Do you ever get in those moods where you don't feel like reading and you don't feel like being on the internet and you don't feel like watching a show and you don't feel like sleeping and you don't feel like existing in general BUT YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING.
Sunday, December 10, 2017
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Sarah goes to Sheffield
Welcome to this mini post of my mini visit to Sheffield. Despite my girls having a busy uni schedule at the time of my visit, they were so kind to spend most of their time with me and pampering me silly with good food and little fun-filled activities. Our time were spent on blowing bubbles and talking to strangers in the Fountain Park, having hot pot in a casino, home cooked meals whilst watching Blue Planet, pretending to be critics in Ikea's showrooms, ice-skating and talking about murders and stabbings that occurred around town. Here are some photos to go with the post, no crime scene photos though, apologies.
Not much documented in a digital photo form but it was time well spent. Thank you again, girls ♡ As of the current health of my mind, well, job hunting is depressing and reading about every other country's economy is discouraging but all in all, best to focus on the positive. I got to talk to my long time high school friend over video call for a couple hours today and that was incredibly heartwarming and her being so far in the adult world, I better pull up my socks and get going with growing up. sigh.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Sarah goes to Comrie Croft
Let's see if I am capable of keeping this pace of posting daily and finishing off majority of my travels by the end of 2017 (I doubt it though, I'm down with a fever at the moment). During the beginning of October, the boyfriend and I decided to book a camping trip in Scotland and this is what happened.
After looking under rocks and searching over mountains of the interweb and narrowing down our options, we finally made the decision to camp in this beautiful eco-campsite named Comrie Croft in Scotland. It was £8 per night, per person for setting up tent in one of the three selections of land. The boyfriend wanted to share the most authentic camping experience with me so he chose the Birch woodlands as our location for 7 days and 6 nights.
This is a little memory that I want to jot down so I can remember. We arrived early to board our train, however, we made a silly mistake of getting on a train that was on the same platform to Edinburgh but it was a train before ours and we almost ended up going down south to London instead of north to Scotland. We rushed out in the nick of time, pretty much the eleventh hour. I was out of breath by the time we got off because we were chucking a lot of camping gear on our backs whilst finding a door that was unlock. I guess you could say he was the station master, this man was outside of one of the door which I pulled the window down and tried my best to catch his attention. He was one stuck- up little butthole, pardon my language but I pretty much had to plead and beg him to let us out of the train after I said my pleases. To add on to the stressful start of our trip, this boy had a nose bled. Safe assured, we did get off the wrong train and boarded the correct train.
It was so much to take in for someone who could not get a wink of sleep the night before and arriving the station at the crack of dawn but we had each other and Chris being such a "look at the bright side" type of guy, we rarely saw a situation as horrible, it's just an experience we are bound to come by. To break down our journey to the campsite, we took a train to Edinburgh (£10.30) then another train to Perth (£5.60) where we purchased some groceries on the way to the bus stop. We had to take two separate buses that brought us to a little town of Crieff and then finally ending up at Comrie Croft (£3 for a single ticket that included both bus rides). It was definitely quite a journey to get to our destination but I can say it was worth it.
Word of advice: Book train rides separately for example, instead of searching Newcastle to Perth (which transits in Edinburgh as well), break it down to purchasing a ticket from Newcastle to Edinburgh then another ticket to Perth. By doing this, our tickets were three to four times cheaper. This is not always the case but double checking won't hurt a soul and there are chances you'll burn a smaller hole in your wallet. Don't forget to use your 16-25 railway card for more discounts.
We arrived and was greeted by the pouring rain so we had to quickly get the tent up to keep most of our belongings dry. Camping for a week definitely has made me appreciate a roof over my head a whole lot more.
During our walk, we came across a waterfall, saw black grouses along the way, mountain hares, red squirrels, a herd of rams and a scottish bison in a little yard next to a mansion. We sort of made the mistake of going to town on a Sunday because not many shops were open and everything closed before 5pm. Tsk tsk.
DAY 3-5
We were usually tucked in our sleeping bags by 9pm, awake by 7-8am and we start building a fire at 4pm right before it gets dark and cooked our dinner around 5pm. We mostly cooked up scrambled eggs for breakfast and vegetable soup for dinner (occasionally with a packet of instant noodles or rice for carbs). For the next few days, we ventured off to visit Crieff, explored the town area, had a couple bowls of soup in a cosy cafe (mainly so we could charge our phones), explored a beautiful park, took more walks around our campsite and the boyfriend did some mountain biking sessions whilst I carved a walking stick and read a book next to a river.
Tip: Camping during autumn means beautiful dead leaves, hardly any insects and no mosquitoes.
In the morning of Day 7, we packed up, disposed of our rubbish, recycled what we could and headed to the train station (Perth>Edinburgh £5.60 | Edinburgh>Newcastle £10.25). We arrived in the late evening, rushed over to St Sushi to have another rewarding meal of delicious food and that was the end of our little adventure.
