UK Road Trip (9 day trip)

Our UK road trip was our last planned big trip of our overseas assignment.  We have been to London a couple times so this time we did everything except London.  Throughout our trip we went through England, Scotland and Wales...and ate ice cream in each.

Our first day was the longest driving day.  We couldn't leave any earlier because Ryan was ending his busy season but we still wanted to be up in Scotland for the Highland Games two days later.  The night before leaving, we packed up the car, went to bed late and about an hour later Kherington woke up with the stomach flu.  I camped out on the couch while she watched movies for the rest of the night.  In the morning we buckled the kids up, grabbed a throw-up bowl and headed off.

We took the ferry across the channel (so much cheaper if you're staying more than one night) leaving from Dunkirk and arriving 2 hours later in Dover.  The ferry had a cool play area for the kids, except our kids weren't into it which was sad.  They did like the motorcycle in the game room though.  

Cambridge was our first stop.  We did a free walking tour that we downloaded from online.  It took us past many of the different colleges one of which had a free museum that we decided to stop and tour.  It has a huge dinosaur skeleton and hippo skeleton, plus some bathrooms.  It's just a little sad/funny that the bathroom was not at all soundproof and the 5 minutes our kids spent in there was heard throughout the museum.

Edwinstowe - Robin Hood
Next stop was the Sherwood Forest in Edwinstowe.  We did a treasure trail walking tour that took us through the forest looking for clues.  Kherington kept asking where Robin Hood was and didn't like any of our responses.

We slept near Nottingham that evening and wandered the streets near our hotel to find some dinner.  There was really only one option.  A fish n chips/pizza/kebab place.  Haha. Yeah.  We got a pizza and 2 kebabs which was way too much food since portion sizes here are a lot larger than the normal European size.   I told them to make the kebab how they normally would which included a really really hot chili sauce (I didn't know that at the time).  A good kebab, but would have been better had it not cleaned out my sinuses while eating it.

The next morning we dropped by a Tesco (grocery store) to grab some breakfast, then continued on through Chesterfield and Sheffield which are both places my ancestors are from.  Both cities were a lot larger than I had anticipated them being.

York ended up being one of my favorite stops.  We were able to walk the city wall for a portion of our walking tour (from our guide book).  The kids got some ice cream, told stories in a little storytelling cove outside a museum and raced each other around the city wall.  After our tour, we went to a free train museum and even got to ride on a short miniature train (outdoor, uncovered and in the rain).

We drove a little more up to Newcastle upon Tyne for the night to reduce out time in the car in the morning, but it still left us with a good 4h drive up to Pitlochry for the highland games.  For at least an hour of the drive (before falling asleep), Kevin excitedly pointed out the window at all the cows and sheep we passed and wanted us to acknowledge that we saw each one and who's window we saw it out.  Cute kid.

The weather at the Pitlochry Highland games turned out fantastic.  Since we were up in Scotland which is much further North, I had dressed us all in layers thinking it would be cold.  I was wrong about that.  We were able to see the shot put, hammer throw, caber toss (with a new caber they brought in), bagpipe groups, dancing and races.  Kherington even competed in the under 10 girls race.  She really wanted to do it so Ryan took her down, then she chickened out and was on the side until everyone started running then she jumped right into the mix and raced to the end.  We saw more kilts than I'll see for the rest of my lifetime...I'm surprise at how many colors and styles there are.  We had bought stuff for a sandwich lunch from the store that morning, but also enjoyed a cup of strawberries and cream.  It is really just that, strawberries with fresh cream poured over the top.  I think I could have done without the cream.

We stayed two nights in Edinburgh.  I found a cheap hotel outside of town but near the train tracks and booked just a double, but when we got there the hotel upgraded us to a quad which was awesome.  In the morning we got all ready to walk to the train station, then as we were walking out of the parking lot, changed our plans and decided to drive instead since is was down pouring.

We parked down the hill from the Edinburgh Castle and walked up.  It was so windy we really had to hold on to the kids hands so they didn't get blown away.  The castle had some nice views and was fun to tour, but the indoor areas were definitely a nice break from the wind and rain outdoors.  After our tour, the sun had just peaked out and the rain and wind stopped so we started our walk down the Royal mile.  Lucky for us we hadn't gone far before finding an ice cream shop.  After the kids finished, we continued our walk.  And a couple minutes later the sun was gone and the rain and wind were back in full force.  Umbrellas and jacket were no match for this downpour, so we turned and headed back to the car.

We stopped at Costco for lunch and grabbed a pizza for dinner later that night before returning to the hotel for the remainder of the day. Naps and chill time were in order.  Fortunately, later that evening the rain/wind was gone again and we were able to find a playground nearby.  After getting their wiggles out, it was off to bed.  Ryan was awesome and read them to sleep each night.

