Starting Vanlife With A Baby | Scottish Borders Historic Road Trip

last time we're in scotland the park ups were like this [Music] and this time [Applause] but they do get better we promise you so join us this week as we go on the hunt for haggis get shonky haircuts and navigate hairpin bends while enjoying the scenic sights of scotland if you're a regular viewer then you'll know that since welcoming our little baby into the world we've steadily been making upgrades on our van cassie to get it ready for life on the road as a family of three so we've headed up to scotland to spend a few weeks making sure that everything works before we get over to europe in the coming months the journey we're taking this week is the borders historic route which starts just below gretna green historically famous for shotgun weddings before moving on to howick which refreshingly actually encourages campervans to stay and that's how we ended up in this car park which while not picturesque is perfect for exploring the town from so we just knocked up a quick bit of lunch gonna eat that and then i think we're gonna head off for a walk see what we can find i think so baby sounds up for it [Music] [Music] one issue with van life that we haven't quite solved yet is getting my hair cut now back when we first started traveling i usually just go to local barbers and get it done wherever we were but i had some really bad cuts and people didn't really know how to deal with my type of hair so what i did was just bought a pair of clippers and i've carried one with me for probably about six or seven years now and sarah does my hair she's actually got pretty good at it however in the van it's quite a tight space there's nowhere to really do it and we don't want hairs floating about and flying everywhere i guess we could do it outside but in this weather not the best so i've decided i'm going to go to a barber and i'm going to get it done properly all right i'm just back from the barbers you ready for the big reveal yep here it comes okay um it's not the best fade no okay it's not as good as nine it certainly isn't but you know what your dad always says anyway difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut is about two weeks come on the new haircut tell us what you're cooking up do you like it it's just not as good as how i do it it was a big pause there this guy calls himself the world's best barber as well that's literally the name of the barber shop so you know i'm just saying um knocked up a mac and cheese gonna have some of that for dinner i'm pretty hungry yeah i am we haven't done a great deal today but um i'm a little bit tired so i think we're just gonna spend the rest of the evening relaxing and do a bit of research for the rest of the trip because we have absolutely no idea of where we're going or what we're doing i mean we've got a rough idea but we don't know what kind of stuff we know the route don't we exactly but we don't know what we can do along the way so we need to do a bit of research on that um and yeah get a bit of an early night i think get some resting and start again tomorrow sounds good good morning fam good morning how you doing i'm all right except okay uh not the best there's some motorbikes um there's a little bit of disturbance in the car park last night it wasn't too bad though no it was fine it was mainly this one as well it wasn't the uh the park but really fair enough yeah she is trying to get on our scottish breakfast yeah she's having none of that this is something that we quite like doing when we come to scotland is buying these tatty scones and trying whatever else we can find and these are square sausages i think it's called lawn sausage and it's quite a common breakfast food in scotland you don't really get it in england okay no you don't she certainly can't get it um so yeah we're going to give that a go and we've got a few things planned for today now we finally got a little bit of an idea yeah we have we we sketched one out last night so we know a little bit more about what we are gonna do so my mom and dad have a uh pressure washer and we usually wash the van at their house but we've decided that now especially over winter we're just not prepared to do that in the cold so first of the day today we are going to get the van washed [Music] that drive was literally epic oh it was amazing yeah the scenery is just incredible but it was a complete waste of time getting the van cleaned [Laughter] no here we go look at the state of that mud everywhere straight away pointless we've just had a very quick lunch because well it's about half one already and things just take longer with a baby usually i think we'd have been here first thing in the morning and set off and been back already but here we go it's taking me about 20 minutes to put these layers it's starting to get dark at about 3 30 at the moment this time of year so we're going to have to set off pretty soon and it looks like quite a steep climb as well i'm a little bit worried that we're going to be climbing back down in the dark we'll just have to set off back down if it gets too late like no matter how like we just need to keep an eye on the tide if we don't get to the top then we don't get to the top all right after ages finished having a little meltdown she really does not like having a hat and so many layers on and gloves and all that jazz i think the warm weather is going to do so much better so anyway yeah we are on our way [Music] how are you doing fine a little bit slower than normal but you know get in there you got an extra stone on it so i think the route is we continue climbing up there up there over the top of the waterfall and back down there along that path to a car park over there what do you think can