Below are bips and bops that helped us survive a week in the woodlands.
(Most of the camping items can be easily purchased for a cheap price in TK Maxx or Sports Direct)
1. A tent, sleeping bag, torchlights, cooking utensils and string
2. Matches, firestarters, swiss army knife and aluminium foil
3. Hiking shoes, thick socks, gloves, waterproof pants and jacket/raincoat
4. A pillow, a book and water bottle
5. A thermos flask, heat packets and an external charger (sponsored by Katryn)
6. Uncle Ben's boil in bag rice if you cannot survive a day without rice (boil in water for 10mins only)
7. Instant packets of drinks such as Teh Tarik and Milo (sponsored by Katryn) and marshmallows
8. Resealable bags (to keep things dry), hand sanitiser, toilet rolls and wet wipes
9. Hot showers and toilets were provided in Comrie Croft (super clean, 8 minutes walk downhill from tent)
10. Fresh vegetables were available for purchase at the reception and clean water to drink and wash our cooking utensils were provided as well.
That's all I have for you guys, I hope this was an enjoyable scroll, till next time, ciao.
After looking under rocks and searching over mountains of the interweb and narrowing down our options, we finally made the decision to camp in this beautiful eco-campsite named Comrie Croft in Scotland. It was £8 per night, per person for setting up tent in one of the three selections of land. The boyfriend wanted to share the most authentic camping experience with me so he chose the Birch woodlands as our location for 7 days and 6 nights.
DAY 1
It was so much to take in for someone who could not get a wink of sleep the night before and arriving the station at the crack of dawn but we had each other and Chris being such a "look at the bright side" type of guy, we rarely saw a situation as horrible, it's just an experience we are bound to come by. To break down our journey to the campsite, we took a train to Edinburgh (£10.30) then another train to Perth (£5.60) where we purchased some groceries on the way to the bus stop. We had to take two separate buses that brought us to a little town of Crieff and then finally ending up at Comrie Croft (£3 for a single ticket that included both bus rides). It was definitely quite a journey to get to our destination but I can say it was worth it.
Word of advice: Book train rides separately for example, instead of searching Newcastle to Perth (which transits in Edinburgh as well), break it down to purchasing a ticket from Newcastle to Edinburgh then another ticket to Perth. By doing this, our tickets were three to four times cheaper. This is not always the case but double checking won't hurt a soul and there are chances you'll burn a smaller hole in your wallet. Don't forget to use your 16-25 railway card for more discounts.
DAY 2
TA-DA, our little home set up for the next 6 days.
The weather was kind to us so we decided to go for a little hike to the nearest town, Comrie.
DAY 3-5
We were usually tucked in our sleeping bags by 9pm, awake by 7-8am and we start building a fire at 4pm right before it gets dark and cooked our dinner around 5pm. We mostly cooked up scrambled eggs for breakfast and vegetable soup for dinner (occasionally with a packet of instant noodles or rice for carbs). For the next few days, we ventured off to visit Crieff, explored the town area, had a couple bowls of soup in a cosy cafe (mainly so we could charge our phones), explored a beautiful park, took more walks around our campsite and the boyfriend did some mountain biking sessions whilst I carved a walking stick and read a book next to a river.
Tip: Camping during autumn means beautiful dead leaves, hardly any insects and no mosquitoes.
I had my go at the practice range, even that was scary for me.
DAY 6
On our second-to-last day, we decided to take a longer and higher hike up the hills in the morning to catch the wonderful views displayed below. Before the sunset, we took a bus to Crieff for an Italian meal to celebrate surviving the woods for the pass few days and diligently cooking our meal only in a metal pot above a fire.
We built our final fire and made it a big one this time. We pretty much burnt everything in sight.
DAY 7
Below are bips and bops that helped us survive a week in the woodlands.
(Most of the camping items can be easily purchased for a cheap price in TK Maxx or Sports Direct)
1. A tent, sleeping bag, torchlights, cooking utensils and string
2. Matches, firestarters, swiss army knife and aluminium foil
3. Hiking shoes, thick socks, gloves, waterproof pants and jacket/raincoat
4. A pillow, a book and water bottle
6. Uncle Ben's boil in bag rice if you cannot survive a day without rice (boil in water for 10mins only)
7. Instant packets of drinks such as Teh Tarik and Milo (sponsored by Katryn) and marshmallows
8. Resealable bags (to keep things dry), hand sanitiser, toilet rolls and wet wipes
9. Hot showers and toilets were provided in Comrie Croft (super clean, 8 minutes walk downhill from tent)
10. Fresh vegetables were available for purchase at the reception and clean water to drink and wash our cooking utensils were provided as well.
That's all I have for you guys, I hope this was an enjoyable scroll, till next time, ciao.
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