World's best long distance walks

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to use your walking shoes to take you over the horizon - and away to Rome and even Santiago de Compostela. This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs)   

My family is so very close to finishing the Capital Ring - a 70 mile (126km) route circling London. Sometimes I worry about finishing it - we'll end the joy of discovering new bits of London. Highlights include the Brent reservoir used for a long-ago Olympics, the art deco 1930s splendour of Eltham Palace, a peep into the grand schooling of Harrow School and the endless views of London from hills you didn't know existed. Honestly it's like tramping over the seven hills of Rome.

To compensate my loss there are some wonderful long-distance paths around the UK (and nearby) that could perhaps be revisited and allow me to dream up being in another place altogether.

Five best long-distance walks

• Camino de Santiago de Compostela - the route of St James (patron saint's day 25 July). I've met people who have walked this in the sharp winds of April with a baby on their back. I've seen the film with Martin Sheen and son, The Way, and long ago I stayed in the stunning parador (hotel) at Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Somewhere in the back of my mind I want to try this 780km journey too, but it's one that will have to wait for the children to leave school. Indeed if you go past the cathedral you can end at Finisterre, which Medievals thought was "the end of the world". More info at this website.
• Walk with the Romans along Hadrian's Wall. We've nearly managed the whole 135km, just a short two, maybe three, day section left between Newcastle and Hexham. The May half term is pencilled in, but we may have to give up on this idea as Nell, 10, is very wary of cows and they will certainly be out in the fields by then. Bulls and all. See a previous entry on this blog here about the moment we reached the end (before quite completing the beginning).
  
• West Highland Way - runs 152km from Glasgow to Fort William uphill. Well, as good as uphill. It's midge heaven and the few chunks I've tried out (along Loch Lomond for instance) are remarkably free of snack shops which makes walking more of a slog. Perhaps this is the one that best echoes Camino de Santiago de Compostela?
  
  
• Coast to Coast - success! Pete and I spent three years popping up and down to the Lake District in order to walk Alfred Wainwright's fabulous 190 mile path (sorry, it has to be miles in respect to AW's memory) from St Bees Head over to Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire (dreamt up in 1973, more info here). I'd never heard of Wainwright when Pete first suggested the idea. Now I am willing to watch reruns of his extremely slow TV programme, just to get back in the zen mood of walking through the Lake District with my eyes mostly on a compass rather than mountain tops...
  
  A tip from the cantankerous AW: "If you must take a companion, take one who is silent."
  
  I was quite upset when an energetic friend and her husband managed to cycle 225km on the C2C (a very similar route) in a weekend - the time it took my lumbering feet seemed to add to the magic of the journey. But if you are less hardy, but still speed-inclined try the 12-20 day holidays run by this group.
  
  
• Across India - isn't this what Gandhi did in some form of anti-British protest involving salt? Have you seen the size of India? 

Over to you
Where have you walked in the UK that makes you think you could be somewhere else in the world?

Following Harry Potter

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell took three months off in 2007 to travel around Britain visiting the places here that should be abroad. Now we're home, but still enjoying carbon lite travelling. Here's how...

Fiction is always nother country: but JK Rowling's Harry Potter world seems to be an inevitable part of our family's adventures. Here's four places I can recommend for Harry Potter fans, whatever their age:

1 Christ Church Hall, Oxford is Hogwarts' dining hall
We've just been to the Sunday Times Literary Festival in Oxford to listen to three great modern children's writers - Blue Peter's 2009 book winner Ali Sparkes with Frozen in Time, Frank Cottrel Boyce whose written Cosmic, Framed and Millions (and plenty of others) and new on the scene Harriet Goodwin with the excellent Boy Who Fell Down Exit 43.

2 Elephant House (cafe), Edinburgh is Harry Potters's birthplace
Lap up the atmosphere - and the craggy castle views - even though JK Rowling may not visit much now. This also does great breakfasts if you've just got off the night train... See opening times here.

3 Kings Cross Station is home of Platform 9 and three/quarters
Arguably London's best station, currently near the end of its underground revamp, and also the way to Norfolk, Yorkshire, the Lake District and other favourite places...

