Saturday, July 27, 2013

Scotland: St. Monans to Stirling

15/07/2013
After fixing my bike in Perth we headed towards St. Andrew in the east coast. Mainly because I wanted to see the beach which was used in the film 'Chariots of Fire' and also wanted to do kind of re-enact of the opening scene... just for fun! :D The idea of camping in St. Andrews didn't really work out 'cos everything was already fully booked or didn't allow tents (what's the thing with this everywhere???). So we had to  go a bit further along the coast to St. Monans, where we luckily found a pretty nice camp site for three nights.

But by humans must be ok... at least it looks like that everywhere!!! How about just "No Littering" -signs for a change?! (a sign on one of the camp sites wall, which didn't like tents either)

Wolfi's evening beer, while watching the local football club practice opposite of our pitch :)

Of course not! See the interesting phone line distribution...
 Kids playground nearby. Have to start practice the roundabouts early enough! :D



Beautiful and mellow evenings.

17/07/2013
Relaxing (and some running) at the St. Andrews beach. Very HOT day!
A bit too hot for girls, but at least Ulpu was smart to go to shade :)
Healthy lunch at the beach, yummy!!!

After the beach we visited the "Scotland's best kept secret". We saw those signs when we drove to St. Monans two days earlier and of course got interested to know what is it all about...
A military bunker built after the first atomic bomb and used during the cold war...

Abbot



Interesting vehicle for handicaps :D

Darn - we left them all at home!
Old times messaging center.
Radio broadcast control room - full of "old", but very interesting technology.

35mm portable movie projector. Besides the radio room the only really interesting objects for a movie geek in this museum!

These old telefax machines brought back good old memories to Wolfi... (is he really that old?! :D)

And of course there were plenty of all sorts of guns.

The German collection room full of WW2 and DDR items.

Wolfi - "Connecting People".

18/07/2013
We drove to Stirling via Bo'ness because of the motor museum there full of James Bond memorabilia. I didn't realize the place until after we'd already left Falkirk and was really disappointed :( Wolfi wasn't too eager to make a such divert, but after the (boring) visit to the Bunker this was easy to justify ;) I needed to have some interesting fun as well! and in the end Wolfi liked the place a lot, which I knew he would :)
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Bo'ness Motor Museum

Finally got my arms around James Bond ;) He doesn't really look like any of the six, but I decided he's George Lazenby 'cos "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is one of my big favorites.

Wolfi playing with the rocket launcher from "Tomorrow Never Dies".

Lotus Esprit from "The Spy Who Loved Me".

Wolfi got spooked by the Harry Potter spider!

Sweet motorbiker :)


Finally in Stirling (or nearby?) at the Witches Craig camping place, where we stayed for five nights. Mostly just relaxing, sunbathing (I finally got some nice color :)) and catching up with the internet stuff... Very nice place besides a beautiful forest and great hills to exercise. Only minuses were the noisy street close by and too far away located toilets! (and the bugging neighborhood kids!) We also learned from the locals how to possess a campsite table for our own use :D It was really entertaining to watch how those tables traveled around the place...

Our home: bedroom, kitchen, lounge, closets & cupboards... Nothing's missing! :)

These boys were the number one fans of our girls (and our chairs)!


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The other one had to leave after two days, but this one stayed until very end! Girls did get a bit fed up as well...

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The hills behind the camping place. We had great exercise there every day!

View from the top.

21/07/2013
Day trip to the Doune Castle, which was heavily used for example in the Monty Python's Holy Grail -film. That was a very interesting and hilarious trip and especially Terry Jones's audio guide was great fun!
The Doune Castle

Located on a pretty cool hill and between rivers.




Huge fireplace in the kitchen!

Spot a street sign?

Scary...

We have really been amazed throughout our journey in Britain, that how badly the trees and bushes are taken care of in front of street signs and quite often extremely important ones!!!  
One day on our walk up on the hills we met these fellows really close by. Could have easily pet them, but they had a young calf with and we had to be careful that girls don't make them angry... so we kindly changed our route :)

So beautiful and peaceful creatures.

Our lovely neighbors.

Our first ice cream (vanilla soya ice cream) of the summer! Especially Wolfi had been anxiously waiting for this! Enjoyed with christmassy apple cake -> perfect combination.

At the last morning I suddenly saw these sweet fellows having breakfast just behind our tent, and they were "together" for a very long time! What a lovely cheer up :)

23/07/2013
We left the camping place just before the expected thunder storm hit and had a wet journey back to England via delicious shopping in the Glasgow's Whole Foods...


Ilta


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