Kippford to Rockliffe via Rough Island

The Causeway from Kippford to Rough Island. If you are going to go there its important you check the tide times as you could easily get stranded as the tide comes in so fast.

It was only Tom and myself yesterday so with a good forecast for the whole of the South of Scotland we decided to go to Kippford and with the tide times perfect to enable us to walk to Rough Island and then do the circular path to Rockliffe and back. We arrived there at 10.15am and as high tide was not until 3.00pm we had a window of about 2.5 hours to cross to Rough Island. You need a 2 hour window each side of low tide. This is Kippford at low tide. You are not allowed to visit Rough Island between 1st May and 31st July to prevent disturbance to beach nesting birds.   

The walk along the shore from the car park takes you to this area where a local resident has for many years displayed many figures like these. Its a great place to take kids to see the many interesting figures. 

The beach at Kippford composed almost entirely out of Cockle Shells 

The view from the highest point on Rough Island looking over to Heston Island 

Tom at the highest point on Rough Island with Rockcliffe in the background.

The view from Rough Island looking towards Screel

The village of Rockcliffe

Looking back towards Kippford. It was a perfect day and we finished with a lovely lunch at The Anchor Hotel and then tea and cake at Canonbie Community Cafe on the way home.

A Rowanburn Walk and 4 Intrepid Explorers from Dumfries

Our plan for todays walk had been to go to New Lanark and walk the Falls of Clyde but the weather forecast was not good so we all decided to save it for a better day hopefully in October. It involved most of the Last of the Summer Wine Walkers so it will give us something to look forward to. Instead Tom and I headed to Rowanburn for a 5 mile walk round by The Fairy Loup.

A seat on the bridge just before we headed down to the Fairy Loup

Near the Fairy Loup we met up with Bill and Lorraine Frew out for their morning walk. 

Plenty of water in the Byreburn today making the Fairy Loup spectacular

At Canonbie we met these 8 Rams or Tups as we call them locally in a field next to the road. They will maybe soon be going for sale to eventually do their job in serving the sheep for next years spring lambs.  

Back at Rowanburn at the end of our 5 mile walk we met up with these 4 walkers from Annan and Dumfries. They call themselves The Intrepid Explorers and the guy on the right is Trevor Muir who many years ago used to work in The Langholm Post Office and he lodged with Ian and Marion Rodger then. 

Trevor was keen to get his photograph taken with Tom and myself as he used to remember playing Squash against Langholm in the 80s.

This is the view from Byreburn Bridge down the Esk and I reckon it's one of the finest views in the area. 

This is Bill's Retriever Ailsa and she is a rescue dog and just so beautiful. 

A Visit to Cooper Garrod Winery in Saratoga

After a morning working at the new house we headed up to Cooper Garrod Winery up in the mountains above Saratoga. It was very busy and a bit noisy with a band playing but a lovely setting and the wine was excellent. Mother and son enjoying each others company.

Eleanor and Tommy enjoying Sushi at our picnic 

Elliot with his mum eying up the strawberries 

Kelly and me enjoying a glass of wine. Kelly and her husband Brad live just along Betlo Close and have been superb friends to Fraser and Leslie but that won't change after the move as they will still only be about 1.6 miles away.

The Graham Family and the Lear Family minus Mallory who was looking at the horses.

One small section of the vineyard

Plenty cactus as well.

The usual Graham family photograph at the end of our holiday.

Betlo Court Garage Sale

Fraser and Leslie took part in a Garage Sale in their cul-de-sac Betlo Court as a way to get rid of unwanted items. It was shared with 2 other families and proved to be a great success. As usual in California it is a bit different from our Garage sales as it is outside and with notices up on all the local streets we drew quite a few people.

Eleanor had a difficult choice choosing which soft toys to get rid of. 

All ready for customers. Three bikes were sold.

Eleanor gets ready to sell her soft toys 

Emily selling cup cakes

Back to Work at Riverdale Close

My 5 day break in Utah is over so its back to work on Fraser and Leslie's house in Saratoga. The first job was to cut the hedge in front of the bedrooms. 

I have to say I am very pleased with my efforts and this certainly improves the front of the house.  

I then helped Fraser to lift the floor covering from this room. It was a tough job and I had to left hundreds of nails out of this wooden floor. Fraser will eventually lay a new floor in the next couple of weeks. 

A Trip on The Californian Zephyr

We boarded the Zephyr in Salt Lake City on Thursday evening after a lovely dinner at Fraser's sister-in-law Nancy's house.  This was to be our home for about 18 hours. This photo was taken when we arrive at Emeryville which is the terminal for San Francisco. We boarded the train and were immediately disappointed at the size of our sleeping berth. I had great difficulty getting into my upper berth. I had even more difficulty getting out of it, but Gaye was fine in the bottom bunk. 

After about 7 hours in our cramped cabin we woke to a beautiful Arizona sunrise.  

This is the Arizona desert

We had breakfast with this charming Greek couple who were on holiday in USA from their home in a small Greek Island. They were eager to talk about Brexit and told us we were stupid to leave Europe. We of course agree with them.  

This is our tiny cabin once the seats have beer returned from beds to very comfortable seats again.We used the Observation Carriage several times but spent most of the journey in these seats. 

Still in Arizona

The observation Carriage. We had a superb view from here but it got very busy just before the dining car opened.

We are now in California and following the route of the Truckee River. This river is the sole outlet of Lake Tahoe. The river flows northeasterly for 121 miles and empties into Pyramid Lake in the Great Basin. Although it is high summer there is plenty of water which is used for irrigation along its route. Fraser and the family recently did a rafting trip along it when they were on holiday at Lake Tahoe. 

We are now climbing into the Sierra Nevada mountains and the train is going very slowly. 

This is Donner Lake which is at an elevation of almost 6000ft.   

After we leave the mountains and get beyond Sacramento we head into the rich agricultural plains. The harvest is over now on this field

There are loads of orchards

A field of Maze 

We crossed several bridges over the various Bays that form San Francisco inlets 

Another road bridge over the Bay 

One of the many ships moored in the Bay

We enjoyed our train journey but its not nearly as good as the Canadian Rocky Mountaineer which is much better customer service. The USA uses the railways for freight and passenger services seem to play second fiddle. The most upsetting thing is the number of homeless people living beside the railway line near the main cities. 

President Trump if you want to make America Great Again then start by looking after your thousands of homeless people.