Off to Jordan

The worst part of doing overseas trips is the time it takes to get to your destination.

Travelling from canberra to London takes more than 24 hours elapsed time.

At present Trevor and I are in the air (it is 3:15pm Jordan time) and it is more than 27 hours since we left our Yorkshire "home". The first part went quickly. We drove in to Scarborough to return our rented car. We did one stop on the way to post a box of books padded with items of attire (beanies, scarfs and the like) that we would not need in Jordan. The box weighed in just on 8kgs and while it did cost a pretty penny I think it well worth the money as it reduces what we are lugging around.

We had a wait at the car hire depot. There were only two staff on and quite a few clients coming and going, plus phone calls, and Aaron was out doing a drop off. After a wait of about half an hour we were dropped down at the Scarborough Railway Station. We had a bit of time to kill which was OK a Trevor needed to post Tom back to his home and we needed to get some lunch.

Our train left at ... headed for York. It was a comfortable trip passing through countryside and places that we had either visited or seen the signs to numerous times when we were out and about.

The change of trains in York was pretty painless. There was wifi access on the train, ata cost of course, and I used part of the time checking some of my swimming stuff, as wellas looking out the window as we whizzed past villages, towns and countryside.

Getting to the tube station at Kings Cross was fine as there were lifts. It was still a bit of a drag but that is part of the whole experience. At Paddington there were no lifts or escalators to get out of the underground. We had to lug the cases up the stairs. On one to the stairs a passenger going down to the platform gave us a hand. very kind and much appreciated.

Once over at the Heathrow Express we were able to relax a bit. The express only takes 15 minutes from Paddington to Heathrow and the Qantas counters were pretty quiet when we presented ourselves.

Going though security was a pain. My carefully packed bag ended up looking like a dogs breakfast. I set off the alarm so had to remove my shoes which were rescanned and I was given a through body frisk by a female security guard. I still haven't worked out what caused the red light. Perhaps it was my watch but it has been though a number of other scans without problem.

We headed for the Qantas lounge which turned out to be the American Airlines lounge, Qantas' One World partner. It definitely was not up to the norm lounge standard but was definitely better than hanging around in the general waiting area.

Our flight was leaving at 9:30pm meaning that we were getting close to 12 hours of elapsed travel time by the time we got airborne. Unfortunately, the flight time between London and Dubai is around six hours which is hardly enough to get a decent sleep.


We had almost 7 hours in Dubai which I used to do more swimming stuff. I was pleased to discover that the business Centre at the airport had Word. Big mistake. It was running the latest version of Word and Windows 8. Goes Word did some very strange things. I managed to finished the program to go to the printer for the Burley Griffin meet and emailed it off with a great deal of relief.

It had looked as if our flight to Amman would get away early but we sat on the ground for a good 30 minutes after we were told we were leaving. I think we both managed to go to sleep during the wait.

I scored a winow seat out of London and another on today. This should have been great except both were slap bang over the very large wing obscuring most of what could have been seen if the view was unobstructed.

Because we were travelling with a designated tour group on our arrival into Jordan we were required to pay for a visa. This cost us JOD 20 each. A JOD is worth just slightly less than a pound sterling. It seemed to take ages to shuffle to the head of the queue to do the passport control and then the visa. Our line was going so slowly that Trevor went and exchanged a bunch of our sterling pounds for Jordanian currency which was a good move as it made the visa process much faster when we were able to hand over the cash on the spot.

By the time we got down to the luggage hall the few remaining unclaimed suitcases had been removed from the carousal and were looking quite folorn. We were not the last.

We walked though the customs hall without challenge. All our bags had been screen and obviously didn't look as if they had contraband inside.

When we walked out into the arrivals hall I was very pleased to see someone holding up a sign with our names on it. There must have been 60 or so people with signs so finding our man was a minor success.

