2022 The United Kingdom

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All photos for this trip can be found in our
2022 England/Scotland Photo Album
Some are also shown in our weekly blogs.

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A little over a year and a half ago when we were starting to plan a return to Shetland's Wool Week after the pandemic, Brian found via DNA testing on Ancestry, that he had a half-brother, Robert, born in the UK, that Brian had never known about. Robert's daughter, Rebecca had been the person whom Brian matched very closely with. We found that Robert had passed away a decade earlier but his wife, Jennifer still lived in southern England a bit east of London, near cemeteries where we knew, through Ancestry research, that several of Brian's ancestors were buried. Rebecca and her family live in the Lake District farther north.

Taking all this into account along with the fact that we had never been to anywhere in the UK south of Scotland, we decided to expand the scope of our trip to include this list of to do's:

1. A short stay, 4 days, in London.
2. Visit Maidstone, east of London in county Kent, to meet and visit with Jennifer.
3. While in Maidstone visit cemeteries in Chatham and Broadstairs to seek out Emmerson ancestral grave sites.
4. Visit Norfolk county, specifically a cemetery in Toftrees to seek out Emmerson ancestral grave sites.
5. Visit Rebecca and her family in the Lake District
6. Visit the Highland Wildlife Park with hopes of seeing the illusive Scottish Wildcat
7. Travel to the Outer Hebrides, visit the Isle of Barra and stay in a remote "Sea Croft", on the Isle of Lewis, overlooking the Atlantic
8. Stop at the Seafood Shack in Ullapool and try a bowl of their "famous" Cullen Skink soup.
9. Visit the battlefield memorial site at Culloden, a place where Kris' ancestors fought and died
10. Visit our friends Ann and Andy in Aberdeen.
11. Return to Shetland for this year's Wool Week, just veg out and see more of Shetland.

We accomplished most. The weather, in the Outer Hebrides, made a ferry trip to the Isle of Barra and back more than a bit iffy so we gave that a miss. The Seafood Shack in Ullapool was open but Cullen Skink was not on their menu for the day we were there.

After spending a few days in London we embarked on our tour of the UK. We rented a car for 2 and a half weeks to get us from Milton Keynes, a little north of London, to Aberdeen putting around 1800 miles on the car. This map shows the general route from Milton Keynes, southeast to Kent, north to Norfolk, York, The Lake District, Scottish Highlands, west to the Outer Hebrides and back east to Aberdeen

From Aberdeen we took the overnight ferry to Lerwick and spent two weeks on Shetland before flying to Edinburgh for a couple days then train to London and our flight home from Heathrow to Vancouver to Comox.

For the most part we had excellent, if not a tad warm, weather for the entire trip with only springlings of rain here and there. Quite a lot different compared to our last trip.

We enjoyed London. Staying in the White Chapel area we felt obliged to take a "Jack the Ripper" tour. Very interesting and fun. We rode "the Tube" and double decker buses and saw numerous museums although we generally limit ourselves to two touristy things a day, spending other times checking our shopping neighbourhoods and other interesting areas of the city. London has lots! Easy to save something for next time!

The road trip after London started a bit negatively when we found, after driving on the M1 and M25 motorways for a couple of hours, that we had a slow leak in the passenger side front tire. It seemed fine to start but after some number of miles the car started to pull a bit to the left. We got to our first stop, a cemetery in Chatham, parked and after a bit noticed it was definitely getting flat. A call to the car rental company, wait for AA, go to a tire shop and we were on our way again.

We had a nice couple of days visiting with Jennifer as well as being successful in finding headstones in a cemetery in Broadstairs, Then we headed north to more headstone success in Toftrees in Norfolk county. We stayed a couple of nights in York then north to the Lake District to spend 3 nights in Staveley where Rebecca and her family live.

Leaving the Lake District we headed north into Scotland with brief one nighters in Stirling and Newtonmore where we were successful in at least glimpsing a sleeping Scottish Wildcat (it was the wrong time of day to see them being at all active).

From Newtonmore we headed west to Maillag and a ferry to South Uist in the Outer Hebrides. After a few days exploring South and North Uist we made out way to the west coast of Isle of Lewis where we stayed 2 nights at the Seacroft Seapods B&B. Wonderful!!!

Returning to the mainland via Stornoway to Ullapool we had hoped to sample the Cullen Skink soup at the Seafood Shack but unfortunately they had taken it off their menu for this day. Booooo! Heading east we stopped at the Culloden Battlefield Memorial site. We signed up for a tour that turned out to be very interesting. Recommended! Later that day we stopped at the Cullen Hotel, in Cullen of course, and had a couple of bowls of their Cullen Skink. Excellent! The next day we arrived in Aberdeen where we met up with friends Ann and Andy and also checked out a couple of museums there.

Then it was off to Shetland on the overnight ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick. Very smooth sailing so got lots of sleep. We had rented an apartment in Lerwick for 2 weeks so had a very restful stay and enjoyed Wool Week and the islands. After Wool Week and the end of our two weeks we flew to Edinburgh for a couple of days, then took a day train to London to see more of the English countryside. Our trip finished off with one day in London for which the weather turned out fabulous for us. We visited the Borough Market as well as some of the touristy areas around the parliament buildings and Westminster Abbey.

We finished the day with a nice pub dinner at The Old Thameside Inn where we were able to snare a riverside table on their outdoor patio with views of some of London's modern architecture.

Then it was back to our hotel at the airport, an early wakeup call, off to Terminal 2 for our flight to Vancouver followed by a long 9 hour layover before our flight to Comox and home.

End of this trip.

Here's our weekly breakdown of our trip...

Week 1: Courtenay to Maidstone, Kent, UK
Week 2: Maidstone to Staveley, Lake District
Week 3: Staveley to Timsgearraidh, Isle of Lewis
Week 4: Timsgearraidh to Lerwick, Shetland
Week 5: Lerwick and Shetland Wool Week
Week 6: Lerwick to Edinburgh
Week 7: Edinburgh to Courtenay