Category: Travel UK

There are not too many places I return to over and over again [aside from local favourites] but the islands of Orkney off the north coast of Scotland is one such place.  Our recent holiday was my sixth trip to Orkney but the first in a campervan and what a difference having the ‘van meant.  On previous visits we have been based in one place, all trips radiating out from that base.  With the ‘van we travelled across the Churchill Barriers from South Ronaldsay to the north of the mainland, staying in a different place every night and getting a different feel for these wonderful islands.  In truth the journey from the wonderful Skerries Bistro and Tomb of the Otters in the south to Birsay in the north is only 40 miles but then why rush around Orkney, there is so much to see, so many different bays to explore and despite repeated visits there are still parts of even the East and West Orkney Mainland that we haven’t yet visited, never mind the other islands.

You can expect weather on Orkney and it is always colder than I remember.  We have been here when the winds are relentless, on one visit we had a week of constant fog and we have had days of rain as well as fine and sunny weather.  This trip was blessed with days of sunshine and what I noticed most was the sky.  Orkney lies low and nothing gets in the way of the views of the sky, it is vast and hard to miss and the blue sky appears infinite.  On this trip I got used to the feeling of space that those enormous skies give and I found myself missing it as we returned south.  During the day we walked and drove under these skies and every evening we sat on a shore or a cliff enjoying a different view to watch the sun go down over the Atlantic, the red sky promising another fine day.

Orkney is always a great place to visit for wildlife and despite it being early August we saw plenty of birds, including puffins, black guillemots and gannets from the boat.  On the cliffs we saw fulmars and kittiwakes.  We watched seals bobbing in the sea and sitting on the rocks at Birsay.  We searched for elusive otters and short-eared owls [we had to wait until the Scottish mainland before we spotted the latter].  Many come to Orkney for the incredible archaeological sites and we had timed this visit to see the dig at the Ness of Brodgar.  I found the excellent guided tour very interesting, the site is so intriguing, and we contributed by adopting a square of the dig.  We also made our first visit to the Banks Chambered Tomb, where our guide was a natural story teller who bought the site to life.  We watched boats in Kirkwall and Stromness, we beach-combed at Birsay and at the lovely bay by Kirkhouse Point, we explored the cemeteries at Burwick and at Kirkhouse Point and we walked up Marwick Head to the Kitchener and HMS Hampshire Memorial and thought about the 737 people who lost their lives off the coast here in 1916.  Of course we ate Orkney ice-cream and drank Orkney beer whenever we could.

It isn’t just the range of things you can do in Orkney that make it possibly the best place for a holiday, it is the tranquility and calmness of the islands.  Even though I am a relaxed retiree these days I still enjoy slowing down our lives for a while on these beautiful islands.

If you have never been to a festival and [this probably goes without saying] you like the blues, then the Blues Festival at Upton upon Severn is an excellent first festival experience.  The Upton Blues Festival is a free festival, that is every gig is free for anyone to attend, and plenty of local day visitors come along to enjoy the music available.  But to get the real festival experience you need to take your campervan, caravan or tent and camp and our campervan is a perfect place to sleep in at a festival.  At Upton the performers are paid from the receipts from the campers who pay £10 a night each to use the flat Fish Meadow that is just ten minutes or so walk from the venues.  The festival also gets money from parking charges for day visitors, sale of beer and merchandise.  As well as the campsite, the festival committee runs two main stages, one by the river and one on the meadow across the town and an indoor acoustic stage and the Meadow Stage is a fantastic place to lie in the sun and listen to good music.  There are also around ten smaller stages in the pubs of Upton upon Severn that are self-funding.  Upton is a relaxed and friendly festival that has none of the corporate blandness or size of other festivals and you can always find some excellent music and get in to your own groove.

Upton Blues has grown over the years and in 2016 over 20,000 attended over the weekend and this year around 4,000 people camped in Fish Meadow.  The first festival was held in 2002 but Mr BOTRA and I didn’t get there until 2014 by which time it was already a well organised and large event.  This year was bigger than ever but the camping facilities held up well, even in the inclement weather, and we never had to queue for a toilet!  I love Upton because of its size and atmosphere, because tarmac roads link the stages [rather than a sea of mud] and you won’t find yourself unable to see the stage because the person in front of you has someone sitting on their shoulders or is waving a huge flag.  The Upton crowd is a friendly and chilled out beast that isn’t there because its the thing to do.

The music at Upton covers the whole spectrum that is called the blues and we saw some great bands this year and as usual there are a couple that stand out.  The high energy blues of Dr Schwamp was just what we needed on a damp Friday night.  They are a great party band with plenty of variety in their set and we’ll certainly look them up again.  We also loved Sons of the Delta who played on the boat on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I shut my eyes and imagined I was on the Mississippi.

