This is the first day since we arrived in the UK that it didn't rain at all - beautiful weather!
Started off the day in Glasgow with a nice breakfast at the hotel. Getting out of town was interesting - there was some sort of bike race on today, and so a number of roads were closed. But of course, the driver's GPS didn't know about that, so it kept trying to take him down those roads. He and the Tour Director had an interesting time getting us out of town.
We're aware of course that a lot of places in Australia are named after places in the UK, but we were surprised by one today - there's a Kelvingrove in Glasgow, named after the scientist of course.
Finally made our way out of town and headed off to our first stop, at Gretna Green. This is on the border between England and Scotland, and was famous as the quickest place a young English couple could go to get married under Scottish law (which allowed for marriage without parental consent at an earlier age than English law).
Pretty much just a tourist trap but we both found some nice gloves in one of the shops. And, when we went to get our morning tea, we found that the shop was selling one of our favourite soft-drinks - imported Bundaberg Diet Ginger Beer from Queensland! I suspect a few of the people on the bus thought we might have been breaking the 'no alcohol on the bus' rule, but I don't care, it was really nice to be reminded of home.
On the way to Gretna Green, we were reminded of the sad story of Lockerbie - the main road goes right past the town.
After leaving Gretna Green we went back into England and drove into the Lake District - first stop was for lunch in a little town called Grasmere. Two interesting things about this place. Just before we got into town the Tour Director pointed out what he said was a WWII pillbox - I was a bit surprised that they'd have set up defences in a place like that, but it certainly looked like a pillbox.
The second interesting thing was that this is obviously a tourist resort - there were at least twenty cafes where we could have had lunch, there were all the usual souvenir places, and obviously people were staying in or near the town - however, there was not a single ATM to be found. This was a bit of a pain as we had almost completely run out of cash at this point (there was an ATM at Gretna Green but it 'couldn't contact' either of our banks).
Anyway, they have no problem with credit cards, so we had a nice lunch and bought some souvenirs, then headed off to the next town - Bowness - which is actually where we're staying for the night. However, before going to the hotel we went for a cruise on Lake Windermere, and then a steam train ride. Some nice scenery, and at the end of the ride, a man was fund-raising for 'Wise Owl World' by showing off some of his owls.
Once we got to the hotel, we understood why the Tour Director had been saying somewhat dire things about it. It's certainly not bad, but it's definitely not up to the standard of the other hotels so far. No air conditioning (on the warmest day we've had so far) and no refrigerator in the room, which is a bit of a pain since of course we're carrying Paul's insulin around. We also - for the second night in a row - have twin beds instead of a double. Apparently people whose travel agent requested doubles for them got first preference over people who "only" requested them via the Insight website. This is a bit of a pain actually, and I'm going to talk to the travel agent about it. The room also has an interesting 'step up' arrangement - quite tricky to drag your suitcases into the room when you only get to take about two steps into the room and then have to go up three stairs to the main part of the room. The bathroom is on the lower level, so I'm really hoping neither of us forgets during the night as the fall could be nasty :-(
There are some redeeming features - the outside appearance of the hotel is classic Victorian, and it does have a nice view over the lake (although not from our room). Dinner at the hotel was 'included' tonight and although the choices were limited the food was quite nice and the service was very efficient. Still, I'll be glad to get to the new hotel tomorrow night.
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