Travel Experiences in the UK

We have found that often, what you remember most from vacation are the experiences you have enjoyed together. We purposely planned some into our recent trip to the UK, and they proved to be a welcome change of pace from touring houses and museums and cities.

The first of these was a chartered Land Rover safari with Highland Safari in the Scottish Highlands (click here for more information).

Truly, this was one of the highlights of the trip for all three of us! Our marvelous, kilted guide, Sandy, entertained us with his dry wit, tutored us in Scottish customs and lore, and offered expert driving advice as we each took a turn at the wheel off-roading in the Scottish Highlands.

Look at that happy face! A Land Rover...an old one with the tire on the hood and the winch on the front...is her dream car! She buckled down and learn to drive a stick-shift just so she could drive on this safari.

Here she comes to ford the creek!

We admired the beautifully green views of the green pastures in the valleys. Sheep!

And we followed our guide out to see a grouse butt. Those circular areas are where grouse hunters would stand and wait for the grouse to fly and then take aim. (Think Downton Abbey...especially the episode in Scotland where they go out in groups to grouse hunt.) He said these grouse butts are about 100 years old.

On our safari, we stopped for a time in a crude shelter called a bothy (rhymes with frothy) to warm up with cups of steaming hot tea and some shortbread. It was spitting snow at us on our trip with the wind blowing about 30 mph, so we were very grateful for some warmth.

Quite possibly my favorite photo of the three of us from the whole vacation!

Hubby had a birthday while we were on vacation, so we devoted that day to some activities we knew he would enjoy. We enjoyed a tour of Hawkshead Brewery in Staveley (click here for more information) and clay pigeon shooting at Crabtree Clay Shoot in Lupton (click here for more information).

What a beautiful location! The green, green hills just took our breath away!

Dress code here includes a hat!

While Hubby is an experienced shooter, Colette was new to clay shooting. She did great! She even got "the rabbit", a clay that skitters along the ground, which her dad missed. I do believe she was a bit exultant about that!

When my brother was in elementary school, he had a British pen pal. This pen pal came and stayed with our family for about a week one summer. Then my brother went to England and stayed with his family the next year. And the pen pal did the same one more time. Through the marvels of Facebook, we are now cyber friends. And we met him and his family for a bit of hiking in the town of Malvern and for dinner. It was the season that the bluebells bloom and they were just gorgeous!