Back in England, we spent the night at Gibraltar Farm campsite overlooking Morecambe Bay.
A nice site with modern facilities, it is just 2 miles from RSPB Leighton Moss, which we visited the next morning for a last walk. We managed to see Osprey, Marsh Harrier Pochard and finally a Blackcap, bringing our species total for the holiday to 105.
Then, a good drive south to our favourite campsite at Warwick, Paul and Pam’s drive. (We had planned to meet them for the weekend camping in Tewkesbury, but the site owner had cancelled us due to flooding!). On Saturday, we visited beautiful Spetchley Park gardens (HHA),
and then Croome Park, the first estate landscaped by Capability Brown,
with Adam interiors,
and some rather interesting art installations,
including some by Grayson Perry.
Sunday was home time, meeting up with Jen and Samson en route for a lovely walk near Newbury, up to to original Watership Down.
Then home and we got the washing on!
What a super trip. We enjoyed it more than we expected given the cool grey weather, and in fact, by being unplanned, we were free to pick our route, and follow the dry weather, which we did pretty well. We were certainly much drier than they were in England. Our route looks wiggly, but it was very logical!
By using mainly off site overnight stops, our nightly fees averaged £5.20 per night! Our fuel was by far our most expensive item at £450. We spent £30 on admissions, and this included the Falkirk Wheel. Our National Trust cards saved us £60 in admissions, and historic houses (HHA), a whopping £264. The Art Pass saved us £23, and RSPB £27. We cannot extol their virtues enough. HHA is particularly useful in Scotland, where many of the bigger, expensive castles belong to the scheme.
What a super Bimble with Boris.
Bimbling! 
Brilliant commentary of your trip, we really enjoyed you blogs. You seem to find something of interest at every location, is this pre planned or do you research/ tourist information/ google prior to arrival?
We started following your trips whilst you were in Croatia as we are going this September. I would love to see a route map/ campsites visited of that trip if you have such information.
Many thanks for your informative, educational and fun blogs, 105 bird species, fabulous, well done. Cheers Eddie
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Hi Eddie, Thank you for those lovely comments. I am so pleased you like the blogs. I did research Croatia a bit because I had no idea how much internet I would be able to use when there. This Scotland trip was quite different. We had no agenda at all, except to see friends near Inverness and Glasgow at some point. There were a few places we wanted to see if possible, which were Arran, Scone, and the East Coast, but everything else was researched the night before! Firstly we looked at the weather forecast so that we aimed for the driest area possible. Then I used Tripadvisor, 100 coastal walks in Scotland, the books that accompany our HHA, National Trust etc, and blogs, to find out what looked most interesting! Then we uses Park4night and Searchforsites to decide where to stay! We really did wing it, which was great fun and very successful.
If you look at Post 10 from the Croatia trip, right at the end there is a map of the exact route, created by Polar steps, but it is a bit small! I will try and send you a link to one you can expand and see a bit more detail.
I hope this helps. Enjoy your travels too! Best Wishes Anne
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Many thanks that would be great
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Brilliant Bumble but we look forward to seeing you! Did you happen to bring any Highland cows back with you??
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