Robin Hood tree and Edinburgh

In our previous post we asked you about a tree Peter is hugging. It's the 'Robin Hood tree' at Hadrian's Wall from the Robin Hood film with Kevin Coster. Some people mailed the right answer, David Holman from Wolverhampton was the first. I guess we have to come back to Wolverhampton to give you your price David, a home-made cheesecake!

We are in Edinburgh already for a week. Today we wanted to leave Dirk, Stella and there three little boys. But they asked us to stay one more day so we can babysit this evening, which we love to do.
Perhaps you wonder how we find the people we stay with when we don't sleep in our tent? We use couchsurfing and warmshowers to find interesting people we would like to meet and stay with for a couple of days. Those are hospitality websites where you can register and make a profile. If you want to surf a couch you can look for interesting people somewhere but it's also very nice to host people. Last summer we hosted like 40 people from all over the world in three months. It's good fun, you should try it.

Edinburgh is the most beautiful and interesting city we saw till now in the UK.
We visited some nice galleries and art museums but realized that our tastes differ a bit. Peter enjoys paintings and buildings which are already very old while Petra likes modern art more. At the moment there is the International Film Festival in Edinburgh and we saw an amazing movie in the Gallery of Modern Art. "But We Have the Music" by Shanti Masud is a 40 min long black and white movie about how people listen and react to music. We both enjoyed it very much.


Aeneas (7) and Leander (3). Baby Thaddeus (0) isn't on the trampoline yet.


View from Calton Hill to the north.


View of the old city centre from Calton Hill.


From the vulcanic past: Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags.


The royal mile and St. Giles Cathedral.


The ultra-modern and ultra-expensive new Scottish parliament building.

After cycling 13 days in a row we arrived in Edinburgh. The further north we get the more quiet the roads are and the more beautiful the nature gets. In Scotland it's allowed to walk and camp everywhere (the right to roam), which is great. You see people walking in the hills but there are hardly any paths because everybody walks where he wants. This wouldn't be possible in the Alps because there it's too dangerous, especially in the winter when you can't see any holes because of the snow.

Most of the time we follow Sustrans cycling routes. Sustrans is a UK sustainable transport charity that build 15,000km of bike routes. It's possible to buy Sustrans maps but it's not necessary because there are lots of signs along the routes. We only carry the overview map so we can find the routes. One annoying thing about the Sustrans routes is that there are lots and lots of gates at some parts so you have to get off your bike every ten minutes. They do this because they don't want any scooters on the path but so far we saw five of them at the most in whole the UK.

We are actually zigzagging through the UK, even more when we follow Sustrans routes because they try to avoid main roads. Sometimes we cycle less because we want to visit some attractions. One day e.g. we followed Hadrian's wall. The Roman Emperor Hadrian built this 117km long wall in AD 122, to protect the northern border against the Barbarians. The wall used to be 4m high but there are only some parts left now. We went off-road with our bikes, pushing them up and down some hills near the wall. That does takes some time but very often you are able to find the most beautiful places to camp at. It is amazing to be alone in the mountains and walk for miles on a 2000 year old structure.

We cycled through most of the National Parks while making our way north. The barren hills are very beautiful, you just have to forget that it all used to be forests. All the land in the UK is privately owned, even the 'National' Parks. You still find villages, sheep and cattle. There are not many fences, old stone walls define the field bounderies. The mountains in England are not high (less than 1000m), but cycling can be hard and roads very steep. In the Lake District we did two very beautiful but steep climbs (25% to 30%): Hard Knott Pass and Wrynose Pass. After a few of those climbs, with fully loaded bikes, you start feeling your legs.

In the meanwhile the Soccer World Championship had begun and Peter is following it enthousiastically when possible. We discovered that Welsh and Scottish people don't like to be confused with English people. They also don't like the English soccer team very much, English are much too selfish and arrogant in their opinion.






The Sustrans obstacles are overdone some time.


Back: Keith (with Ruby in his arms), Craig, Peter
Front: Benjamin, Pam (with Christel in her arms), Jonathan
Pam and Keith picked us up on the road. They have been cycling through the world for 12 years and are planning their next trip, probably to India.






If you have a close look you see a small path to your right. That's where we tried to cycle. The route was going there but it's quiet impossible to cycle there with luggage.




Wold Championship fever in England.


Peter cycling up 25%.








Petra on top of Hadrian's Wall.


Peter is hugging a very special tree. Do you recognize it? It's a very famous place. (The first person who emails us the right answer gets a special price.)