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Kat & Ben's World Adventure

a travel blog by Kat and Ben

A place for you our friends and family to keep up to date on what where when and how we are doing.
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Leaving Aldershot

Aldershot, United Kingdom

After many a goodbye with friends we left Aldershot – A sad affair as we said goodbye to our lovely flat on the 6th March and went out with Katrice for a fry-up. It hit home for us when we realised we couldn’t go back to our own home after then for a shit as the new tenants were moving in that same day.

permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 6, 2009 from Aldershot, United Kingdom
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Goodbye Heather

Farnborough, United Kingdom

From there we stopped by Ben’s big sister’s house to endure an hour of Heather, Ben’s six year old niece, demanding piggy-back rides and ran us completely ragged. We took some pictures and some funny memories to take with us.

permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 6, 2009 from Farnborough, United Kingdom
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Goodbye G

Newbury, United Kingdom

Cramming back in to the jam-packed car, we headed for Newbury for a flying visit to say our last goodbyes to Kat’s sister Georgina, her partner Alec and dog. Another tearful departure making Kat miss her big sister more than ever, but before we could say another word we jumped in the car and headed to Swindon.

permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 6, 2009 from Newbury, United Kingdom
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Swindon

Swindon, United Kingdom

More goodbyes for Kat’s family as we drove to Wootton-Bassett to stay a night or two with Nanna Wilson. We did the Wilson thing and went out for a curry with Nan, Auntie Helen, Emma and Callum. We managed to see one of Kat’s cousins Danny the next day to a goodbye where Ben was taken aback with a big hug from the sentimental guy when we left. We were welling up as it was hitting home that we won’t be seeing our families for a long time.

permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 7, 2009 from Swindon, United Kingdom
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Uncle Marks Farm

Sedbergh, United Kingdom


uncle mark's


Uncle and aunt's house

Tears aside we left Swindon for the next leg of the journey, which was to Sedbury just below the lake district. The drive up was pretty good, but it was raining a fair amount. Kat was growing nervous as we were off to stay with Ben’s Aunt and Uncle, who live on a farm and happens to be a Reverend… so not only was it the first time Kat had met them, the swearing animal loving atheist, who doesn’t plan on getting married was apprehensive on the first meet. Although being told off a couple of times Kat survived the trip and even came tenth place in their local dominoes rally and won a bottle of fizzy drink that was 3 years out of date.

Uncle mark's house

Going for a Paddle

ben's aunt and uncle's river

permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 8, 2009 from Sedbergh, United Kingdom
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Burrall collection

Glasgow, United Kingdom

Two days later and halfway to Scotland we travelled further north to Glasgow. Our friends Sandy and Trevor had advised that we visit the Burrall collection, where we got lost in the vast museum looking at thousands of artefacts collected all over the world. This made us really excited as we began thinking about all of the places we’ll get to see on our travels. A main reason for going through Glasgow was to see the area where Kat’s granddad Collins was born, the Gorbals. Although we only saw factories and chimneys, it was an experience driving through the industrialised area and a good feeling that we had been to his birthplace.

permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 10, 2009 from Glasgow, United Kingdom
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Ben Nevis ¿

Fort William, United Kingdom


rainy
We carried on up to Fort William that same day as Ben was dubious about leaving the car anywhere in Glasgow. We found a hostel using wifi at a service station on the m6 so we knew we’d have a bed for the night. On our way up the scenery was beautiful with the snow covered mountains, but as it started to get darker the awed feelings suddenly left our faces when we very nearly ran out of petrol in the middle of nowhere on the A82. We were so lucky to actually reach civilisation and fill the tank up. Kat was still buzzing from seeing mountain deer and was trying to take pictures through the torrential rain. After a really long drive we got to the hostel and went out for some food nearby. At this point Ben was craving Chinese like a pregnant woman and who could argue with him for having done an amazing job of getting us to Fort William in one piece. After a lucky find of the only Chinese restaurant in Fort William, we took our stuffed bellies back to our hostel and slept in our bunk-beds for the night.

The following morning it was really foggy so on the drive up to Inverness (Loch Ness) we didn’t get to see Ben Nevis. It was on our things of lists to see and perhaps climb if the weather was permitting, but unfortunately it was still too snowy.


permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 10, 2009 from Fort William, United Kingdom
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Car Trouble

Fort Augustus, United Kingdom

So our luck wasn’t with us that morning as the car decided to brake down just before we got to Fort Augustus. Ben being the readily prepared gadget man he is knew that one of the coil packs stopped working, so we limped on 3 cylinders a few Miles for a safe place to stop to look under the bonnet. We found a car park and an old man who was eating his lunch offered some pliers to remove the faulty coil and drive Ben to the local garage to see whether it was worth buying a new coil pack or alternatively unloading the whole car to find the spare one Ben already had. As it turned out, car parts cost twice as much in Scotland and would also mean having to wait until they got the part in, so we unloaded the car just as it started to rain, typical. We managed to fix the car and didn’t get too wet, so we were still in ok spirits all things considered on our drive to see Nessie.

permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 11, 2009 from Fort Augustus, United Kingdom
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Nessy

Inverness, United Kingdom

Kat has Scottish routes on her mum’s side of the family so remembering a photo she saw of the loch in her nan’s house was something she wanted to see for herself. We stopped at a travel information office just outside Inverness and found out some interesting facts about the loch, its 23miles long, 1mile wide, 800ft deep, and it holds more water than all of the UK and Wales’s reservoirs and lakes put together. It is also thought to have been made in the last Ice Age over 10,000 years ago, which leads to the suggestion that it’s possible that perhaps there could be a creature of the deep hiding down there… Although we didn’t see Nessie on this trip we did get to experience the longest indoor train set in one of the local tourist haunts. Rock N Roll.

permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 11, 2009 from Inverness, United Kingdom
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Edinburgh

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Still on the same day that we left Fort William we drove all the way around Loch Ness and headed to Edinburgh where we took some fantastic pictures of the landscape and long roads that went on for Miles.
We had managed to look for a hostel in Edinburgh that morning so we had somewhere to head to and park the car. The hostel was pretty easy to find as it was literally across the road from the castle. As it turned out we booked the smallest attic room with double-bed and sink in a huge medieval looking building. With the Scotland vs Ireland Rugby match coming up the place was absolutely buzzing with people and had a welcoming atmosphere. Although hostels tend to have the connotations of being a bit of a doss house, it was quite luxurious having a communal room with pool table, TV, sofas, kitchen area and a separate ‘posh lounge’ with an open log burning fire, leather sofas, a full sized grand piano where another guest started playing the classical score from the Chanel advert. Very suave.

piper

Unfortunately they only had the one night available, so the following night we stayed in a upmarket Travel Inn with hot water, towels and a power shower. We went out both nights we were there and got to see a lot of the amazing city and if we could, would have loved to have gone back for a long weekend with a group of friends. The architecture is very much gothic and the nightlife seems to go on and on. We walked the Royal Mile, which seems so much longer than a mile if you’re combining it with a pub crawl and had our first vegetarian/vegan dining experience at a restaurant called David Bann – amazing!



permalink written by  Kat and Ben on March 11, 2009 from Edinburgh, United Kingdom
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