we do it i'm seriously doubting us it looks pretty daunting like that is really steep and it's pretty high as well and we are exactly nine minutes into the walk and my heart is already going like the clappers and i'm out of breath so it doesn't bode well okay so my bad it's not a circular route for a start that path there just goes to a viewing pipe so probably should have done that one if you wanted an easy one yeah yes the path that we're on is this one up here that goes [Music] up to somewhere called lock scheme right so lock on the top uh so i don't know if you want to carry on going off or what you want to do uh well we might as well go a bit further i don't know where we're going to make it to lock scheme it looks high even on here so okay all right let's see how far we get we still got quite a lot of light [Music] what was that we just saw a shoe it's one of these that it stays on here who is it perry green falcon wow it's huge i think we might have made it i think it might just be through there yeah do you think i'm hoping so it looks like that could be a lock it's supposed to be in that horseshoe thing come on [Music] we've made it we did what do you think i was out of breath because we were going it is amazing like honestly when we walked around that corner just yeah just the most amazing view incredible incredible [Music] if you watch any of our hiking videos and you see that we always carry these bottles with us walk-to-go bottles and the reason we do is because well you don't have to carry very much water because you can fill up from any water source at all they've got amazing filters in and um they just filter out all the bad stuff we'll put a link to them in description below if you want to buy one and we'll get a little bit of commission so we made it back down we managed to get it down well before it got dark the moon was out on that but it was absolutely fine got back to the van moved it into a level spot because there was much less cars in the much less there was more space in the car park anyway and found a level spot and then we've all just had a shower we're just going to get tidied up the van is a bit of a mess the toilet's out so i've got to put that back in and got a load of stuff on the bed that we need to tidy tidy away um so yeah we'll get that done and then crack on with some dinner good morning good morning got a coffee on the go [Music] i'm tired thinking a bit yeah i think after that walk yesterday yeah i think nice sleep actually okay so yeah must just be a walk um what time is it it's like quartz way can you believe how dark is still absolutely pitch black outside why is it like this babe why is it like that yeah it's just oh anyway we're up in the dark i think we're gonna get moving quite quickly because it gets a little bit busier with walkers i think so it'll be good to get going and feed the uh through the spaces up in the car park okay are you two ready yes [Music] [Music] do we just picked ourselves up a self kirk bannock which i'll read from the sign for you is the weighty rounded loaf flat on the bottom and curved on top with approximately half the contents being fruit it should be cut into slices and eaten with or without butter sounds quite nice it's really um got quite a long history it's been made here since 1859 and apparently they didn't make it for some time because it uses a particular type of butter from round deer that they didn't have during the war and also the um sultanas in it are from turkey so if they're not available you can't make it you can't just put any old butter and any old sultana in it [Music] there are so many lovely towns around the borders yeah there's tons i just didn't realize yeah just driving through loads of loads and we can't stop at every single one obviously we stop at as many as we can and yeah we had a quick look at a few uh what was your favorite i liked selkirk that we were just in yeah yeah what was the one that was down the road we didn't stop there but it had an abbey uh gala shields gala shields oh and melrose melrose that's the one that's the most that'll be my top one absolutely beautiful some stunning houses and some really kind of cool shops in the town and stuff like that um we have moved on from the borders we're a little bit further up north at the a7 yep and we are aware well we're quite near edinburgh now um but we're in a place called dalkeith at country park so just a little walk around here um have a look at this massive house [Music] that's a pretty good day it was yeah i enjoyed it spent a lot of time outside yeah that was a nice walk that we just did in the grounds of that uh stately home or whatever it was took a little while to just find the park up that we're at yeah because we went to a couple um no the other ones weren't any good but we just wanted somewhere a little bit more secluded for tonight and the uh the last one that we went to was it was right on the beachfront we might go back there again yeah it was nice it was just quite a lot of houses around so we need to kind of scope it out a bit more we need a bit more time don't we to to look for spaces absolutely anyway now it's time for a cup of tea i'm going to try that banner cake that we bought earlier now you've toasted it i've toasted it yeah the guy in the shop said it's really nice toasted with a bit of butter on okay so that's what i've done i didn't have the heart to tell you at the time when you were talking about it um that he said that they don't actually make it on site there anymore even though they go over another building he said i know it says it outside but we know we haven't made him here for about 40 years he said i'm 44 and i can't remember this ever being a baker's so that's a bit silly isn't it babe yeah it's been