Glasgow was our last stop in Scotland.  We did another treasure trail here.  I would definitely recommend these trails for anyone with kids touring the UK.  They have them all over the place.  They would be more fun for older kids, but even Kherington was old enough to look for letter and numbers if we were specific about where to find them.  The tour ended across the street from a Mexican restaurant so we gave it a try.  Very similar to Chipotle and delicious.  Sadly, it was definitely past Kevin's nap time by the time we started walking back to the car.  He got super upset because Ryan crossed a road without him and screamed the entire way back the the car.  I got some awesome looks from people as I walked through the parking garage up to the car.   He fell asleep almost instantly once in his car seat.

I had booked one hotel with a swimming pool and the kids were super excited about it.  Sadly, when we arrived at our Preston hotel, we found it closed to kids at 6pm and didn't open up again until 11am (even though adults could be in there).  We hurried in and spent an hour in the pool.  It was even more disappointing because there was actually 2 pools, a kiddie one that started shallow and got only 3.5 feet deep, then a bigger adult pool.  Another reason I had booked it was so when I did the temple session in the morning, Ryan could take the kids swimming again.  With these children's pool hours, that didn't work out either.  After swimming, we hit up McDonald's for some happy meals then a local Fish N' Chips shop.

I did do the temple session, but Ryan had to be a little more creative in entertaining the kids.  While Ryan did a session, I took the kids to an indoor play area right around the corner from the Preston temple.  It was awesome.  For 2 pounds a kid, they got to play in a huge ball pit complete with slides and a pirate ship plus have toast and juice while I sat on a sofa and read my book.  Sweet deal.

When we picked Ryan up from the Temple, we walked around a bit then asked an older lady to take our picture.  After taking the picture, she asked Kherington what was her name.  Kherington responded, then added on (with absolutely no prompting), that we are going to have a baby boy that is in moms tummy and she wants to name him Johnny but Kevin wants to name him Poopy.  Yeah. That got us a fun look from this sweet old English lady.  I really never know what extra pieces of information Kherington is going to feel the need to share at any point in time.

After the temple, we drove over to Cheshire Ice Cream Farm in Chester.  We all enjoyed some delicious ice cream then head out to the playground and milking area.  The kids got to watch the cows get milk up close...and poo all over each other which was pretty nasty.  There was also a little farm area where you could see goats, alpaca, little horses, birds and pigs.  There was a mommy pig and her little ones that have new meaning to pig pile and even though they were sleeping, Kevin was scared to get very close.  The last thing we did on the farm was a zip line followed by a quad ride for the kids.  It was a little quad with a bumper ring that the kids drove around a track two times.  Kherington drove first with Kevin clinging to her back then they switched.  They ran into the walls quite a few times and Ryan had to pull them back onto the course (more fun than the Disney Autotopia ride where there is no way to really crash the car).  It was one of those things that I didn't think would make a big difference and might not have done since it was an extra pound, but I was so happy we did because the kids were so excited about it afterwards.

Up next on our adventure was the Cadbury Chocolate World in Birmingham.   It definitely exceeded my expectations.  It was very interactive and changed from hands on to video to holographic screens to a ride and more.  Plus they handed out full-size candy bars at three different points in the tour in addition to 2 cups of liquid chocolate.  Delicious.   Outside there was an amazing playground for the kids to run around on, plus free outdoor air hockey and ping pong tables.   Very fun place.  We spent 3 hours there and could have let the kids play for longer if we didn't have other cities to visit.  Oh and one of my favorite things was the Suggested Rules of Health for Bournville Village (the Cadbury company built this village for their workers).  I like all the rules, my favorite was "Apples are the most wholesome fruit; they should be used freely, both raw and cooked."  Pretty good rule to live by.

From Cadbury World, we head off to Wales.  Our first stop in Wales was Hay-on-Wye to try some Sheeps ice cream.  The town was very cute and fun to wander in.  When we parked, I went to check the sign to make sure we were okay parking there and got a good laugh as I tried to read it.  Then it clicked that the top part was in Welsh and the bottom in English.  That's how all their signs are.  I found it funny that for quite a few of them if you said the welsh part really fast it was like mad gab and you could start to hear the English words.  At the foot of an old church, we found a little book area where you could buy a book for a pound or 50 pence, just on the honor system.   If you took a book, you were supposed to leave the money somewhere and no one else was supposed to take it.  We found that there were quite a few English bookstores in Wales. 

Wales countryside was so beautiful. Driving up one mountain we came upon sheep scattered all over the switchbacks of the road. At another place we had to pay an 80 pence toll to cross a tiny little bridge then came upon another bridge that was super narrow, but still two ways with no light...I guess you just look and go for it.

Dowlais and Glascoed (still in Wales) were our next two pit stops to see where more of my ancestors came from.  Dowlais was a lot larger than I expected (not as big as Sheffield or Chesterfield though).  We found an old abandoned church, the public library and some stables on our short walk around.  Then we moved on to Glascoed.