4 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland is Hogwarts
This castle is a fantastic place to visit and if you get tired of the gardens, the rampards, the Harry Potter memorabilia (especially HP and the Philosopher's Stone), the infamous poison garden, the treehouse cafe - is it possible to get tired of such delights? - then you can head to the famous secondhand bookshopnearby. Barter Books is known as the biggest 2h bookshop in Britain and the source of the recent craze for mugs, key fobs, posters etc telling us to "Keep Calm and Carry On". See Guardian feature here.

5 Isle of Man has Gringots Bank
Might need to check this... but a trip to Isle of Man (take the ferry from Liverpool) exits you not just from England but Europe too - an utterly exotic destination only a couple of sea hours away.

It never snows around Halloween

You know how the weather is getting stranger? This post is from Nicola Baird.

Last week we went to Edinburgh on the night train - very exciting. But it was even more exciting wheeling the suitcases from our door to the tube station thanks to giant-sized snowflakes. Everyone was grinning (well we knew it would melt soon) and taking pix on their phones. We all did too.

And then we got to Edinburgh and it was a bit chillier than London. But the skies were utterly blue. And then we met the witches...

Athens of the north: battlefields and poppies

We've been to Edinburgh before, but never up Calton Hill with it's fantastic views of the Castle, Arthur's Seat - and the Firth of Forth. And once you've had a picnic there's the memorials. The Parthenon copy (still with scaffolding!) was a war memorial to fallen soldiers at Waterloo and the construction that led to the city being dubbed "the Athens of the North". This post is from Nicola Baird



Scotland is proud of its war contribution (even if colonisation has been air brushed out of history up at its national museum), with memorials of generals and "the fallen" in all the best places.





Up at Edinburgh Castle there's Ensign Ewart's marble block which marks the "lucky" solider who grabbed the French eagle for our forces. Impressive as this was the memorial didn't go up until 1938. But it did spawn 1,000 demands for large golden mirrors encircled by a cowed eagle - something still very on trend. There were two in the appartment we borrowed!



War still seems very distant even if there's never yet been a whole day of peace in the world I've lived in. See more about how to resolve this at War Child here. Meanwhile Lola is learning about the second World War and perhaps understanding how the first World War carnage (from 1914-1918) helped lead nations into another six years of war in 1939.



<<>Mervyn James Hamilton, a soldier who died in November 1914 from his wounds. Phoebe (we know her as Gebe and Lola was old enough to have several Christmases with her and also went to her funeral) never knew her dad. She was yet another generation raised by single mothers.



<< href="http://www.gordonhighlanders.com/">Gordon Highlanders at Scotland's National War Memorial, within the grounds of Edinburgh Castle, see more here. I don't think we were meant to take pictures, so many apologies.

Nell had a good word for war memorabilia: on a sunny day the cannons provide the best seat for views across to the Firth of Forth and beyond...

And then Lola <<>I believe in Yesterday (Jonathan Cape) and look for the battle scenes.

My conclusion is that we all left our attempt at remembrance a little confused.

Edinburgh food miles

When I’m at home there’s chard (well, mostly just chard) less than two metres from our kitchen table. So how can cities that seem even less green than London shorten the distances food is transported from farm to plate? This post is from Nicola Baird.

Around Edinburgh the food is good. We’ve had pumpkin broth, baked potato with chickpea salad, local beers and the promise of fair trade or locally sourced ingredients at many cafes. But I can’t help noticing that there aren’t many places to grow for the people living in the big apartments that make up the New Town (even if grass rooves have been spotted, see pic above, in the Old Town area). As a result every grassy square (or more usually circle) we stroll past I imagine being turned into allotments.

It turns out I’m not dreaming alone. Energetic MA art student, Helen Johnson, has transformed the quadrangle at Edinburgh College of Art into an 18ft diameter veg plot between work on her final, weaving sea kelp. The plot has three raised beds, is already producing spinach and leeks and has a contract to supply the college canteen. Helen says it was inspired by the work of Joseph Beuys – the famous German sculptor with a colourful past, including a lucky escape from his crashed plane and the birth of the Green party.

