Early morning start and a drive to Gatehouse of Fleet with the intention of tackle at least a major part of The Gralloch gravel course if not all of it. Sadly the bike legs were not there today and only managed a greatly reduced ride of about 38 miles. Nice to be off road on decent gravel but nothing too spectacular scenery wise.
Last day of the hols with a stop en route at Crook Hall in Durham. A very nice property and garden that was recently privately owned but now a National Trust property.
We left our cottage at 9 am and drove about 2 hours to Burleigh House to break the journey and to walk the gardens and some of the grounds which were being set up for the horse trials. The gardens were trying a bit too hard with the water features and sculptures.
Another trip of just 30 minutes from the cottage to a lovely nature reserve. Various different lakes and walks from the visitor centre. Very nice millennium garden. Some flamingos and cranes.
We drove to Weybourne about 30 minutes north of our cottage then hopped on the bus for a 20 minute ride to Blakeney for the start of our walk back along the coastal path.
We had a brunch stop planned early in Blakeney and had a good sized feed in the Two Magpies Bakery.
After Cley did head out to the sea and had a long stretch of shingle beach which was hard work to walk and turned out to be not very interesting. After about a mile of this we took a path inland again. Plan B was blocked by a family of swans and we had to move onto Plan C and finally go to the village of Salthouse. After ice cream here we got a short bus ride back to the car. Around 8 miles walking - a bit less than planned.
Our cottage was just 10 minutes walk from the edge of Blickling Estate and 45 minutes to Blickling Hall so we walked there in a thankfully much cooler day. We did a tour of the house and gardens and particularly enjoyed the walled garden with a very impressive display of fruit and veg.
There was an interesting little amateur play in the gardens.
Another scorcher of a day and getting quite unpleasantly hot. We drove the short distance to Aylsham in the morning then took the little steam train from Aylsham to Wroxham. The journey was 45 minutes and not terribly interesting.
In Wroxham we visited Miniature World to look at their various collections of trains, lego, dolls house, miniature toys. The knitted collection was a highlight.
On Monday we drove about 30 minutes to visit the seaside resort town of Cromer. Car parks were very busy in town but we eventually got sorted and went for a wander into town and that out the eastern side towards the lighthouse.
The temperature was rising with it getting hot at the coast but at least moderated by the breeze. Back at the cottage it was extermely hot and we both had a night of very poor sleep as a result.
After two days of driving we kept things local today with a walk from the cottage to a nearby stately home. We started with the 15 minute walk to the local community run shop where we enjoyed our morning coffee and cake.
It was then another 20 minutes or so to the Mannington Estate where we wandered around the ruined church and its gardens then visited the wetland nature reserve and bird hide.
After breakfast in the fancy dining room at the Majestic we drove onwards for around 2 hours to Belvoir Castle for a wander around the gardens and grounds. The small gardens were quite nice and we did the fairly lengthy but poorly sign posted Dukes Walk which wasn't terribly exciting.
The castle looked good from the outside and we got some glimpses of the fusty old interior as we made our way to the tea room for lunch.
We set off by car at 9 am and drove down to Alnwick to visit the gardens for our second time. We had previously visited in 2015. The gardens were nice with different bits being at their prime compared to the last trip. Also went to the associated allotment garden.
This is a fun series of urban orienteering events on a Wednesday evening in and around Edinburgh. I chose the short course this year which was just a 20 min or so sprint most evening. Navigation never that tricky but moving at speed errors are always possible.
I ran at: Alnwickhill, Dunbar, Buckstone, Haddington, Musselburgh, Astley Ainsley, Bioquarter, Pollock Halls and Baberton.
9 events completed with best 7 counting. I had 2 firsts, 4 seconds and a fourth place counting and should be placed 2nd in the league (with all the better runners doing the long course)
