Never one to miss an opportunity for a little more shut-eye I jumped back into bed. Meanwhile both sets of parents went shopping.
Few hours later another knock. This time it was Jody saying that everyone was feeling better (Rob apparently having sympathy morning sickness) and that they were wanting to get out and about.
We waited a bit for the parents to return from shopping and finally gave up at about 11am or so. We decided we'd head to Dumfries, a town the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns once called home. Scurrying down small country roads, Rob spotted a sign for farm fresh ice cream. We took a little detour and checked it out only to discover that it was only open on weekends. They had sheep though. We left after contemplating how Jody could sneak a little lamb on the plane with her. We jumped on the highway and along the way Jody spots a sign for Hoddom Castle which piqued her interest but we couldn't find a place to turn around. After a 30 minute drive we reach Dumfries, dumped the rental car in a free parking lot and walked across the river via a quaint little footbridge.
The Robert Burns Center was closed for lunch when we arrived. Having some time to kill we walked around and discovered that a little restaurant called Hullabaloo was also located in the RBC. I'd recognized the name from a recommendation in the guidebook so we decided to check it out and had a spot of lunch and waited for the RBC to open back up.The Robert Burns museum had a free admission. Which was probably a good thing since the museum consisted of one room with some large signs on the wall describing Robert Burns' life and a couple of artifacts sprinkled in. Interesting stuff, Burns led an interesting life and died young.
After the museum we made the short hike back to the car and passed by Robert Burns' home he lived in Dumfries for a couple of years.
On the drive back we were determined to find Hoddom Castle. We turned at a sign for Hoddom thinking that Hoddom Castle would be in Hoddom. We're thinking we'll just drive down the road a ways and up will pop a castle. Little did we know it wouldn't be that easy. After driving done some narrow country roads with no castle in sight we instruct the TomTom nav system to find it for us and start following directions. Soon it leads us to what appears to be a drive way with a sign that says "no vehicle access to Hoddum Castle". This is good and bad. Good 'cause at least it means we're in the vicinity of the castle and bad 'cause it doesn't look like we can get to it. Of course this forbidden fruit just makes us more determined to find the darn thing. We drive down this driveway a bit and end up in the middle of the woods with a gate barricading the way. It has a little narrow spot for someone to walk through. We can see beyond it a glimpse of the castle and a whole bunch of caravans (i.e. campers to us non-UK folks). Not feeling comfortable with leaving our rental car in the middle of the woods and knowing that there has to be another entrance (how else would someone get their camper in there?) we turn around and head back out on the road hoping to flank our elusive prey. Another road and another sign this one reading "Not an entrance to Hoddom Castle" at the bottom it said that the entrance was a mile back the way we came from. Undaunted, we continued on our way trying to find another cross road that would lead us to a proper entrance. After a lot of sheep and hedgerows, we decided that the best course of action would to be to start over, knowing that there was the sign along the highway to Locekrbie that specifically stated "Hoddom Castle" since we'd seen it earlier that morning. Poking the TomTom to direct us to Lockerbie and we were soon traveling back over familiar territory. We traveled down a few roads we'd already been on and then turned right where we'd earlier turned left...and gosh darn it...there was a nice brick archway entrance to Hoddom Castle.
Hoddom Castle is still standing but is in pretty rough shape after not being occupied by the army since WWII. The place is billed as a camping resort rather than a castle tourism spot. I had a chuckle as I was imagining the castle's former royal occupants rolling over in their graves at the though of a multitude of common folk in their caravans parked on the lawn.Hoddom Castle looked cool from the outside...everyone is forbidden from entering it as it is too dangerous (so the campground staff said). We spent a little while wandering the grounds looking at the castle and visiting the toilet.
We jumped back in the clown car and headed back to the B&B. I discovered a note tacked to the door of my room from the parents telling us that they headed out to take a photo in Lockerbie and we're planning on eating at a restaurant in town. We stuck around the B&B a little to give them some time to get their photos and then headed into Anan to meet them to eat.
There was a nice little fish & chips place that Rob and Jody had been to on another day. The note mentioned that they were considering either the fish & chips place or the little restaurant we ate at the first night. We hedged our bets that they were going to want fish & chips since every other restaurant we ate at someone tried to order fish & chips only to be told they were out.
We sat there with our fish & chips waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Finally we gave up thinking that the parents had gone some place else.
As we were walking back to the car we spotted the parents car heading down the street and waved them down. Dad had to drive halfway down the street before he could turn around. He pulled up to the curb and we started talking. All of a sudden out of nowhere a tiny SUV scrapes along the front fender and stops in front of us. Some old bag jumps out of the passenger side screaming "You've hit us!" We're all looking at her in disbelief and speechless. Her husband steps out of from behind the wheel and starts to inspect the damage on our car saying something about needing to pay him. We don't buy it. We maybe Americans but we're not that stupid. The old bag gets back into the car and the husband continues to ask for registration information. We give him information from the rental car agency and take a quick snapshot of his damage which consisted of a black smudge and scrape on the top and edge of his bumper. We also took the liberty of taking a picture of his license plate. When we started talking about getting the police he jumped back in his car and drove off.
We'd seen a police station just a couple of blocks down and reported the whole thing.
What a day. Tomorrow we'll head to Sterling Castle.
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