And in early October the Scottish Government ordered public bodies to search for extra land that could be made available for public allotments. Already 3,000 people are on the waiting list – half of them in Edinburgh where there are 1,268 plots (rented for around £48 a year). Apparently it takes seven years to get to the top of the list…

Here’s my tip for Scotland’s rural affairs secretary, Richard Lochead, turn a blind eye to gardening on the green swathes that pepper Edinburgh. The Museum of Modern Art would be a good place to start, then the grassy makeover opposite Harvey Nichols and finally bulk buy a load of containers so people can try growing food up front.

It's a local beach

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

We have just been treated to two luxury days staying with my cousin, Dermot, and his family who live in the Scottish Borders. Their house is fabulously comfortable and they were really hospitable – but we’d just had four days at a youth hostel where living is very spartan so this seemed an extra treat. They also nursed our various ailments through a combination of super-strength cough medicine, a Duns GP for Pete whose swelling ankle looked as if he had developed gout, plus providing perfect entertainment for the kids – swimming, tennis, a giant doll’s house and two black dogs to cuddle.

After we’d bathed in Jo Malone and caught up on family matters we were ready for a trip to the beach to walk the dogs, Bramble and her daughter Mia. Miranda (my cousin's wife) drove us in a Land-Rover she’d bought off e-Bay (and there was I thinking that jeans were a daring purchase) to a spot that only the locals know.

It was a classic Northumberland beach with huge dunes and then miles of sand. In the distance we could just make out the island before Holy Island. We walked up to the fishermen dealing with his lobster pots and then back again – Miranda pointing out the razor-shells that you can apparently lure out by filling their holes with salt, but cannot dig down into the sand and find.

Afterwards we went to a fish stall selling the Eyemouth catch at a farm shop and bought prawns, slices of lobster tails and wild sea trout. This was a real aberration as Pete and I rarely eat fish – I don’t think I have yet this year, and I didn’t last year – so no wonder it felt like an absolute treat. This has to be the best beach walking morning I’ve ever had.

Crossing the border

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (here's Pete in Berwick-on-Tweed, Northumberland minutes after crossing back from Scotland)

By train you just don't notice the border, but if you go by road from England into Scotland then you are in for a treat. First a warning notice that in a mile you'll hit the border and then at 60mph you can enjoy flashing past the Scottish blue and white flags. You can even park at a border stopping point and take a photo.

But coming back there's far less fan fare and if the van selling styrofoam cups of tea has closed then there aren't even any flags (though they use a Union Jack not the red and white cross of St George). This is a terrible anti-climax, but must be a legacy of history, for the locals reckon you are in Northumberland first, Britain second, England last. And for that reason there are days when you might also snatch a glimpse of the Northumberland flag, which from a distance looks like yellowing teeth in rotting orange gums. Up close it's a great deal more regal - and one you will find on car bumpers and house windows throughout the county.

Feeding seals in the harbour

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Nothing beats the feeling of being in the right place at the right time. And today we did this: turning up just as the old boy who runs the fish stall on the harbour front was chalking up that he'd reopen when it stopped raining. We'd come to Eyemouth, the first Scottish town after border, after hearing that you could dangle bits of mackrel on a stick over the harbour wall and see them being eaten up by some seals.

Of course we didn't believe this. But we came anyway (it's just by the Contented Sole pub) and now our provider of fish seemed to be shutting up shop. At just that moment a sleek, grey seal head bobbed up in the harbour, and then another. Seals are enormous - far bigger than the children - and these ones had the most appealing faces, quite friendly and dog-like with mottled waistcoats and nostrils they can open and close with dramatic precision.

"They've all got names," said the man - practically frozen as though it's only 14C today it's cold enough and wet enough to make your fingers tingle and your nose run. We looked down at the four bobbing blubber bodies and ahhed enough to make the old salt melt. He handed us a packet of chopped up raw fish in a dripping plastic bag of blood which normally veggie-fanatic Lola wouldn't dream of touching. But given the chance to feed seals she latched the fish on to the clothes peg and dangled it over - soon finding new names for the four gorgeous seals below us. There was One Eye, Thin Face and TO COME.

