Wednesday 13th May 2026

It rained in the night in Kirkcudbright and in the morning we found that rainwater was leaking through the rear skylight of our van onto our bed! The only alternative which made sense to us was to return to our house in Devon immediately! We left Kirkcudbright at about 10.00 and after taking on diesel in Dumfries we returned home arriving about 19.30. We were really enjoying this trip and we are sad and sorry that it ended like this.

Today we travelled 439 miles (707 kilometres). 

Our journey lasted 12 days. In total we travelled 1131 miles (1820 kilometres).

That's all for now, Roger.

Tuesday 12th May 2026

Today we travelled in a generally westwards direction. We stopped in Dumfries and did a supermarket shop. We stopped for the day in the town of Kirkcudbright and parked in this nice free car park.

We are by the harbour. The River Dee is very tidal here and it was low tide when we arrived.

There is a beautiful statue here remembering those lost at sea.

At low tide large expanses of mud are exposed.

There are some pieces of public art around the car park,.

Oops, I missed her head!

We had fish and chips from one of the local chippies for our tea.

Today we travelled 68 miles (109 kilometres). We are at: N54.8374 W4.0511                     Kirkcudbright          Street View

Monday 11th May 2026

This morning we travelled north east and crossed to Scotland at Gretna. Then we turned south west and stopped in the town of Annan to do a clothes wash at a laundrette.

From Annan we made a short journey south west and stopped for the day at a carpark next to the Solway Firth close to the village of Powfoot. Here's a view looking south over the firth. The distant hills are the North Pennines on the left and the Lake District on the right.

Telephoto of the North Pennines.

This car park is understandably quite popular, free and with no nasty prohibitive signs!

This sign is a bit superfluous as the tide seem to be permanently out!? 

There  is a golf course just inland from our parking place.

We are in Dumfries and Galloway District. There are hills to the west.

As the day went on more vans turned up.

The beach is absolutely enormous.

I took this from a nice picnic bench.

A view from the side door of our van looking east.

The sands are popular with dog walkers and horse riders.

Ann found me the recipe for corned beef hash and I cooked it for our tea.

Today we travelled 52 miles (84 kilometres). We are at: N54.9742 W3.3455 Powfoot  Street View June 2021 - the height barrier is no more!

Sunday 10th May 2026

Beautiful morning. Chris kindly let us use has outside tap to fill up our water tank. After saying goodbye to Chris and Mandy we went into Keswick to visit a laundrette, but when we got there it was so busy we decided to give it a miss. We moved on to Maryport and parked by the sea. The locals call this place Scaryport!

We unpacked Ann's scooter and set off to explore.

There are some beautiful rocks on the seashore here, and great views across the Solway Firth to Scotland.

We went along the seafront for quite some distance.

We turned onto a narrow but well surfaced path which climbed up the cliff.

We were soon high above the shore.

There are tremendous views from up here.

We passed the local library.

We returned to our van via this steep descent through the town.

Our original parking place was too inclined for us to be able to get the van level so we moved to the other side of town and parked on a rather rough area by the sea. We can see Sellafield Nuclear Power Station from here.

 I'm not sure whether this lighthouse still works?

Views to Scotland.

Views south. Sellafield in the distance.

An orchid is flowering just next to our van. A nice spot to while away the afternoon.

Today we travelled 38 miles (61 kilometres). We are at: N54.7165 W3.5088       Maryport  Street View

 

Saturday 9th May 2026

Today we visited Sainsburys in Cockermouth to buy a few groceries and empty our toilet cassette in their toilets. We then came on the short distance to visit my nephew Chris and his wife Mandy just outside Cockermouth. This is their beautiful house which they have built to their own specification.

It was great to see Chris and Mandy again after so long.

We had a tour of the house. They have some parrots.

Everything in the house is beautifully finished.

Chris reckons it was a bit of a struggle to get the house completed. It sounds like the project should have been featured on that Grand Designs TV programme.

Here's the view out from the front of the house at the top of the stairs. The hills in the far distance are over the Solway Firth in Scotland!

Here's the view from upstairs looking into the garden at the back of the house.

Chris told us a lot about the struggles he had to go through to get the house completed to his satisfaction but the result is superb and I'm sure he is really proud of what he has achieved.

Chris has worked for M Sport in Cockermouth for 27 years and is now a director of the company. M Sport builds rally cars. He took me on a tour of the factory.

This is a plan of the site. Note their test track. They employ about 250 people here.

Here's The Boardroom.

This is The Oak Room, used for smaller company meetings.

One of the companies products.

An old Formula 1 car in the company museum.

There are millions of pound worth of historic cars in the museum.

This evening Mandy cooked us a fantastic meal and we had lots of excellent wine which a friend of Chris's from France had sent him for Christmas.

Today we travelled 9 miles (14 kilometres).

Friday 8th May 2026

This morning we were surrounded by a herd of sheep.

 Some of them were rubbing themselves on the side of our van!

After a while the sheep moved away to seek new pastures. It was a beautiful morning. We sat admiring the view with our sliding door open.

We were sorry to leave this beautiful spot but we had things to do and places to go!

We travelled north west, stopping off at Ingleton to empty our toilet cassette at their excellent public toilets which have dedicated parking spaces for motorhomes and blue badge holders can park for free! We also stopped at Keswick to buy some flowers and puds. We stopped for the day in this quiet side road next to Bassenthwaite Lake.

The Pheasant Inn is about 300 metres away from our parking place. It has a nice beer garden.

The lakeside is about 100 metres away. I chatted to some fishing people there. They hadn't caught anything.

Bassenthwaite Lake.

The fishing people are from Wolverhampton.

Ann decided to come down to the lakeside.

It was a bit bumpy for her little machine.

She made it there okay.

And she made it back.

Later on we went for a meal at the nearby Pheasant Inn.

I only noticed the specials menu after we had ordered. I would definitely have had the mussels! As it was Ann had chicken goujons with chips and broccoli from the children's menu and I had chicken curry - very nice.

We returned to our van passing this fine beech tree.

Later on a big A Class motorhome parked just in front of us for the night.

Today we travelled 70 miles (113 kilometres). We are at: N54.6654 W3.2385 Bassenthwaite           Street View