The travels of Tim and Megan: Great Britain Tour

Day 8: Loch Lomond, Scotland and Carlisle, England

We awoke to a rather damp start on Wednesday, with low fog over the loch outside our spaceship. We decided to get going quickly, so we immediately made tracks for Luss, a quaint village on the shores of Loch Lomond, where we could refresh ourselves and find some breakfast.

We thought Luss was gorgeous, full of stone cottages with well tendered gardens, the kind which undoubtedly cause their elderly female owners to puff up with pride. We strolled about the lovely village and the lakefront, then found a tea room for the quintessential British refreshment - tea and scones. Well, Megan did anyway, Tim went for a more American hot chocolate and chocolate fudge cake.

After that, more walking was required, so we rounded Loch Lomond a bit further to Balloch where we stomped around the ruined castle and admired the view across the loch. Then it was time to point the spaceship southwards - the dreary Scottish weather was showing no signs of improving, but surely England would be brighter, right?

We crossed the border into England and drove to a city called Carlisle. Not only was the rain pouring down in Carlisle when we arrived, but the traffic was at a standstill. It seems 3pm on a Wednesday is rush hour! We are constantly amazed with the amount of people in the UK who appear to have nothing to do during weekdays other than prowl centre cities.

Anyway, Megan took on the Tuille Museum for an hour or so to learn about Carlisle's history as a Roman border town, while Tim walked the city streets and sought photo opportunities. We then headed to what turned out to be a very nice campsite just south of Carlisle on a very cold night - we managed to cook and eat our nachos that night in under 10 minutes!

Day 9: Lakes District, England

On Thursday, we embarked on the famous Lakes District of England's north-west and our first port of call was the highly anticipated Cockermouth (great name) to see the house where poet William Wordsworth spent his early years.

Cockermouth is a pretty little town where the Derwent and Cocker rivers meet - which makes for lovely views, but which also sadly leaves the town prone to severe flooding. The Wordsworth House itself was quite impressive (Wordsworth's father was a land agent to a wealthy man, who let him the house rent free), but what we really appreciated was the skill and care that had gone into reproducing the furnishings and set up the house as it would have been in the 1770s, right down to food on the table being served up by costumed maids! We tried a piece of ginerbread, baked from an 18th century recipe. Some of the rooms were "hands on", so we could play with the old fashioned toys in the children's bedroom (one bed for five children!) and write with a quill in the office. Great times.

However, the real adventure of the day was still to come. We left Cockermouth and drove south-east to a lovely place called Windermere, via the pretty village of Pooley Bridge on a lake front, where we swapped our DVDs at a "space station" (one of many spaceship offices scattered throughout Europe). As it had been in Scotland, the scenery around the Lakes District was magnificent - not only the beautiful lakes and mountains, but lovely green farmland and stone walls with old-fashioned wooden gates too.

Windermere is perhaps best known as the place where the author Beatrix Potter lived and wrote her 23 famous stories about animals. After lunch and a look through the town, we headed to The World of Beatrix Potter. The popular tourist attraction brings to life many of the characters Beatrix Potter created and provides some background about Potter herself - she lived on a farm just out of Windermere and created her animal characters from many of her own pets and farm animals or those of her friends on nearby farms.

Our tour began with a short film and then we walked through interactive displays of the characters before arriving at a specially created "Mr MacGregor's Garden". The garden was designed and created by a former Chelsea Flower Show winner, who had carried out years of research to try to re-create the garden as closely as possible to how it was described in the story Peter Rabbit and also to keep as close as possible to the types of vegetables and plants that would have been grown in the area in the early 1900s when Potter wrote the story. We both loved the visit - definitely not just for kids and well worth a look!

We ended the day in the Lakes District by walking along the lake just outside of Windermere. It was a lovely, peaceful walk, although Tim got eaten by sandflies - grrr. We drove on to a market town called Kendal. After navigating a way too complicated one way system, we found a park where we dropped anchor on the spaceship for the night and we had a delicious (and very cheap) curry dinner and a drinks at a Wetherspoons pub.