The driver was giving a lift back into Amman to one of the tour people who works out at the airport. The airport is about 45 minutes drive away from the western part of the city so getting a lift is helpful. By the time four of us got into the car and our lugguage the card was well loaded up. I'm sure tht Anony would have enjoyed the drive into Amman. I just kept think that the car had not dints or obvious scrapes. Lane changing is an artform and necessary as the roads come in and go off and sometimes have a roundabout or seven to add to the fun. We were duly deposited at our hotel, the rather grand sounding Al Fanar Palace Hotel. it was almost 6 o'clock by the time we arrived. Taking the 2 hour time difference between England and Jordan we had been on the move for 30 hours.

A rep from local tour company that does the on ground work for Exodus caught up with us just after we arrived. We will be meeting our guide tomorrow morning.

We ate at the hotel and are happy to hit the sack early after the lack of sleep overnight.

On the drive in from the airport we saw a heap of camels.

There is a lot of construction work going on with buildings and road work much in evidence.

The airport tyerminal is quite new and the old terminal is currently bing demolished.

Our driver chatted to us after he dropped of his colleague. He said that Jordan has a heavy reliance on tourism. It is its biggest industry. With all the trouble in neighboring countries cancelations were as much as 85%. Fortunately for everyone who relies on the tourist trade for their livihood the tourists are starting to return and bookings are now quite heavy.

Trevor reminded me of something that we both saw today. We were departing from the B terminal in Dubai. This is the terminal used for flights to meddle eastern countries. The toilets in the b terminal came with a hose and spray.

More Moor walks and a castle

On Sunday we dropped one of the heritage sites from our list as we knew that we had too many to fit into a single day. Pickering Castle was the obvious choice as it was close to home base and was open from Thursday to Monday. Today, being Thursday, we headed off to tick off this last remaining castle.

Of course it was a ruin. Situation normal.

The introduction to the castle features states:

The grassy mound and  teh curtain walls punctuated by tall towers are the most prominent features of this royal fortress. The mound was raised by William the Conqueror. The stonework on the mound and around the inner courtyard or ward is of early thirteenth-century date and was built for Henry III when the castle was a necessary defence against the Scots. The outer entrance, the curtain wall and its three towers were built on the orders of edward II in 1323-26. These were the last additions to the defences. Later improvements concerned the New Hall and the Constable's Lodging, reflecting the castle's role as a centre for hunting in the Forest of Pickering and for the administration of its local territory. By the time of the Civil [when many of the other castles we have seen over the past week were destroyed] its military purpose had long been abandoned and most of the castle was in decay.

The mound was quite impressive.

Here is a selection of my photos of Pickering Castle.

Outer wall

Well

Bit of the structure that remains on the top of the very substantial mound

A tower in the outer wall. This one has three levels

Trevor standing in the doorway at the bottom of the tower. The doorway is at the end of the path in the previous photo.

There was a significant area between the inner and outer walls

Having done the castle we headed off to the Moors. Our first walk commenced above the small settlement of Rosedale Abbey. It was supposed to take us in a circuit that took in the Rosedale Moor but something went wrong and we found ourselves in Rosedale Abbey with quite a hike back to the car and only part of the walk actually done.

Still, the scenery was pleasant and the day was reasonably warm.

View across the valley and up to the moor from our starting point

Black and white spotty sheep

We have seen a wide variety of sheep over the past four weeks but these moorland sheep were new to us. They are horned and were spotty.

Having managed to not do the first walk according to the walk description we decided that it was time for lunch. This took us across the moors.

The valleys continued to look very pretty.

The heather is well past it peak however there are still some flowers to be seen. The moors must look spectacular when it is out in full flower.

And then we came across a mob of black sheep with curly horns. They were quite happy to occupy the road and had no concern at all for the traffic.

Our second walk was starting from a village called Lastingham. There are some great place names in this area. Cropton, Spaunton, Hutton-le-Hole were all on our path.

Even though it is quite a small village there were still a number of lunch options and we opted for the one which was recommended in our guide book. The food lived up to expectations and suitably replete we headed out for walk #2.

Across England there are paths that cross farmland and other property. This does not permit ramblers to walk wherever they choose however you can end up in some funny spots. We walked through a couple of farm yards today.

