Day 8 – to New England Bay 11th June
We head off from the Bonnybridge and drive towards a long-awaited visit to a site we had seen 7 years ago on our first visit to Dumfries and Galloway in Hilma – New England Bay, it’s taken a while, but we are finally going there. The trouble was over the years we always wanted to see new places and so it was low priority on our list to go back to the same area. We are glad we did, of course the weather makes a huge difference, we are parked only 50 yards from the beach!
We decided (as usual) to keep to the B roads where possible and so glad we did. Getting out of the Edinburgh / Glasgow gap is always best to use the motorways though. Today we heard that Glasgow has punitive clean air zone fines if you ‘wander’ into them, Hilma is not good at ‘clean air’ being 22 years old (bless).
Day 9 – rest day – 12th June
A nothing day. Chillaxing. Boy it is hot.
Day 10 – Logan Botanical Garden – Port Logan – 13th June
Up early and on the bikes to Port Logan and the botanical garden. Amazing plants and trees from all over the Southern Hemisphere, the climate here is like that of Tasmania, never really exceeding 24 deg C and hardly ever below -9 Deg C which means this unique microclimate can support some unusual plants for the UK.
A truly sub-tropical environ thanks to the Gulf Stream all looked after by 6 full time gardeners and a couple of interns. A good couple of hours can be spent wandering the various garden sections followed by a lunch in the shade with their café offering some decent salads.