Glascoed was definitely the other extreme.  We saw the road sign for Glascoed village and followed it, but only found tiny roads lined with shrubs that were okay for one car, but were actually two way roads.  Not sure how two cars would pass since you couldn't even see around the one way bends.  It must be a pretty well off area since all the cars we saw were expensive looking and the houses were huge and sitting on large pieces of land.  In our wandering, we didn't find any town center or anything though.

We stayed in Bristol that evening and just our luck, there is a Costco in Bristol.  We all love Costco (plus it is quick and cheap) and since aside from Fish n Chips there wasn't anything foodwise we really wanted from the UK, we ate there when possible.  

That evening we decided to change up the following day's plans.  We started in Bath where we toured the Roman Baths.  I don't think any of us loved it, but it was fun to see.  We even drank some of the warm, very nasty tasting water at the end of the tour.  After our tour, we went into a store that was going out of business.  I had seen a line of people there waiting for it to open before going into the Baths so I thought they might have some sweet deals even with the price conversion.  I ended up buy a purse for 5 pounds.

From here, we found our way to a playground we passed on our drive into town.  It was just a couple minutes away and was awesome.  It was Queen Victoria Park's play area.  They had something for all ages, but the coolest was definitely this toy that was like a cool teeter totter.  It had tire seats and you bounced the person on the other side up and down while spinning around.  We even got all of us on there at once.  On top of that there was a zip line, steep slides, climbing wall, sand area, swings, tire climbing hill and more.  If I were to visit again I'd definitely plan on doing a picnic there for a couple hours.

After Bath we drove to Cheddar Gorge.  We did the store tour and tasted some cheeses (didn't tour the caves).  Definitely overrated.  We did try out their famous cheese straws which were okay.  I wouldn't plan that into a vacation again, but as I've said before, you win some you lose some and if you didn't try you'd miss out on a lot of cool things.

Now this is where we revised out trip a bit.  We opted to make the Avebury stone circle our next visit since kids could run wild around the ancient stones and it was free.  We took turns racing from stone to stone in the soggy grass.  The kids both had boots so it wasn't a problem for them, but Ryan and I didn't fair as well.  Since we were so close to Stonehenge, we decided we should at least drive by it.  We were able to snap some pictures from the road and weren't even that much further away than the people who paid to do the tour (you have to stay on the path that circles the stones except from one day a year on summer solstice when you can go up and touch them).  We had passed a lot cows and sheep grazing in pastures, but it made me laugh to see a pasture filled with pigs across from Stonehenge.  I think this was the first pig pasture I'd seen in my life.

Our last day we were going to driving down to Portsmouth, but decided instead to just go straight to Dover.  This was a good choice.  We went to the castle which was amazing.  There was so much to do there.  We spent 2-3 hours and still missed out on a lot.  If we'd known better we would have gotten there earlier and brought a picnic.  We did a wartime tunnels tour which lasted about an hour and I found interesting (sadly, the kids didn't...Kherington went from one issue to the next trying to get me to take her out). Then wandered the castle.  I just loved that we could wander on our own and find fun things to do like play in the kitchen or jump on an ancient bed.

After grabbing some happy meals for the kids and a last round of Fish n' Chips for the adults, we headed to the Ferry.   It was so sad to have our last big European vacation end.  We have enjoyed being able to travel through Europe as a family and are very thankful that our kids do amazing (not to say they don't have their moments).

Stories from the Trip:
Lunchables - We bought lunchable for the kids one day and it was fun to watch them build them.  Kherington was pretty traditional, but also liked to just eat the ham on its own.  Kevin not so much, he took the cheese, ham and crackers and put them all inside a roll.  Funny little guy.

Peeing on the Car - Kevin did the whole trip in underwear (just wearing a diaper for bedtime).  Bathrooms are easier to find in the UK than in most of Europe but still not on every corner (especially when you're traveling the countryside).  Anyways, we told Kevin to pee on the tire and he thought that it was great.  Once, Ryan was getting stuff situated and Kevin said he need to go.  Ryan told him to hold on a minute...then turned to find him with his pants down and ready to pee.  Haha.

Chicken - We bought a whole rotisserie chicken two different times for lunch/dinner.  The kids loved it, especially Kherington.  I'd hand her a hunk and she'd hand me back a licked clean bone.

Financial Breakdown:
We budgeted $2000 for this 9 day trip which was to include everything (hotels, gas, food, parking, entrance fees, etc).  I thought we might be a little over since that is just 1285 pounds and we're family of 4.  I spent hours finding inexpensive hotels off our route most of which kids could stay free (they typically charge per person) and we packed two sleeping bags with us.  We ended up being $250 under budget.  Pretty sweet.  We had to get gas 3 times (plus twice in Belgium on the way out and the way back but we don't have to pay when we gas up in Belgium).  We ate a lot at Tesco and Costco which we all enjoyed.  The favorite snacks for the trip were clementines and carrots...our kids requested these over all the sugar junk which was a nice.