We spent a long time dishing out our mackrel and then admiring the seals below us. It was magical - the best #2 I've ever spent. Of course if we'd been really canny we'd have arrived in dry weather (!) and watched someone else pay for the privilege. Meanwhile the seals of Eyemouth are on to a very good thing, not so long ago the fishermen used to shoot them - now you pay for a pot of sea food and get a free bag of fish bits to provide them with snacks. Result: seal satisfaction, plus (possibly) the best fed seals in Britain. If you can't see them bobbing around in the harbour then they'll be lying on the rocks trying to digest the quantities of fish they are gifted by the new generation of seal hunters.

As a way for fishermen to make money this is brilliant. Pete says he's seen something similar in Australia at Penguin Beach - there are so many tourists for the feeding parade that the locals have knocked up a stadium. Further north entrepeneurs are feeding chickens to salt-water crocodiles which makes for a dramatic animal-feeding highlight in a tourist itinterary. Unfortunately it's also causing fishermen - especially the occasional fisherman - to have the biggest scare of their lives when they dangle over a bit of bait and find it snapped up by a mega-sized crocodile. Then again that story might be a total fable, and Australian urban myth, told only to the raw prawns at the barbie.

But the seals were real. Get up here and see for yourself.

Spanish madness

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola (look to the far left of the pic to enjoy the crazy window designs on the Scottish Parliament. Pete is looking longingly towards Arthur's Seat)

Scotland's new parliament building opposite Holyrood Palace may not have many signs up, but it doesn't need them thanks to the crazy, hot, eccentric design provided by a Spanish architect.

Pacing around its fluid roofs, or even driving past in a tour bus or taxi, you know you are in the presence of a building with immense character. It's architecture, but not as most of us know it. An unmissable experience.

The building - housing the 129 SMPs (Scottish members of parliament) was hugely controversial, not least because it cost #414 million pounds, approx 400 million over budget.

Perhaps worse was its late opening (2004 instead of 2001) and the architect, Spaniard Enric Miralles dying early on in the job (July 2001) taking many secrets to the grave despite the project being taken over by his widow Benedetta Tagliabue (EMBT/RMJM Ltd).

It won the Stirling Prize for Architecture - nothing else stood a chance really. This is what the judges said about the building: "[it] manifests itself as an attempt at an organic transition between the city and the drama of the Scottish countryside surrounding it" - an effect helped by its landscaping. The ability of both the design and construction teams to realise a building of this complexity is truly remarkable."

We've only seen it from the outside as I wasn't sure that Nell could cope with another shush and listen hour (ie, a tour), but it must be even more stunning inside. She loved slithering down the railed steps at the back of the SMPs' private offices though, and later on clambering up and down the wild flower garden/park linking back to front. And after we'd climbed nearby Arthur's Seat all of us enjoyed reading Scottish truisms and mottos carved into granite on the Royal Mile side as if the building was a book, to be judged by it's cover.

So I did, and this was my favourite (from Gerard Manley Hopkins):

"What would the world be once bereft of wet and wildness?

Let them be left.

Oh let them be left.

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Kilt complex

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola.

Everywhere we go we see the Baird tartan - not so much on sale but worn by the ladies trying to flog us a bit of Scottish heritage. In the pic of the Baird (ancient) tartan it is being modelled (for a gent) in a shop specialising in selling rental outfits. I couldn't find any secondhand kilts to fit the girls so had to surprise myself by ordering each of them a new kilt.

If they enjoy wearing their new kilts as much as the naff tourist tartan pom pom hats we picked up in the Royal Mile it will be money well spent, and is of course putting some money into a specialist local industry.

