Brief Trip to Scotland
Ewelina and I wanted to make the most of the early May bank holiday. We both took 4 days off work to tag onto to the bank holiday Monday, giving us a possible total of 9 days for a road trip. We had planned a tour of Scotland but unfortunately a brake caliper issue resulted in us coming home early.
We departed Northampton early on Saturday morning. We stopped briefly at The Angel of The North but just for a quick photo and to give Archie some exercise.
Our first serious stop was at Warkworth Beach in Northumberland. Archie loves a long sandy beach and this one certainly did not disappoint. Despite it being a sunny bank holiday weekend the beach was long enough to not feel overcrowded.
With the dog’s needs met we continued on, crossing the border into Scotland.
St Abbs Harbour
Our first stop once in Scotland was St Abbs Harbour. I’ve visited Scotland many times but this location was a first for me. We parked up at the harbour and went for a short walk. The photo at the top of this article is an aerial photo of the harbour. If you look closely you can see another Adria Twin that was parked up with the deck chairs out. I had hoped to photograph the lighthouse but it would have been about a 90 minute round trip on foot from where we had parked. This trip had lots of spectacular photo opportunities planned so missing the lighthouse did not overly concern me.
We then skirted around the centre of Edinburgh before heading towards Falkirk. Edinburgh is a beautiful city but Ewelina and I have both been before and Archie is not a fan of cities.
Falkirk – The Kelpies
It was around this time that we started to notice the problem with the front passenger side brake caliper. We were hoping a local garage might be able to take a look at it and would start calling some once we had visited The Kelpies. When you arrive at the area known as The Helix the first car park you come across is free. It’s about a 10 minute walk to The Kelpies. You can park closer for a fee of £2.00. This first ‘free’ car park has the added bonus of being one where campervans are allowed to wild camp overnight. Unfortunately there was a night time cycling event planned that evening which meant the car park would be closed before 10pm.
With our plans for our overnight location dashed it was time to try plan B. Luckily I am a member of a wild camping forum and have their app on my phone. A suitable car park that backed onto a large field looked promising. Upon arrival there were a few other cars parked but none that looked like they would be wild camping. The large field proved popular with Archie as I began to find numbers of local garages who might be able to help us.
The following morning the first garage I called could not look at the campervan until Monday or Tuesday. There was another Fiat Professional dealership due to open at noon but I suspected they might say the same thing. Rather than waste any more of this holiday we decided to carefully drive back home to Northampton. We could always use the Citroen Berlingo and book dog friendly accommodation elsewhere to salvage the remainder of the holiday whilst a local (to us) garage repaired the brakes.