On Thursday 16th July we headed home. We stopped off for a while at Tintern in the Wye Valley and had a walk around.

The Wye is tidal at Tintern as you can see from the watermarks on the pillars of this old railway bridge. We talked to an interesting couple of vanners from New Zealand who were considering buying a new van similar to ours and shipping it back to NZ.

We stopped off in Bristol to visit Ann's daughter Hannah and her partner George. George's mother Val who lives in France was visiting.

Hannah and Val.

Val and George.

We returned to our home in Widecombe. The grass on the lawn is very long indeed.

Our journey lasted for 50 days and we travelled 3231 miles (5202 kilometres) excluding ferries to and from Orkney and Mull.

Many thanks to anyone who took an interest in this blog. Goodbye for now. Roger.

On Wednesday 15th July we left Shrewsbury and travelled down the A49 to Church Stretton where we visited the Carding Mill Valley. We set off towards the Long Mynd.

After 40 minutes or so we were high up on the hill and in spectacular scenery.

We reached this small waterfall high up near to the main ridge.

We continued south and stopped at the town of Ross on Wye.

This interesting town is on a famous salmon river so as you would expect there are a few fish sculptures around.

There are some nice old buildings.

We're stopped for the night down by the river Wye. It's been a really nice sunny day.

Today Tuesday 14th July we came south from Armside and visited Rufford Old Hall, near Ormskirk in Lancashire (National Trust).

The house was the "seat" of the Hesketh family for over 500 years until they gave it to the National Trust in the 1930s.

The interior is quite interesting but photography is only allowed in the Great Hall pictured here. The current Lord Hesketh who lives in Northamptonshire was the principal of a Formula One motor racing team in the 1970s.

We moved on south via the M6 and M56, then through rural Cheshire and into Shropshire on the A49. We stopped to explore Prees Heath near Whitchurh, a nature reserve run by the charity Butterfly Conservation. Here are Piramidal Orchids.

There is plenty of heather in flower.

And even more Rosebay Willowherb.

However the star of the show is the rare Silver-studded Blue butterfly. There are also innumerable rabbits and almost as many dog walkers.

Tonight we are staying at our friends Andy and Annette's house in Shrewsbury. We went out for a curry in town with Andy. Unfortunately we missed Annette as she was away. Great to see you again Andy after so long!

This morning, Monday 13th July was wet and misty. We moved on from Glencaple and visited nearby Caerlaverock Castle. I should say Ann visited as I stayed in the car park admiring the view. As we now have no camera we are relying on my kids' smartphone for pictures so Ann didn't take any pics inside the castle.

As it was raining we pressed on west to the English border and then south into The Lake District where we stopped on the shore of Ullswater for a cup of tea.

We then visited nearby Aira Force (waterfall). Free if you are a National Trust member or come on foot or bike, otherwise £5 to park your car!

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Tonight we are stopped in a layby near Arnside in Cumbria. There are some great views from here.

Looking down towards Morecambe Bay from our parking place there is what appears to be a medieval castle.

The weather brightened up a bit this morning Sunday 12th July and we went to visit Threave Gardens, near Castle Douglas (National Trust for Scotland).

They have lots of beautiful trees - here's part of a Weeping Ash.

There is a really nice walled garden with both flowers and vegetables.

Threave House dominates the centre of the gardens.

There is a wild wood where we saw Red Squirrels.

There is a waterfall with blue water.

There are some nice sculptures too. Unfortunately shortly after this photograph was taken I very carelessly dropped my camera onto a hard path surface and it died! Luckily my computer has a memory card slot so I was able to retrieve these photos.

We visited Tesco in Dumfries to get some supplies and then came on here to Glencaple on the banks of the River Nith. I took this photo of our van parked on the quayside here on my kiddies smartphone and then emailed it to myself! I'm not doing too well what with the van breaking down, me breaking my fishing rod and now killing my camera.

Saturday 11th July started off warm and sunny. Overnight a number of other campers had arrived and set up around us at The Isle of Whithorn. We moved on to the town of Whithorn and visited the ruined Priory.

Then we visited the Drumtroddan stones which featured prehistoric carvings of rings and cups. Ann thought these very interesting!

Next visit was to the Torhouse Stone Circle near Wigtown.

We called in at Newton Stewart to top up our LPG cylinders and then headed north east into Galloway Forest Park - a vast area of conifer forest reputedly having the darkest skies of anywhere in Britain.

Rather stupidly we turned off down a single track road which went for miles and miles into the wilderness and ended with a "no unauthorised vehicles beyond this point" sign. We then had to go miles and miles back to the main road.

That was about it for the day. We travelled on through New Galloway and Castle Douglas and eventually stopped for the night in a layby south of Dalbeattie. The weather is pretty foul now - wind and rain - what's new?

Friday 10th July saw us in Stranraer having new tyres fitted to our van. After nearly 7 years and 52,000 miles our original ones had finally had enough.

From Stranraer we went south east along the coast and stopped off briefly at the village of Port William. We found this notice by the harbour. This illustrates the kind of unenlightened ignorance we have to but up with from time to time. I wonder where the locals who don't have off street parking are supposed to leave their vehicles overnight?

We couldn't resist visiting Kings Green Caravan site just down the road which was sporting this disgusting notice at the entrance. Surely there must be a law against this kind of thing? What if it said "no Irish" or "no blacks"?

As you can imagine we had no desire to stay in Port William so we moved on to The Isle of Whithorn and visited Saint Ninian's Chapel on the edge of the village.

The Isle of Whithorn is a really pretty place with beautiful rocks. I went fishing but unfortunately broke my fishing rod in two! I am the worst fishing person in the world and now I haven't even got a fishing rod.

To make up for this disaster we went out for some fish for our evening meal at the local pub by the harbour. The village has a really nice grassy area where visitors can park or camp. Port William please take note!

Thursday 9th July was a nice day. We went over to the far west coast of Galloway and visited the town of Portpatrick - very quaint little place with lots of tourists.

We moved on south to Sandhead on Luce Bay - beautiful parking area by the enormous beach.

Went further south still, to The Mull of Galloway. If you look closely to the right of the lighthouse you can see the Isle of Man.

There are some beautiful sea cliffs at The Mull.

We found a nice spot to spend the night between Ardwell and Sandhead on the shore of Luce Bay. Ann got her chair out!

The folks at Edinburgh Hill Autos were working on our van more or less all day today Wednesday 8th July. They replaced the EGR valve which was seized up causing the van to lose power and the oil and fuel filters which were dirty. They charged us very little considering the amount of time they spent.

The van seems to be running really well now. After stocking up on provisions at Morrisons in Stranraer we moved  on to the west shore of Loch Ryan almost opposite the point on the east shore where we had broken down yesterday. Here's the view out of our sliding door at our parking place on waste ground.

Here's a telephoto across the Loch to the P&O Ferry Terminal where we were stuck yesterday.

Here's a ferry coming in from Larne in Ireland.

We went for a walk along the Loch shore.

It was a beautiful evening.

There was a shingle spit running out to sea with many sea birds settled on it.

Here's a closer view of the birds.

The light was really nice as the sun got low.

Here's looking north out to the open sea. If you look carefully you can just make out the great rock of Ailsa Craig in the centre of the picture.

There were a lot of rabbits about - here are just 2 of many.

We returned to our van.