Nearly Walking to Scotland

Sorry sir your card has been declined.

Well, that’s embarrassing. Both my debit and credit cards were declined when sorting out the rental insurance for the motorcycle this morning. In the end, Harry’s other grandad came to my rescue … it was looking like we were going to be walking 500 miles and maybe 500 more.

The last couple of days have been really nice catching up with family and seeing how much Harry has grown in the four months since we last saw him. He was only just starting to walk when they left Australia, and now he’s running around the backyard with a soccer ball (opps football … I forgot where I am) and has got a great kick on him already. Future Socceroo in the making there.

I remember mentioning in the first post about missing the little things like holding his hand. When he reached up with his little hand and took my hand, my heart just melted.

We were introduced to their soft play centre, but it was anything but soft as I bruised my tail bone on the slide … but when Harry grabbed my hand again and again … I just couldn’t say no.

Grandad may have also bought him a little balance bike. The joy on his little face was priceless! Now he just needs to grow another couple of inches … not that that stopped him trying. That’s my boy.

A dinosaurs bike in Kawasaki green – it couldn’t get better.

While we really only had a couple of days, we will be back.

Long before Emma decided to move to the UK, we had been planning a bike trip with our Swiss friends to Scotland, and today we pick up our bike.

Well, that was the plan until the bank wouldn’t let me pay the 2,000 pound security deposit. There was a few tense moments – we tried holding the funds and paying for it with both debit and credit cards but to no avail. I couldn’t even go to the bank and get cash out as it had to be a card (which seems crazy). So when Martin (my grandsons, grandfather) stepped forward with his UK card we were saved. We would have been walking otherwise.!

The only explanation I can think of is the bank flagged it as a suspicious transaction as it was a large amount. But it’s hard when you’re on the other side of the world, in a different time zone, and on a schedule.!

Bikes pannier inner bags don’t give you much room.

The panniers on the RT look bigger than they really are and we had to repack a few times to get it down to what we could take. So we have two weeks worth of stuff here and in the top box are shoes, wet weather gear, extra gloves and some other gear. So there isn’t much room for souvenirs.

Today was really about just getting some miles under our belt, so there wasn’t much stopping. So we just burned up the A1. We only had a few hold-ups with roadworks and an accident. I have to say the traffic here is pretty good and when filtering, traffic see you coming and make every attempt to give you room, even the trucks. At the accident a coppa signalled us over and told us filter down passed the accident and keep going while everything else was stopped. So we had the road to ourselves for a while there.

Our accommodation for the night – Walworth Castle just out of Darlington about 220 miles north.

Walworth Castle was built in 1150 and the last time is was sold was in 1759 for 16,000 pounds and since then it’s been handed down. In 1981 it was converted into a 31 bedroom hotel.