Trevor walking through a farm yard. Note the shed full of big, round bales of hay

The views across the green fields to the moors beyond continued.

On Tuesday we had come across a well maintained dry wall. Today we walked along beside one that was in desperate need of some tender loving care. even then it may still be terminal.

Yet another valley view

A few times I have mentioned the pheasants wandering all over the place. Over the past couple of days more and more dead pheasants are appearing on the roads. Not surprising as they really are dumb birds. Today we came across a lot of pheasants including a whole bunch in on the the fields that we passed.

Can you see the pheasants?

The track we took meander through a couple of areas of forest. The forests have tended to be very mixed with some quite old trees alongside yonnger ones. The understory is anyones guess.

A section of the path going through a woodland

There were a lot of other walkers out today. Most people were walking in pairs with the odd solo walker.

I'm not sure why there are great gouges out of what would normally be the village green in Hutton-le-Hole but that may explain the name

We stopped and got an icecream in Hutton-le-hole. There were a lot of walker ambling through or enjoying an icecream or a spot of afternoon tea.

Just as we were leaving Hutton-le-Hole we noticed a bunch of people on bikes heading out of the village.

We did come across more of the horned black sheep. trying to get them to stand still to get a decent photo was another matter altogether.

As we neared the end of the walk there was one final gate to go through ... the last for this trip.

This is the end of our Yorkshire stay. Tomorrow we will be dropping off the car and catching the train back to London and hotfooting it out to Heathrow for our flight through to Jordan.

I'll post updates on our Jordan trip just as often as I have internet access.

Our Yorkshire "home"

Since completing our Coast to Coast walk Trevor and I have spent some time in Yorkshire. We hired a cottage a short distance out of Scarborough along a lane between Brompton by Sawdon and Snainton. We are about 1.5km from the through road.

Having a cottage is great. It allows a bit of freedom to spread out and also has the luxury of being able to prepare meals, should we want to. We are definitely out in the country although there are plenty of cottages available that are either in villages or towns, too.

I had wanted to stay out in ancestor territory so selecting a cottage in the Headon Farm Cottages group located on Wydale Lane in Brompton by Sawdon was an easy choice. My Coverley ancestors farmed in Sawdon, Brompton, Snainton and neighbouring parishes.

Trevor had organised a SatNav which we collected at our B&B in Robin Hoods Bay. Tom, as he was affectionally called, was invaluable guiding us along backroads and major links as we moved around either visiting sites, towns or undertaking family history research.

Entrace to cottages courtyard. Note the red mail box on the wall on the right

The cottages, there are three in the group, are situated around a courtyard and each one has its own parking area.

The entry to the Cottages runs alongside this farm house. To get to our cottage we needed to swing left.

Our courtyard and parking area is to the right of this picture between the shrubs on the far right

This is our courtyard and parking area. Our entrance is the white door in the middle of the photo.

Our cottage was named Stables Cottage. I assume that it was part of the stables in a prior life

The entrance door opened onto an area with stairs to the first floor ahead, dining area and large kitchen to the left and a lounge/sitting room to the right.

The entrance area as seen from the stairs

The entrance area viewed from the dining area

The spacious lounge room. This was where the TV was as well as a library of books.

The kitchen was large with a solid table capable of sitting 8 in comfort.

In the kitchen, along with the table, was a lounge, shelving, washing machine, dryer, fridge, freezer, upright stove with 4 elements, a mircowave, kettle and toaster as well as crockery, glasses and cutlery and cooking stuff. It definitely had sufficient cooking bits and pieces to satisfy most people.

Upstairs ...

Yes, these are stairs

there were two bedrooms, a bathroom, ensuite to the main bedroom, a storeroom and an alcove with a couple of easy chairs.

The alcove leading to the main bedroom

The main bedroom

Ensuite

The bathroom was directly oppoiste the stairs

The huge second bedroom

The area was enclosed by buildings from adjacent properties.

 I added a few more outside shots.

