walker so they've come to walk their dogs so yeah um we'll see how it goes here tonight i you know I usually research the places that we're staying quite extensively to make sure that it's going to be nice but this one hasn't had any bad reviews so yeah we'll see it's very nice i will take you out and have a look in a minute oh and by the way I'm still feeling like rubbish today and I look like rubbish um I think Dave has mostly recovered apart from a bit of a chesty cough and stiffness but he's done really well with the driving and I'm really proud of him um whereas most of the journey here I was closing my eyes periodically um because I was just so knackered so yeah anyway it's 5 o' clock it's almost time to start dinner i got some lovely treats at the farm shop that we stayed at last night and uh yeah I'll let you know how that goes show us your extender and why did you make that [Laughter] because in there in the ad blue thing there's a little flap inside the tube that won't open unless it's pushed open it won't let the adBlue in unless it's pushed open so the spout has to be long enough to push it open and the spout is not long enough to push it open what this is adBlue that's for adBlue and the two things don't work together ah dear it seems the only cars that come down this road are the ones that use this car park with their dogs a couple of runners some lovely bat breeds there there's also quite a lot of dog poop alongside the paths that go through the woods and I've only walked what 10 m into the woods myself so yeah we shall see maybe we'll go for a walk after we've had dinner other than that when there's no cars it's very very peaceful we had a great night's sleep and the next morning it was time for a special day out having been big fans of the Secret Life of the Zoo for years and years a visit to Chester Zoo was a must it was a real treat to finally get to see a lot of the much-loved animals from the show it's beautiful i want to take a photo as well and we also took the most awkward boat trip ever it's a sound of a tiger licking its lips they're enjoying a swim today aren't they i bet that water's nice and warm for them there's three of them there's another one we see you after a full day out we headed on to our park up for the night so we're in Wales now which is uh means that we've now been to three different countries on our holiday which is quite something I think and yeah um we've got one week left a week only a week left only a week's holiday left left the days are running out you can count them on two hands do you know we you and I we haven't had a week long holiday together for a long time normally our holidays are 5 days so this is been quite a big trip anyway and a special trip got a week left and we're in Wales just for one night though and then we'll continue the rest of our last week somewhere else so where are we then specifically we're just outside Wrexham we're in Nant Mill car park right now which is just inside the Dee Valley National Park yeah just on the edge of it I think yeah just on the edge of it um it's a very pretty little stopover point with a little car park little grass area with some seating and then a stream runs down across at the bottom of the grass and if we had time we'd probably go for check out the walks around here and we probably have got time actually we could probably do that in the morning if we felt like it so one thing about going away for this length of time is you genuinely forget which day of the week you're on yeah you know and you have to keep reminding yourself oh it's the weekend things are going to get busier on the weekend it's harder to get a campsite and also what we found is that on the weekends the parkups are busier as well friday Saturday nights are very busy in the parkups that we've stayed in and so yeah it'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow night and what we end up doing cuz we haven't got a plan we've got very limited internet here that's the only downside to this car park so one week left one more laundry visit that would be incredible cuz that means we've only done four laundry trips i packed well certainly if you're away for six weeks in a van but you know some people might disagree but I I think most people quite rapidly get used to a very different personal hygiene regime yeah yeah but when I get when we get home the very first thing I'm going to do is say "Put the hot water on i need a bath." Rest my weary limbs i'm looking forward to getting rid of what's left of my facial hair are you yeah it's an interesting experiment but it's a bit of a pain to have a big bristly thing stuck on your chin all the time yeah yeah so what other gem could you give to people as advice if they're going for a prolonged trip in the van make sure that when you're at the packing stage and your other half says to you "I'll only need seven pairs of socks and pants won't I cuz we'll be doing laundry just say take more take twice what you need because you don't know when you're going to find the laundry facilities and we've got space we have been surprised how much space we've got in this van we still got loads of unused space of course you have to think about your rate limits but yes within that there is a lot of space yeah advice for the van well my advice would be take facial wipes