Day 310/311 Sat 18 –Sun 19 Aug 2007 Grasmere to Newcastle to Sutton Coldfield, England

It's a misty wet Lakeland morning as we leave Fairfield cottage and drive east through Kendal and the Yorkshire dales, stopping for lunch at Hawes in Wensleydale where we dine on cheese sandwiches. Delicious Then it’s on to Aysgarth falls where a river of tea plunges over a series of millstone grit ridges and eventually to Ripon and Fountains Abbey which of course is on the world heritage list. The enormous ruined Cistercian Abbey is set adjacent to the Studley royal water park, providing far too much to see in the half hour before closing. However we visit the gift shop allowing us to tick it off the list.

Then we drive north back to Newcastle to visit Helen and Steve, Sarah, Holly and Penny (the dog) who have just returned from Portugal (not Penny). We have dinner in a fish restaurant created in a local disused church which seems to be an appropriate use for it.

In the morning we have a photo stop by the Tyne bridge, a prototype for the Sydney one and getting lost in the traffic manage to cross it three times on our way south to Sutton Coldfield via the world heritage mills of Saltaire and the Derwent Valley. Unfortunately time doesn’t permit us to detour and we reach Sutton Coldfield just as Chelsea score from an undeserved penalty. Its typical English summer weather so brother Alan and Kate have a fire going.