Bessie goes Forth…

We left Perth at about midday – it certainly is an impressive city, especially when seen from the bridge over the River Tay.

We are travelling on the same road as yesterday but with no excursions to the “Auld Grey Toon” of Dunfermline today.  It’s onward towards Edinburgh over the wonderful Forth Bridge once more.

We are determined to get some better pictures of the Rail Bridge before we leave Scotland and so we turned towards South Queensferry after exiting the bridge.  We were both surprised to find a quaint old town with some decent original buildings.

We managed to park Bessie easily near the bridge and I’m afraid to say went mad with the camera.  The rail bridge fascinates me – I put it all down to The 39 Steps and Richard Hannay!  Who can forget the bit where Robert Donat leaps from the train and clings to the bridge while the train races on?

Just a little bit of history.  The Forth Rail Bridge is 8,296 feet long and work on the building of it started in 1883.  At one time 4,600 workers were employed in its construction and, sad to say, 63 men were killed during the seven years it took to build it.  It was opened on 4^th March 1890 by the Prince of Wales, who drove home the final rivet.  Apparently the old saying regarding painting the Forth Bridge, meaning a never-ending task, is erroneous as such a practice never existed.  A repaint did, however, commence in 2002 and wasn’t finished until 2011.  230,000 sq m of paint was used and the total cost was £130m!  It’s amazing to think that it is over 120 years old.

We had to laugh at this notice on some railings opposite the bridge.

I don’t know whether it is a peculiarly Scottish warning – I’ve never seen one before!

We did a detour to take in Kelso on our journey to the campsite at Dunstan Hill in Northumberland.  There is a lovely grocery store there, which we had found on a previous Scottish holiday, and we wanted to get some shortbread!

We reached Dunstan Hill at teatime and we were given a pitch along the edge of the site.  Unfortunately, the site wi-fi hardly reached us so we have now moved to nearer the reception area.  It’s extremely busy and people were being turned away.