Climbing Arthur's Seat

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nell

Nell: "Climbing Arthur's Seat (251m) was very fun, even though it doesn't look like a seat [or an extinct volcano]. There's a ruin (St Anthony's Chapel) at the halfway point which Lola and I enjoyed. We saw some boys climbing. At the very top it was cold; Skiddaw is even bigger but Everest has snow on it. If you drive a car up there, which I know you can't do, it would be cheating. And there's no road you just wouldn't be able to. You'd have to go over the paths.

At the top we had smarties and shortbread.

I hope everyone climbs it, because it is really fun. You can bring any sweets you like, stay in a youth hostel, have beans on toast for dinner. What's better than that?"

Athens of the North

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

Athens of the North is how Edinburgh is fondly known. Without having Greek aspirations it is hard to be convinced, but from certain angles (eg, the descent of Arthur's Seat) you can see columns, pick out Grecian style temples and chat about Doric and Ionic columns until the Olympics arrives nearby in 2012 (admittedly to London, not Edinb).

However we are determined to get our girls to use a Greek viewfinder and so the picture will helpfully convince them - and you.

Off to New York

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

It's a bit of a cliche in Scotland - finding your family using an American twang - but we couldn't resist going to Gordons's bistro on Edinburgh's Royal Mile which bills itself as part New York deli and part Tuscan restaurant (good marketing) and then pretending to speak Nu Yak. This narrow, mirrored space with railway like seating - two to a side - seems to me as good as New York gets, so we were a little indulgent and pretended to go all American albeit with the help of Italian pizza and wine.

Aping the American state we managed to talk loudly, hold important opinions, chatter on the mobeys (mostly about which class the children were to be assigned when they go back to school in the new term) and generally be a tiny bit irritating restaurant customers. We did a good job...

As you can see from the pic we got there in The Tardis, conveniently parked outside the restaurant. As the kids only know about The Big Apple from a recent Dr Who episode which was set in 1930s depressed New York (the one with the pig men and daleks) it seemed entirely appropriate to make our trip this way.

The last polar bear

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola, Lola and Nell (pic reminds you that you should always let sleeping bears lie, ahh)

At last we've seen Mercedes - the last polar bear in Britain. Put another way she is the only polar bear in a UK zoo and at her Edinburgh hill top home acts as an ambassador for all the wild polar bears in the North Pole which are suffering because of climate change. We all feel very lucky to have seen a huge, white polar bear, understand more about the problems they are facing from habitat loss and climate change. And we did that without making a polluting return air trip to Hudson Bay, Canada where other polar bear lovers go. There was one dicey moment when Lola realised that her favourite animal (a polar bear) was being fed raw meat taken from her other favourite animal (horse). Luckily she's got used to the idea that not everyone is a vegetarian - or in many animals's cases can be a veggie.

Lola: "I loved her. Mercedes was a wild polar bear in Canada but she got caught three times eating garbage. She was going to be shot but the mercedes car company gave Edinburgh zoo enough money to get her to Scotland and build a cage for her. That's why she's called Mercedes."

Nell: "You should stop driving cars, and especially flying areoplanes, because if you could see how much pollution we are putting into the air you'd actually give up. Ice melts and the sea level gets higher. And the bottom of the world [the low lying coast land and low islands] might get flooded if we don't stop. That polar bear was very lucky because if she was in the North Pole she could have drowned finding her own food, because the polar bears can only swim a certain amount, but there is more sea now. They have to find food, and it's not easy. And if they have babies, and they're looking for food and they drown then the babies [cubs] will die too because they need their mum to give them food and teach them to swim. And their dad isn't very good with children. You would have thought a dad could look after a polar bear baby, but no. Their life is difference to ours. When a dad sexes with a mum polar bear the dad doesn't just stay to see the babies it goes away, not even hoping to get a glimpse of them!"

Continental breakfast

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola (pic shows the girls enjoying the youth hostel's revolving door)

Lola looks suspicious. "You mean people in France eat croissants with cheese and ham and marmalade for breakfast?" Her dad reckons that they probably swap the marmalade for peach jam, but as we are in Scotland there has to be some sort of sop to national pride. Meanwhile Nell (the family carnivore) is chewing at a piece of watermelon. "It's nice. I like the rind, bacon has rind too."