Day 10: Liverpool, England

We woke early and hit the road straight away, leaving Kendal and finding a Services bay not far from there where had breakfast and freshened up, before carrying on down the road towards Liverpool!

Liverpool was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880. It is a city of around half a million people, although the wider urban area is home to almost 1 million people. The city sits on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. Liverpool's status as a port city has contributed to its diverse population and it is particularly well known for its music and culture - especially The Beatles!

As soon as we parked the spaceship and started wandering through the city, we were struck by the real buzz of the place. More than anywhere else on our tour of Great Britain thus far, the place felt alive and exciting. It was also a stunning sunny day, which helped! We walked down to the port area, past the famous Royal Liver Building - one of England's most famous buildings - with the two mythical Liver birds sitting proudly atop, seaweed hanging from their beaks. The port has undergone a massive regeneration in recent years and now boasts the beautiful Albert Dock, packed with museums, shops and eateries.

After checking out Albert Dock, we walked back towards the city centre and got some lunch in the massive pedestrianised shopping district and then we returned to Albert Dock to visit some of the fine museums. The Pier master's House on the waterfront showed what life was like in the region during the tough World War II years. We also visited Tate Liverpool (modern art gallery), where we saw some great exhibitions, including one that showed normal everyday items like household furniture, but in giant size. That was pretty cool.

Then it was time to join our Beatles Magical Mystery bus tour. The two hour bus ride through Liverpool's suburbs and city centre was brilliant. We had an excellent guide who gave us loads of information about the band members' early years, growing up on Merseyside and how they eventually formed the band that took the world by storm. We saw each of the boys' childhood homes, the schools they attended, the church hall where John and Paul first met and we got to stop on Penny Lane, outside Strawberry Fields and a number of other locations that were important in shaping the Beatles phenomenon.

The tour ended right in the heart of the city, near the famous Cavern Club, the underground bar where the Beatles played a staggering 292 times in their early years, where they started to make a name for themselves in Liverpool. We had a drink in the Cavern Club and listened to a John and Paul tribute band - two brothers called "The Two of Us" - who were really good.

Then we wandered down Mathews Street and around the Cavern area, getting some photos with other Beatles sites, such as the John Lennon statue, the Cavern Club's Wall of Fame (showing the hundreds of famous bands and performers who have played at the club over the years), the Eleanor Rigby statue and the White Star pub, where the Beatles regularly hung out!

In the evening we found a camping ground outside of Liverpool, where we stayed the night. It was a lovely warm evening, so we had dinner outside on the grass then we ended a superb day in Liverpool watching a DVD in the spaceship.

Day 11: Liverpool, England

We woke early on Saturday and left the camping ground to head back into Liverpool. It was going to be a day of exploring Liverpool's stunning museums. After a brief stint at an internet cafe, we set off for Albert Dock and we went our separate ways - Tim to the Beatles' Story museum and Megan to the Liverpool Maritime Museum.

The Beatles' Story museum is spread over two locations. At the first location Tim saw an awesome "4-D" Beatles video experience, a black and white photo exhibition of the band's early years and the White Feather tribute to John Lennon, as told by John's first wife Cynthia and son Julian. Meanwhile, Megan was discovering exhibitions on famous ships, such as the Titanic and the Lusitania, both of which had links to Liverpool, and also on international slave trade conducted from the Mersey ports.

We met for lunch in the city and then we carried on our museum extravaganza - Tim visited the second location of the Beatles' Story museum in Albert Dock, which followed the Beatles from the early days, the forming of the band, the Cavern Club days, their rise to worldwide fame, the crazy years of Yellow Submarine and Sgt Pepper and the eventual break-up of the band. It then followed each band member since the break-up, showing what they had done since, in terms of individual music and other interests. It was a really thorough and well put together story.

Megan returned to the Maritime museum and then carried on to the brand new Liverpool Museum, which included exhibits on daily life in Liverpool throughout history and on popular culture, including sport (such as the mighty, mighty Reds Liverpool FC football team - just for you Mr Colin), music, TV and culture in the region. Later in the afternoon, we wandered through the busy city streets and then boarded the spaceship and headed for...north Wales.