because they're very useful for all sorts of personal hygiene jobs you can give yourself a quick wash with that and you don't need to use any water and that saves water which is very very good um my other advice would be certain things are worth buying in advance because when you are on the road getting your day-to-day shopping like fresh meat and salad in the co-ops and things is fine a bit more expensive but there are certain things that are very lightweight so you don't have to worry about the weight limit that are much cheaper to get in places like Aldi or something like Loo roll for example we don't use very expensive loo roll in the van because it's thinner and it breaks down easier in the fluids and it makes it easier to empty the cassette having a thinner paper so and don't leave it to the last minute before you buy what you're about to run out of for example we'd almost run out of margarine and I went to buy some margarine and the cheapest they had in the shop was like £5 and I was like "We can make it last until I find cheaper margarine." I'm the queen of frugal i just begrudge that so um yeah and the other thing is the other thing I'd advise is when you whoever does the planning on where you're going to stay what I like to do is always have at least two reserves fairly close to where I've planned to stay so that if two in total or two in reserve two in reserve so three in total yeah so I had two in reserve after this place today they were a bit further out and like one that way and one this way but if this one turned out to be awful or if there was suddenly they'd placed no overnight parking signs cuz we've had that before then you know you've got somewhere to move on to but the other thing I like to do is to put in the lat long into Google Maps and then I like to go to street view so I can look around and see what's there because I don't want to be somewhere that's too industrial and I also don't want to be somewhere where there's uh residential properties cuz I think that can upset the locals um and you know especially if it's like a layby or something I like to make sure that there's at least a grass verge maybe some bushes and trees as well just to separate you from the road so when it comes to the planning side I mean you've been really kind and you've been going "Oh my gosh you found a really nice place again." Not always but sometimes because not always they've been nice well not last night we we we did actually use one of our reserves last night yeah we did yeah cuz the first place we stopped at was very muddy was next to a very busy road had quite a few people in the car park and I just didn't get didn't didn't feel right yeah and the weird thing was they were both on Park for Night but and they both had the same amount of star ratings like they were equal like four point something and they both had really good reviews so but you just don't know yourself until you turn up somewhere whether or not you're going to feel comfortable there throughout the night um so yeah and a couple of the places we've stayed at haven't had recent reviews because I don't think everyone leaves reviews because then places become too popular I suppose i don't know um so sometimes you're taking a little bit of a gamble so using Google and using you know your own inner intuition that's the word i think that just helps have spares because otherwise you're not going to be sat there oh where am I going to go now cuz that's that's that's horrible so the car park has been completely empty since the other van left and I don't know what time they left been no other cars arrive and now we're going to have a little walk it's half past 11 we had a nice late start didn't we yeah didn't wake up till 10:00 good cross there um no if you run really quick ... without getting wet this is called a breathing space all right it's a special garden slightly overgrown little neglected yeah here we got little pigs sty this for little pigs hmm bridge a little bridge not particularly easy to access um yeah let's hope I don't trip could you get off the bridge before I enter that's pretty they're pretty So one of the things I really really love about just coming out for a little walk and not really knowing where you're going is you come across little bridges like this that look like castles how adorable is this i think this is very old woodland big stag beetle with a broken claw he's pretty cool oh and there's a big wiggly worm too yeah that'll be a worm you can tell it's got legs oh dear i quite like it when they put sculptures in the woods after our walk we had to find a launderette to get everything clean for our last week away it's like you've really turned into a domestic goddess again today yeah he's done the laundry and the now he's sweeping the floor he's doing all his cleaning washer woman day yeah and I attempted to do an hour's work and I'm absolutely exhausted so yeah we're currently in a car park in Johnstown just outside Wrexham what did you think of the launderette you went to uh I think I washed and dried clothes it was fine it did its job did its job did what we needed so we're headed further south trying to outrun Autumn which is closing in from the north and in the next episode it's the very last leg of our big trip 2024 and we hope you'll come back and join us then
2025-04-02 01:56
