Monthly Archives: February 2012

I can hear the rain bouncing off the velox window tonight – time to think of better things 🙂

It’s five years this month since I bought my first caravan – an Eriba Troll.

She was lovely inside and out —

That was when I decided to leave England where I had been living for the past thirteen years and retire to my native Scotland. A long haul mostly on the M6 brought me over the Border at Carlisle and I made the spur of the moment decision to swing left at Gretna and go visit Portpatrick by Stranraer cos I’d heard so much about how beautiful it is.

I wasn’t going to make it in one day so I started looking for a caravan site for an overnight stay by the time I reached Dumfries. I was a few miles past the town when I saw signs for Barnsoul off to the right. A three and half mile drive down country lanes lanes brought me to Barnsoul Farm and Wildlife Centre. They also had a caravan site and I booked in for one night.

That was the best night’s sleep I’d had in yonks so I went down to the office the following morning and booked in for a month —

The ‘wildlife’ were truly wild! Red squirrels, roe deer, woodpeckers and several other spieces. On my first walk towards the hills I came across two roe deer but they were gone before I could flash my camera at them. Further on I spotted a bunch of Llamas running wild in a wooded area further up the slope —

My next surprise was to find this monument to the Covenanters below the summit of Skeoch Hill —

It was a reminder that three thousand local people worshipped on that bare hillside back in the 16th century when they were being hunted down and killed – dare I say ‘murdered’ by the King’s Redcoats.

Further on by Glenkiln Reservoir I came across John the Baptist by French sculpture Rodin striding across the hillside as naked as the day he was born —

I returned to the campsite via an Iron Age fort on the hilltop —

With views across the caravan park to the rolling Galloway Hills beyond —

Cycling on the country roads was tough but there were beautiful sights round every corner —

I just had to keep telling myself that exercise was good for me 🙂

I never did reach Portpatrick with the caravan but I have been there many times since on the motorbikes 🙂

Footnote; My Eriba was two years old when I bought her direct from the importers near Oxford  The first photo with my Eriba set up complete with the awning was at Barnsoul right at the start of my journey.

The next two pics showing the exterior and interior were taken three years and three months later after I toured europe as far as Croatia and virtually lived in the caravan full time. Testament to how well this van was constructed with it’s tubular skeleton frame chassis and aircraft style alluminuim cladding. Such a pity that the Eriba is no longer in production.

Yep – the armchair pilot flies again. This time in a Vickers Vimy Replica of a bomber built for the first world war.

The plane arrived too late due to problems with engine supply to have much input in the outcome of the war but it did go on to set long distance records in peacetime. Amongst them were the first trans-atlantic flight by Alcock & Brown. The first flight from England to Australia and an attempt to fly from England to Capetown. The latter doesn’t really count as the pilots had one plane go down with engine failure. A second plane was borrowed but crashed and broke up on landing at Bulawayo. The intrepid pilots carried on in a third borrowed plane of a different make to reach Capetown.

In 1992 a vintage aeroplane enthusiast – Peter McMillan got the bug to replicate these journeys and didn’t stop untill he had dunnit – with a little help from his friends. First he took the original plans for the aircraft to the US where he built a replica from the ground up. He got round the engine problem by fitting latter day BMW units. Mr McMillan went bust twice during the proccess of building and flying the plane.

Photo of Vickers Vimy Replica NX71MY – origin unknown.

In 1994 McMillan and Lang Kidby replicated the original historic multi-stop flight from England to Australia in their Vickers Vimy Replica NX71MY.

In 1999 they successfully completed the multistop flight from England to Capetown with their same Vickers Vimy Rep NX71MY.

In 2005 Steve Fosset and Mark Rebhilz flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in Vickers Vimy Rep NX71MY. A successfull completion of the first Transatlantic flight by the original Vickers Vimy six months after the end of hostilities in 1918.

Steve Fosset, the intrepid Adventurer – holder of over 100 world records including circum-navigating the world Phileas Fogg style in a hot air balloon was to lose his life while flying solo in a light aircraft in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 2008.

Here is Vickers Vimy NX71MY flying over Brooklands – photo courtesy of Jamiestar

Why now? Tonight Peter McMillan will be recognised for his efforts at the Royal Geographical Society Museum in Kensington, London. Let’s hope he also replenishes his bank account with the procceeds from the sale of the book about his epic 20 year journey to replicate the flights of those early pioneers in aviation.

The book is aptly named Journey’s End. No doubt my kids will bring me a copy bought on Amazon when they make their once a year visit from their ‘busy’ lives just before Christmas. I’ll thank them nicely and won’t tell ’em I’ve already had a signed First Edition from my good friend Peter so that I can build the plane and fly his routes from the comfort of my armchair 🙂

My first Burns Supper and it won’t be my last! I can be notoriously insular but Rabbie with the help of a few drams has a way of being a great leveller and at the end of the day ‘a man’s a man for a’ that’.

The speakers tonight were fantastic and my learned companions ensured I had a seat at the centre of the festivities. The guy on the right is Bill Nolan who gave the speech to ‘Immortal Memory’ – and how! Bill makes it  his life’s work to carry the spirit of Rabbie Burns around the world and he certainly captured mine.

Their was a large contingent from the Irvine branch and it was there that Rabbie had found his initial support which led to his work being published. The connection with Kirkcudbright is that an Edinburgh based Kirkcubright chap was the main man in having Rabbie accepted into the broad scheme of English Literature..

And hey – what about this! The dress code meant I had to wear a tin flute for the first time in many – many years

I was surprised to find it still fitted me 🙂

I put a post on here with photos of the old scallop beamer Susan Bird featured recently.

We are into the short scallop season now and today she was unloading at the quayside when I walked past —

Being an old boat without a hydraulic crane for off-loading, the bags of scallops come out of the hold in bundles of four instead of tens as on the modern boats. Gives the crew an easier time as the bags all have to be man-handled on to pallets when they come ashore. I didn’t spot if it was a winch powered hoist or a capstan they were lifting the bags out with which gives me the excuse to go back for a look another day.