Time to leave (sunny) Edinburgh and head south.

Decided that we would head straight back to Bernie's tonight and given we didn't leave the city until 11am we knew it was going to be a long day.

Instead of doing the whole trip on the freeway we took the A68 to Newcastle so that we could enjoy the Scottish and English countryside.

Ironically, when we got to the viewpoint at the English border the fog engulfed us and we couldn't see more than 50m in front of us!

Still, the countryside that we did see was quite spectacular. Very green, lots of cows and sheep, and plenty of stone walls.

Eventually we got to the freeway and made up time. 8hrs after departure, and with only a 20min stop, we made it back to Bernie's.

Mitch was amazing on the drive. Slept, looked at the scenery and laughed at the two noodles in the front seats. As suspected though, the last 2hrs were a bit of a stretch so out came the grapes ... then the blueberries ... then the sultanas.

By the time we got to stokey he was well and truly over us and as you can see, very grateful for his bottle (unfortunately this was the only photo I took all day - wish you could have seen him sleeping in the car with his palms turned up - clearly needed some meditation to cope with the drive, and with his parents!)

Bernie whipped up an awesome last-minute dinner for us and Tom and Julia came over and we had a few drinks outside (yay for no rain).