Back to Scotland... Brrrrrrrrrilliant!
We had a lazy morning at the Roxburgh in Berwick-Upon-Tweed as breakfast was not served until after 8am. However, then we got food. A fully cooked breakfast, with toast and orange juice and cereal and plunger coffee / pot of tea. Massive and good. Full!
We packed up, loaded the car and drove north. Soon... On the border...
Scotland to the left and England to the right...
We assumed that this stonewall marked the border as it continued towards the road and the markers (to the right of the picture).
We chose the ring road around Edinburgh to avoid the worst of the traffic and soon we crossed the Firth of Forth on the bridge assigned the same name.
After a tea and shopping break including bread rolls for lunch in a small town called Cowdenbeath (not a prosperous place from what we could see), we continued to Glenrothes and onto Leslie.
We had booked the next 3 nights in a pub called The Greenside Hotel where it was a bit of a rabbit warren to get to our room. A bit of a maneuvor to get our bags there, but we probably would get payback later as it is facing away from the street, the parking and the pub area and instead we saw this from our window...
Yes, the window could be opened and yes, no disrespect, but we used a bible to prop it up.
After a break, including having lunch in our room, we did a short drive to find the trailhead for a hike we want to do called the Lomond Loop. Along the way, pure Scottish countryside...
Gotta love this, Scottish Right of Way providing public paths through somebody's grazing land. Seemed to be used too given the look of the grass and ground.
We drove onto a small town called Falkland (not sure if there is any relationship with the Falkland Islands off Argentina). It was a cutesy town which had some similarities to Berrima in NSW although obviously the buildings were a lot older in Falkland. The town square...
The local castle...
Interesting set of stairs outside the house. We were not sure about the reason.
Looking back towards the town square of Falkland again.
Yep, Falkland has a shop dedicated to violins only, buying and selling, with a number of them in the windows.
We then drove back to The Greenside Hotel where Hans elected to take a break in the room while Di continued to explore with our "nice to drive" Astra Turbo car.
A map showed a body of water nearby called Loch Leven so Di set out to find it - near Kinross. Found it!
Loch Leven is not particularly attractive but it is an important waterfowl sanctuary. Birds were everywhere "a la Alfred Hitchcock".
Yep, the skies threatened rain (which came for a few minutes) and the temperature was more like a Sydney winter but as we've said before - that's Scottish weather. Mind you we would not want to be here in 6 months time.
The national "flower" of Scotland - the Scotch Bonnet Thistle - is a weed to us! But it is attractive.
After feeling the cold in Loch Leven Di headed into Kinross to find a cuppa. No photos as the town didn't have much soul but she did find a cup of coffee and picked up supplies for our touring or walking tomorrow. Back at the hotel around 5pm.
A few lazy hours, including the Film4 channel showing "The Third Man" on TV - one of our favourite movies.
It takes a while to get used the fact that you have full sunlight when you head out to look for dinner after 7pm, which we did. The weather had improved so we walked down High Street looking for a casual dining option that suited us. Not another pub dinner so instead we looked for Asian food.
The first Chinese restaurant we looked into had the atmosphere of a morgue! Hans comment was that there is more life in a funeral parlor. Only 2 customers, with nothing to eat or drink in front of them, no staff visible and brown wood panelling, brown carpet and no decorations. Super quiet. We walked back out. Doom and gloom.
Further down the road we found a Chinese takeaway called Peking House that was busy with people carrying out boxes of food. A good sign. We went in, tried to choose between the 238 menu items (no joke) and ordered garlic chicken and also salt and chilli prawns. We figured we could eat back in our hotel dining room.
Another interesting fact about Chinese restaurants in the UK. You can choose to have either rice or chips with your meal. Fried rice here was also marginally more expensive at 30 pence extra.
Di waited for our order while Hans loitered outside...with camera of course. Di is just visible in the window.
Apart from 238 items they had Package meal deals for 2 which were huge - 2 soups, 2 mains, rice, prawn crackers and banana fritters - all for £13.90. Di seemed to like that idea too.
Our breakfast room worked well for dinner too and even with a 5 minute walk the food was still piping hot when we sat down. We made ourselves home using the breakfast cutlery.
Peking House turned out to be great - as close to reasonable Australian Chinese food we've had in 7 months and delicious. Yippee. Yes, we could be back another night.
Wifi was only provided in the bar area so Hans then went down around 8pm to pick up the password and get online. Their total clientele on a Friday night was 1 bartender and 2 customers. Doesn't seem like a viable business to us, but apparently all rooms have been occupied the last week or so we were told.
Very quiet night in the room again but we would like to do quite a bit of exploring and hiking tomorrow and Sunday (regardless of weather). Good night.
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