From Donna & Clyde: We left Edinburgh on Friday morning and headed south and back into England. We did some exploring and managed to find Hadrian's Wall (not as impressive as the Great Wall and unsure who Hadrian thought it might keep out, but it made a nice walk). We spent the night at a small camping site near Carlisle and then hit the road again early in the morning and headed to the Lakes District visiting Grasmere, Windermere etc, which we loved. We then hit the M6 and headed over to Ashbourne and set up camp for the rest of the long weekend. It has been fine but very cold over the last couple of days - so cold that the news reports here have said that it is colder this weekend than it was on Christmas Day. Brittany let us down last night by getting a puncture which was not ideal at 7pm on the Saturday of a holiday weekend but luckily we had already made it to our camp site when it went flat. It might not have been so bad if the rental company had left any details in their massive bible of instructions, such as where to find the jack and the spare tyre, and how to lower the tyre down from under the van. After a couple of hours and some time on the internet trawling through the many chat rooms complaining about the design flaws in Ford Transit vans, we managed to sort it out, despite the fact that we have still not located a wheel brace and had to rely on some friendly fellow campers coming to our rescue. If anyone ever needs to change a tyre on a Ford Transit van, feel free to give us a call! We are still waiting for a return call from the rental company when we called them for help, which we expect we might get on Tuesday morning, as everything seems to shut down here completely on long weekends. Now we no longer have a spare tyre, so fingers crossed that we don't get another flat. We have spent today at a theme park called Alton Towers, but Molly and Toby will no doubt tell you all about that!

From Molly:

Today we spent our whole day at a theme park in Ashbourne called Alton Towers. My favourite ride of the day was Nemesis (The most intense ride ever). You start strapped in to your own seat with your feet dangling freely and you go up a hill slowly and the all of a sudden you go really fast and turn right around and go round a loop and go upside down and sideways and then it finally stops. Next we went on a ride called Ripsaw, which was really freaky!!! You strap in and go round and round in circles until finally you stop right at the top so you're upside down. Then just a little part of it moves - not all of it only the part your sitting on and then you stop again (still upside down) and then you slowly go down facing down and trying hard not to get wet. Next we went on a ride called Oblivion where you go down a huge vertical drop into a hole in the ground. Then we went on Rita which was the fastest ride ever. Then the ride 13 which gave you a big surprise when you stopped and then it went pitch black and all of the rails suddenly dropped straight down and you go backwards. There were lots and lots of more cool rides but everyones harping on at me cause I wrote to much already:(.

From Toby: On Sunday we went to a theme park. We walked by a little stand where you had to throw a ball and try to knock cans down. If you knock all the cans down you win a huge, ginormous, stuffed DONUT!!