a takeaway for 40 odd years rather than the bakers but anyway he says these are one of the some of the good ones okay i hope so three pounds 75 you know quite expensive minutes because of the sultana isn't it yes they said they're 44 sultanas what do you reckon it's nice it's just like a fruit life though i mean there are a lot of sultanas in it but nothing special no yeah great okay my verdict i thought that was pretty good it's quite decadent it's really a little bit sweet it's not too sweet though it's um really rich it's got a lot of sultanas it's a bit like brioche i think yeah that's true because you can taste the um the butter in it exactly yeah it's denser but in a good way i think that was really good when we were in where was it that we got that from uh we got that from selkirk selkirk when we're in selkirk sarah also got something else from the shop some of these called what are they called is that the right way up order tablet yeah border tablets i don't know what it is it looks kind of like fudge but it's quite hard so we're gonna give that a go as well okay give us a look at that thing i think it's going to be really sweet it looks sugary it does look really sugary go give it a go it's nice but it does just taste like sugar and toffee this is a pretty scathing assessment that you've given a video i'm terrible at food description yeah i think all the scottish people who are really proud of these foods are going to be quite upset with you okay that border tablet it's nice but it's a little bit too sweet for me it's like a solid crumbly crystally fudge um but yeah very very sweet so border tablet i'll give you a b i think um that would be quite a good snack to take on a walk though a long walk you know like yeah it would give you a bit of energy exactly yeah but it doesn't weigh very much and it's quite small as well that might be something to bear in mind and the bannock selkie bannock i'm gonna give that an a plus i really like that that is good [Music] good morning good morning that park up last night it was all right it was fine peaceful and secluded not much traffic around even though we're quite near to a motorway you couldn't hear it no it was good last night on our way to the park up we passed a sign for a walled garden so i did a quick google on it it looked pretty interesting and um it's literally like half a mile away from the park up so yeah we could have walked if we wanted to but pretty good we drove so we are here and we're gonna have a look around this place has quite an interesting history it's called a misfield wall garden and it used to be part of assume what was a stately home that kind of thing it looked like a massive mansion anyway there's a photograph of it at the entrance on an information board apparently that house was uh demolished in 1928 yeah which is just incredible to think about it because it's absolutely stunning or it was absolutely stunning and the garden fell into disrepair but the walls are still standing somehow and recently i think the council has taken over the lease and turned it into a kind of community garden so it's all rum well mainly run by volunteers no it's a charity that's taking over the lease from the council uh council own it okay there we go but it's run by volunteers and um i mean we've seen about seven or eight volunteers pull up already so i think it's pretty popular yeah and i think it's um a mixture between sort of uh allotment type things where they grow things to actually eat and share them out between the volunteers and also just plants and stuff like that i was gonna say pineapples it said on that side i don't think they grow pineapples anymore now anyway it seems like a really good initiative and i think we're here in the wrong season because obviously not much is in bloom but it still looks beautiful stunning it does yeah it's obviously very well cared for absolutely we're just trying to figure out where the house would have been so we'll try and find one of the volunteers to ask them [Music] we just had a chat with one of the volunteers and he took us into the educational center that they've got and they've got like a timeline on the wall with all the history and different pictures of the house and the grounds and the surrounding area and like aerial photographs and stuff and the history is just absolutely fascinating like it goes back to like mary queen scott's time doesn't it right through to present day but it's just i've been used for so many different things like durian both the world wars and just the various things that has been grown in the garden they had this really i don't know fascinating boiler greenhouse set up like apparently it was like only like the really wealthy that could afford to grow the pineapples because they had to have like constant heat but it was like one of the very first boilers that was invented and then like there was loads of um prisoner of war kept here and in particular people from the ukraine yeah just like just like mad stuff that like happened here over the centuries um yeah really really interesting history recommends checking it out absolutely and um it's run by volunteers as we've said quite a few times yeah and they rely on donations so if you do come here then pop a donation in the box yep all right so we have just arrived at a campsite we have needed to empty our waste and top up our water and things so we've just booked on yeah i think it's quite a reasonable price 23 quid and that's including electricity which we have now we've now got the hookup i know so we can give our batteries a an extra bit of a boost which is quite good actually yeah thinking about it very nice what are you cooking up i'm making a noodle soup nice while jay's cooking lunch aidy and i are going