Pete and I think about past, more glamorous breakfasts where we didn't notice children, let alone have to manage ours. Both of us remember being in our late teens (inter-railing), amazed that breakfast could be more than just cereal and toast.

It is sweet that our children are a little phased by the possibilities of eating something different before they clean their teeth. After that anything is fair game - Nell even wanted to eat a chocolate pizza yesterday.

Inspired by this Franco-Scot breakfast the children start noticing that they are one of the few families (today) in Edinburgh's youth hostel that are speaking English. Within minutes we are having to hold them back from the other diners as they are ready to beg with their one perfect French phrase: "Je voudrais un bon bon sil'vous plait."

"Sweets," announces Nell "are the best way to finish a continental breakfast."

Ice house

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

Here's a picture of the old-fashioned way to keep your stuff cool - it's an ice house at Crathes Castle, http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/crathes/crathescastle/index.html. To make one of these you need a bit of ground. Then earmark a patch out of the direct sun, dig a big hole (or use a cave if one is around) and then insulate with turf and grass. During the winter harvest any large chunks of ice from a convenient pond/ bucket etc and then store in this underground room. This is your ice house.

Admittedly it's not Smeg trendy, and it doesn't dispense ice cubes with quite the same clink-into-glass but it is tried-and-tested, and very cheap to run (ie, free). And it's an absolute beauty too with the soft grasses and wild flowers growing all over the roof.

Cosy castle, pretty garden

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola






We can't resist castles and Crathes Castle (now Scottish National Trust) http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/crathes/crathescastle/index.html is just down the road. My friend David left saying it was his favourite so we make the trip.

Crathes, the one-time family home of the Burnetts, one of the many Anglo-Norman families that made their defensive homes around here after the Norman conquest in 1066, is exquisite. The house is castle cosy (with big fires and oak masterpieces); there's a framed horn and sash from King Robert the Bruce and a stunning painted ceiling showing the Nine Nobles (three characters from the Ancient World - Hector of Troy, Julius Caesar & Alexander the Great; three from the Old Testament - King David, Joshua and Judas Maccabeus; and three from more recent times - King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey de Bouillon (a crusader not a stock cube).
But Crathes real glory is its gardens which were included in Bloomsbury Groupie Getrude Jekyll's 1904 book, Some English (oops!) Gardens. Jekyll's garden views have had a major impact on how we all garden - the little rooms, the colour co-ordination, the drifts etc - and at Crathes you get all this in splendid grandeur and if you are there on a Saturday you are sure to see a bride being harried by a photographer too...

The Scottish National Trust keeps the gardens very well and also provides a little quiz for children which helped us find a planted trough, a millstone path, a cherub fountain, yew hedges, a woodland garden, a golden garden and a dovecot. In the greenhouses Nell was entranced by the colour variants of fuscia and ended up collecting fallen flower heads to make a potion which she wanted to send to her friend Sammy.

Nell's potion recipe: Collect petals in a hat, take home and put in a clean jam jar. Mix with a little water or olive oil and then send to your friends...

Slow down car drivers!

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola (pic is of a solar powered slow down sign for drivers [right] which seem to be positioned around every school in Scotland - the schools are on holiday at the moment so we haven't found any working)

Talking to a new neighbour where we are staying I asked what it was like riding a horse around these Aberdeenshire roads - narrow, straight and begging for a flat accelerator. "Oh, it's very dangerous," said the lady (her grown-up daughter does the riding), "everyone visiting just drives too fast. Country people don't do that."

Well, excuse me. The people I know who drive too fast invariably live - or love - in the country. They whizz down their roads at whatever speed they want and are willing to damn the consequences.

