Rothbury Thursday

Glass of wine and ready (sort of) to write the blog.

Had a phone call from the Peugeot Emergency Assist people this morning to let us know that they had arranged a hire car for us and arranged a taxi to get us there. Would you belive a 150 pound taxi fare to get us to Edinburgh Airport to pick up the car, aout 1 1/2 hours away. Apparently they couldn’t find a closer hire company that they deal with. Anyway, we collected the car around 1pm, a Volvo V40. Lots of grunt, but not as nice as the Peugeot. Very unintuitive sat nav, had to ask another Volvo driver how to work it. We couldn’t even turn it on. The Hertz man showed us how to press the on button!!

Our first stop was a mistake while we were looking for a mill. Great mistake, because the Dunbar harbour and castle was very picturesque and the sort of place we love to visit.

We then found the Preston Mill that we were looking for. The waterwheel still turns some equipment inside, but it is not milling. Connected to the mill by a bridge is a kiln, used for drying the oats before milling. Parts of the mill are from 17th century.

Lindisfarne Island (Holy Island) is one we’ve seen on TV. In 635AD Saint Aidan came from Iona and chose to found his monastery on The Holy Island of Lindisfarne. The population of just over 160 people is swelled by the influx of over 650,000 visitors from all over the world every year. It is a tidal island in that access is by a paved causeway which is covered by the North Sea twice in every 24 hours. We planned our crossing to fit with the second low tide today and crossed around 5pm. The medieval religious heritage and also its more recent picturesque 16th century castle are both significant aspects of the island. There is also a large conservation area with a huge number of birds. The old priory has been a place of pilgrimage for 1300 years. We heard an amazing, eerie noise off shore, thinking that they were birds somewhere. Turns out that they were seals on a distant sand bank. Haven’t heard seals like that before.

With the late visit, we didn’t get to our hotel ‘til about 8pm, but we did stop at a pub on the way for a soup and drink.