You don’t have to do anything but listen to the blues at Upton but we did fit in a walk along the river Severn on Sunday morning.  We enjoyed finding parts of the the town we hadn’t seen before and exploring the countryside around Upton.

The festival feels like it is part of a bigger community and gives a lot back to the town, not just in income for the businesses over the weekend but also improving local amenities from the surplus.  We like to support the local economy when we are there and now have a list of must-do activities when we are in Upton.  We splash out on an Indian meal one evening and we always visit the Pudding Shop to sit outside and enjoy one of their fantastic steamed puddings during the weekend.  The only difficult decision is whether to have apricot, ginger or blueberry pudding.

It took eight weeks to fix our campervan after the Greek tragedy and what a long eight weeks they were.  For two of those weeks the ‘van was making its way back from Greece, another two weeks were spent sitting around while firstly the body shop did the estimate, then the insurance company assessed the damage and then we waited for parts.  The repair took three weeks and the final week was spent in daily anticipation that the ‘van would be fixed only to be informed sometime mid-afternoon that there was another problem.  One day it was the airbag, another a mechanic put too much weight on the oil filler and broke it off, another day the ABS fault was lighting up.  Every day we were packed and ready to roll but each day the new fault required more parts and another wait on tenterhooks.

We were so pleased to get our blue Renault back and we went straight from the body shop to a campsite.  We would have camped in any weather but as it turned out we were blessed with glorious and sunny weather and the Cheshire countryside proved to be perfect for a few days cycling.  But first we spent a sunny afternoon cleaning the accumulation of Greek and garage dust from the van interior.  I emptied every cupboard reminding myself what goodies we had left in there, having a little weep when I found the tins of giant Greek beans in tomato sauce and the bottles of dark Greek olive oil.  Despite the mixed emotions, somehow this process healed the weeks of separation and made the ‘van feel like ours again.

In Cheshire we discovered The Whitegate Way, a 10 km cycle route on an old railway line and we cycled around Delamere Forest.  We relaxed and took life easy feeling that our life was back on track again.

We followed this with a weekend camping with friends on the Staffordshire / Cheshire border and then more sociable camping in Derbyshire.  We didn’t travel far and we didn’t need to, we were just content to have our campervan back where it belongs.

While we are off the road I have been missing being in our campervan so much and this got me thinking about what it is about travelling in the ‘van that I love so much.  I get a big thrill from exploring new and beautiful places and learning about cultures and history as we go but what I have realised is that our van life is more than exotic foreign travel, being out and about in the ‘van is just comforting and relaxing in itself.  Our campervan [and its previous versions] is ingrained with so many happy memories, as soon as I climb up the step in to the cab I feel enveloped in cosiness and where we take it doesn’t necessarily matter.  Just at the moment I am really missing that feeling of well being.

I am always telling people how lucky we are to be living in Greater Manchester because we have so much beautiful countryside within easy reach.  Only an hour or so in any direction and we are in stunning places and we tend to alternate our weekends between Yorkshire, the Peak District and North Wales or Cheshire.  But this winter we took camping near to home to the extreme and didn’t even leave Greater Manchester.  Life had been more hectic than usual and our ‘van had looked sulkily at us each time we left to catch the tram for yet another social occasion or cultural event.  The Renault was itching to have a run out and we were missing camping so we chose to squeeze a night in at the Caravan Club’s Burrs Country Park site just 30 minutes from home.

We arrived in the dark, which is always disconcerting and so had little idea what our surroundings were like until the next morning.  With an extension agreed with the wardens beyond the usual 12.00 leaving time we set off for a walk to nearby Ramsbottom along the river Irwell path; a river that also flows within spitting distance of our home.  Our walk was accompanied by cheerful toots of the steam trains on the East Lancashire Railway.

Ramsbottom turned out to be another world from Salford, this foodie heaven was full of cosy independent cafes and delis and we sat outside the church in the unseasonably warm weather savouring a perfect bag of chips each; they were that faultless combination of crisp outside and soft and fluffy inside.  The artisan market was in full swing in the cobbled market place but we decided to shun shopping for the steep walk up the hill to the landmark Peel Tower on the moors, built to commemorate Robert Peel who was born in nearby Bury.  Here we savoured the fresh air and wide views before descending back to the Irwell valley down the steep old cobbled road.  Leaving the campsite in the mid-afternoon, just half-an-hour later we were back among the urban neon of Salford Quays.

Our van life isn’t always about glamorous places but I love it!