This is Wydale Lane heading down towards the main road

The cottage had a paved area just out from the kitchen with a sliding door leading out onto it

A view of our cottage with our little can in our private courtyard

This area would have been lovely on a nice, warm day. The doors on the left open out onto this terraced area

And yest another nice outside spot with a seat

The group of cottages was surrounded by farmland.

All in all, Stables Cottage has been a lovely home away from home.

Moor walking

It has been a while since we did a lengthy walk. Today was a research rest day for me so I thought that it would be good to get out into the fresh air.

Looking at walks close to home I decided that the Hole of Horcum walk sounded pleasant. It was only 20 or so minutes away, 7 miles all up with a decent pub for lunch.

By the time I cleared all my swimming emails and we got organised it was just on midday. We figured that lunch first and walk second was an idea. This meant that we would start our walk from Levisham rather than the carpark above the Hole Of Horcum.

I had been expecting fine weather. The forcast suggested fine with a top of around 20. Someone forgot to tell the weather and it was almost foggy all day which was unfortunate as the photos will not show how pretty the country was that we walked through.

Lunch was very pleasant. For a small village which seems to pride iteself on being very quiet, the pub was very busy. Not suprising when we encountered a lot of people on the walk.

Levisham prides iteself on not having a "rush hour". Apart from us, the only thing moving was the gent wandering home from the pub.

Our lunch spot, The horseshoe Inn at Levisham, was very nicely presented. A vey pleasant spot and worth the visit. It contained a number of prints. The one above our table was titled "Levisham Rush Hour" and there was not an animal, person or vehicle to be seen. I think they want us to believe that it is a very quiet village. Then there are the five, at least, places offering B&B. Perhaps they have an image to cultivate!

Our instructions had us going anti-clockwise but it is obvious that the walk can be easily done going the other way as we kept coming across people walking towards us.

The first part of the walk was along a narrow path transversing the side of a valley through which Levisham Beck gurgled. At the end of the valley the path dropped down to a junction at the foot of Dundale Griff. It seems that a griff is actually a valley or a cleft in the terrain.

Autumn colour are starting to appear

 

Trevor on our rather narrow track

The beck at the bottom of the valley

At this stage the forest gave way to farmland occuppied by sheep and cattle so we had to contend with manure splattered paths as the animals seem to use the same paths that the humans do and liberally relieve themselves as they walk.

The cattle didn't seem too perturbed by our passing

And these didn't even bother to so much as flick an ear!

Yeet another verdnat valley

The area was pretty isolated. The only building we passed on until we were also back at Levisham was the abandoned farm buildings of Low Horcum. From Low Horcum the pathed climbed steadily to the head of the Hole of Horcum.

The abandoned Low Horcum farm buildings

From this point back to Levisham was a moor walk. This moor was dry. I quite like dry moors. The heather is well past it best but there were still bits in flower. There were quite a few features that were noted on the moor. There were bronze age burrows and an iron age cross dyke which is assumed to have been a boundary marker between territories held by different communities.

Dundale Pond was created by the monks of Malton Priory in the 13th century to maintain a permanent water supply for their sheep and cattle. It was brackish however the current sheep and cattle are probably happy to use the pond.

Dundale Pond

The final couple of ks to Levisham were along a broad road between farmland. At one point we encountered a very well maintained dry wall.

Note the lovely wall

 Wlaking across Moors you cannot help but notice the heather. Grouse, a bird hunted at much expense, live in the heather. They use old, woody material to build their nests and fresh, new shoots to line it. To ensure sufficient "right" material is available for the grouse the moors are carefully managed. The heather is burnt on a seven year rotation. This means that there will always be woody mateial as well as fresh shoots for teh grouse. Such concern for their breeding needs is hardly matched by the shoots!

While the heather is clearly past its best it was still lovely to see

The different levels of the heather are due to the rotational burning of patches

We are starting to see autumn colours. I had not realised that bracken went a lovely golden colour in autumn.

The blackberries are still not quite ripe. I have managed to find the odd ripe berry. Blackberries are in evidence in amny places from London to the north.

Blackberries have been a very common companion during our stay