Carlisle to Gretna and back.

The main focus of this trip is to go to Scotland by bus pass, so today we do the last bit to Gretna outlet village and back to Carlisle. We just had a coffee and got the next bus back. We could even use our bus passes on the trip back to England.

Then had a pleasant walk round the town. Bought some cheese in the farmers market and stumbled on another heritage pub which was one of the state managed pubs in the first world War and until 1973. Also found a wonderful bookshop with cake and ale cafe with a small museum about the state management of pubs experiment.

Skipton to Carlisle

Five buses through the Lake District, all on time.

Most of the photos were taken through the bus window, whilst moving so may not be in focus.

Wonderful weather and great scenery.

First stop Settle, a lovely small market town.

I couldn't resist a photo of this station just outside Kirkby Lonsdale.

Then on through the lakes to Kendal and then Keswick.

We saw lots of sheep and lambs, but only managed a couple of photos.

Derby to Skipton via Leeds

For buses, all on time, well the bus into Leeds was 2 minutes late, but we had plenty of time for the next bus.

Loads of interesting scenery, towns and country. Not much opportunity for photos, especially on the M1 motorway on a double decker bus.

Today especially has set us thinking of places to spend more time in. Especially Ilkley, the Moor is only half a mile away. Must remember your hat.

These are scenes into Skipton.

Leicester and on to Derby

After pleasant evening sampling some of Leicester's bars we had a leisurely breakfast in Wetherspoons then found the RICHARD III museum. This being the main reason for our stop. A very interesting museum detailing the War of the Roses and Richard III short reign. Also detailed explanation of the dig to find his remains and all the ways that were used to verify that the bones were his. It was interesting to see the trench with the grave site and now that a few inches the wrong way and the grave would have been missed.

Richards bones were reintered inside Leicester cathedral, just a short distance from his original grave.

We had a good stroll round the town and came across a statue to suffragette Alice Hawkins.

Brian has wanted to visit Coventry cathedral for many years, so today we made the trip. The original was destroyed by heavy bombing in 1941. Over 500 people lost their lives and large areas of the town were reduced to rubble.

The shell still stands and a new Cathedral built next to the old with a large emphasis focused on reconciliation.

And then the new

Tewkesbury to Leicester via Coventry

First the flooding. Tewkesbury suffers from being at the join of the Severn and Avon and when there's a lot of rain it floods.

We have camped at this site in dryer times.

A slight hiccup in Evesham, we had a quick turn round, used Wetherspoons facilities and got on the bus going the wrong way! No real problem, we saw more of the town than we planned. So a slightly longer bus journey to Coventry.

A nice tour round the cathedral then another long bus journey to Leicester.

Chandler's Ford to Tewkesbury

So the journey begins.

A dry start so we could walk the mile to catch the Bluestar 1 into Southampton.

Having discovered we could get off a stop early we could get the Salisbury bus an hour earlier than planned. We kept the hour all the way through and got to Tewkesbury before 6.

It was nice seeing the scenery from the top deck of the bus. Although we saw a lot of wet fields it was worse around Cheltenham and Tewkesbury but not as bad as I had expected.

An unusual sculpture in Cheltenham.

A photo from the bus, just to check it would work. This may not be possible everyday as some of the buses have very dirty windows.

And Tewkesbury Abbey tonight.

Falmouth, boats, hills, castle.

Decided on Pendennis Castle rather than maritime museum