to read a book we're just trying to choose between the very hungry caterpillar and giraffes can't dance this looks amazing okay this is a very good example of why van life with a baby is a good idea right i've just been washing up here aidy's there just playing so i can keep an eye on her jay's over there working i can also make a cup of tea and if i want to i can go to the bathroom all together in the same room don't have to leave her can know what she's doing she's quite happy content there because we're both just here with her i can just chat to her while i'm doing the washing up and yeah it's pretty uh pretty easy going okay you ready for this yeah this looks amazing i think you've outdone yourself i'm starving as well dig in good morning last night was quite a peaceful night in the campsite right yeah it was lovely i had a really good sleep yes um the only thing that i would say actually is that i woke up this morning about six o'clock and i don't know whether this was a dream or whether it actually happened but i heard someone outside of our window going [Laughter] i didn't hear this that's pretty freaky right i'm assuming it was a dream but hopefully it was whereas that's pretty sinister anyway we managed to get our washing done last night and had a really relaxing peaceful evening this morning we've got all the rest of stuff to do when we're on a campsite we try and max it out really so we emptied out last night and we filled up with water this morning we are going to have some nice long hot showers we've got the the boiler on going already then we're going to have to empty out and fill up again after that we're just waiting for breakfast sarah's giving the little and a massage that looks lovely she is relaxed she sounds like it's getting a massage in a bath a very nice morning for her yeah and then we're gonna get on the road all right the vans parked up nice and easy to park loads of space i've been waiting ages for adidas to wait for fenway yeah about 45 minutes we are finally gonna go and explore edinburgh let's do it let's go [Music] the good thing about aj's taking ages to wake up from a nap then is that we have plenty of time to research where to go and get the best haggis from so that is where we are on our way to first of [Music] all for the night stand here while take a little time [Music] since you went away you came to a heart silence is everywhere and you're now [Music] [Applause] what have you got there i've got a doughnut with snickers and chocolate ice cream in it that sounds amazing i think it's going to be really nice but they made it like a cheese toaster they heated it in a in some kind of specially made machine so the ice cream is in the middle and then yeah it got toasted that looks great and the verdict it's really good well we had a really good time in edinburgh yesterday it is not a city that either of us have explored much so we decided that we're going to come back probably later on in the year maybe during the summer when things are a bit more open and the weather's a little bit better and spend a bit more time exploring it in a bit more depth we were absolutely knackered because we spent pretty much all afternoon out and about and then by the time we got to the van we just wanted to go to sleep so we're going about 20 miles down the coast back to musselburgh which is where we are now we stayed tonight just on the promenade overlooking the sea it was really lovely very peaceful and we went to sleep it must have been about eight o'clock yeah we went to sleep the same time as 80. so we've had a good 12-hour kip and we're ready to go now i'm gonna go and grab a bite to eat at a cafe that we've just seen and yeah see what the day brings well that breakfast was absolutely amazing wasn't it it was really really what we needed and we've just been to a local fish mongers and picked up a load of locally caught squid so pretty excited about that absolutely that is the end of the borders historic route really enjoyed it it's quite short yeah you can do it in probably two or three days we uh dragged it out a little bit because well we're just enjoying ourselves um definitely recommend it and this place where we are now muscleborough is somewhere that i think we'll come back to when we visit again in the summer yeah it's lovely we're gonna round things off here guys because we are moving on from edinburgh now going further up the coast onto another road trip another part of the road trip yeah another part of scotland anyway so we will catch you in the next video if you enjoyed the video please give it a thumbs up down below if you've got any questions about van life of a baby um this week has been pretty successful for us it's been quite a good transition into it so if you've got anything that you'd like to know anything that you're unsure of how we're doing it then drop us a comment down below and if you are not subscribed then hit that subscribe button as well and make sure that you hit the bell button whilst you're there so you get notified every time we post a new video next time we're doing this [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Whole World or Nothing

Views: 6,313

Keywords: road trip scotland, best of scotland, scotland travel, where to go from edinburgh, scotland driving, what to do in scotland, vanlife uk, living in a van, full time vanlife, vanlife vlog, vanlife reality, vanlife family, how to vanlife, sprinter conversion, wild camping in scotland, north or south scotland, self converted campervan, hawick, selkirk, moffat hills, grey mares tail nature reserve, loch skeen, dalkeith country park, musselburgh, edinburgh, scottish borders

Id: rvAma6ByPQQ

Length: 28min 23sec (1703 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 23 2022