Monday, August 4, 2014

The UK Tour Kicks Off

We slept in a real bed last night at Elaine's dad''s house....luxury!  Actually the beds in the motorhome are very comfy especially Els luxurious chamber.

Today was the official start of our UK tour by motorhome.

Firstly we put the C3 to bed at brother Trev's house ...

Trev then took us up to the van where we spent about an hour getting ready to go.  At the last minute I took a look at the map and the Brit stop book and set Mr Tom Tom to The Swan pub at Addingham, somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales.  We also set the GPS to avoid motorways as we were in no hurry.

The traffic leaving Macclesfield and around Stockport was quite heavy, but not long after we were up in the Dales ...

Once again we went down some rather narrow lanes, but it all adds to the fun ...

When we arrived at the pub I climbed up on the roof to sort out a skylight that wasn't shutting properly, it just needed a bit of lubrication ...

The pub carpark was rather large so we moored up up the back out of the way ...

The pub was shut, it opened at 17.30 ...

We went for a walk around the village and what a lovely village it was ... we hit the jackpot once again.

The  recent Tour de France bike race passed through the village twice on the Yorkshire stage.  Apparently it is the first time that Le Tour has passed through the same place twice in its 109 year history.

There are decorated push-bikes everywhere and the bunting and flags are still flying all over the show.  It seems Yorkshire was rather proud of it participation in the race ...

We carried on walking, passing the church which has been there for rather a long time......I can't remember the bloody date!

We ended up crossing the River Wharfe on an old pedestrian suspension bridge ...

Elaine loves rivers and got very excited - so excited that she wanted to rip her clothes off and go for a swim in the river.....honest!

Bombo went in instead, but kept his fur on ...

The scenery was absolutely superb ...

We met some killer sheep that stalked us and the dogs, they started grunting and stamping their feet.  I couldn't take them seriously though and laughed at them, so they got embarrassed and walked off ...

Aint it luverly ...

Back to the village with more bikes hanging off the wall ...

The pub was now open, so we introduced ourselves - and he introduced us to the pub dog, Jess ...

The Landlord has been in the pub for nearly 7 years and loves it here ... turns out he is originally from Bearstead, Maidstone, Kent (where El's sister lives)!

An absolutely superb start to Le Motorhome Tour de UK!!

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