As I explained in my book The Estate We're In: who's driving car culture, speed kills. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-uk&field-author=Nicola%20Baird&page=1 Roads aren't dangerous, however many bunches of faded flowers you see tied to trees and lamposts, roads are routes, nothing more. Accidents are misnomers too, an accident is a mistake. Driving too fast is likely to cause a fatal car crash - and if this happens to your friends or family I recommend you speak to the organisation Road Peace, http://www.roadpeace.org/index.shtml

But here in Scotland driving with the speedometer knocking seems to be a national past time. The area we are staying in has the highest number of road deaths per year. Some say that's because the roads are bad and should be upgraded to dual lanes. Some say its because other road users (ie, me) drive so slowly (eg, 40mph) they just have to overtake, all the time - regardless of bends, bad light, weather etc.

Five days ago we set off at around about 5.45pm to go to a gastro pub down the lane and a mile of so down the B979, but had to find another way because oncoming traffic was flashing as there was a clearly a bad accident ahead. The next day we found out it was a 29-year-old man from Aberdeen who was driving a Porsche Boxster who'd overshot a corner, tipped into a field, rolled over and got himself killed. A needless, stupid tragedy which thankfully involved only himself.

As I pootle along, not really sure of the roads, looking out for signs, crossing wildlife, eyeballing the landscape, etc, I know I'm irritating everyone who is used to driving around here. Sometimes I think I should drive faster so they don't have to feel obliged to overtake - but up here overtaking seems to be a national sport, regardless of its all too often fatal consequences.

It is strange that there are so many road deaths in Scotland. After all the roads aren't very crowded, compared to London say, and statistically you are at much more risk here riding bikes, horses, probably even walking thanks to drivers' intolerance for slower speeds than in a busy, traffic-choked city. That's a statistic that stinks - and really, it's up to anyone who drives to take a deep breath and think: "Yes, I love the speed my car offers, but how would I talk to the families of anyone I might kill if I went too fast - and was unlucky?" I still can't forget the blackbird I ran over (aged 17), so who knows what it must feel like to live with the consequences of killing a real-live-human?

When my not-yet-40-year-old friend Mark was knocked off his scooter by an old man, and died, I felt pure rage. Mark had signed up to handing over limbs, lungs, heart etc and so his death saved others, and for this we can only wish sufferers more road deaths.

Or I guess we can generously sign up to the NHS's transplant donor scheme http://www.uktransplant.org.uk/ukt/how_to_become_a_donor/how_to_become_a_donor.jsp and keep on driving just the way we like...

Big ship, little ship, bananas

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola (pic is of a HUGE boat in Aberdeen's very crowded harbour)

My grandfather and dad used to drive my brother and sister crazy when we were little always hanging around harbours looking at the boats. Now I'm grown up, and they are both dead, inevitably I want to do the family thing of go to harbours and look at the boats. We trooped the girls off to Aberdeen but near the Maritime Museum, with its big focus on oil, though it is a busy working port, with such vast-sized ships, it is also guarded by a major fence and four lanes of speedy traffic and thus the boats aren't really visitable.

I tried to book a boat trip to look at the nesting sea birds along the cliffs south of Stonehaven and down to Fowlsheugh but the skipper, Ian Watson, was busy doing sonar work one day, worried about weather the next and booked up for the third. He reckons the birds (eg, guillemots and razorbills) will be leaving within a fortnight because they arrived early - it's only the kittiwakes who are on a more normal nesting schedule.

Along the Banff coast the harbours attract the tourists but there seem very few boats, they weren't out fishing when we drove past; they'd given up fishing. It seems strange that such an important island skill - fishing - has been so neglected (some might say destroyed) and our fish stocks treated with such disregard.

Local Hero

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Pete

"Good sky you got here McIntyre!" One of the best films ever was Bill Forsyth's Local Hero,released in 1983. Numerous Local Hero acolytes now visit Pennan, the small fishing village north of Aberdeen used in the film (the beach scenes were filmed on the west coast). And standing in that famous red phone box pretending to call Mr Happer is an irresistible photo opportunity...

One interesting point is that in the film the phone box is in the centre of the bay. In reality the locals point out it would have blown down there, so it's situated in the lee of a hut opposite the Pennan Inn, now surounded by recycling bins. But still with a great view out to sea. Maybe I'll stay here and work the beach...