Blogs from Ripon, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

So I came home... the trip that took me 768days to get from the Lebanon to Thailand via the Caucasus, Central Asia, passing over the High Pamirs into China and down into South East Asia. A wonderful little trip that took about 18hrs to reverse... sigh! A plan had formed many moons ago that I would be sailing the Pacific and circumnavigating the world and many whom I travelled with may have heard me boasting of my plan. Especially those North and South Americans who I had promised to visit on the way home. To these people I apologize. I realised that there are a few things of greater importance in life than a jaunt. My face reddens to think that I even considered continuing. I returned par avion to London but not before one massive ... read more

Hackfall Woods are located between Masham and Ripon, just outside the small village of Grewelthorpe in Nidderthorpe, North Yorkshire. In 1731 John Aislabie, member of parliament for Ripon and notable for his involvement in the South Sea Bubble financial scandal in the early 1720s, purchased the woods from a local land-owning family called Hardcastle for the sum of £906. Aislabie also owned the nearby Royal Park at Studley and wanted the woods to provide stone from the quarries on it’s southern edge as well as timber. After John Aislabie’s death in 1742 Hackfall Woods passed to his son William who transformed them into an ornamental woodland landscape in the mid 18th century with follies, waterfalls and fountains dotted throughout. The walk started from the recently built car-park just to the east of the woods on the ... read more

Ripon So today we went on a road trip to York with Dom and Christoph which is about 2 hours drive from Newcastle. On the way, we stopped off in Ripon which has a massive cathedral... which according to Dom in comparison to others around the place, is actually incredibly small. The town itself was small and all the roads were real narrow. We struggled to find somewhere to park, but eventually we managed to get to the Cathedral. The place as massive. It was amazing to imagine this had been built by humans. It was so big I had to walk halfway up one of the side streets just to capture it all in a photo. Fortunately I was allowed to take photos inside for the mere amount of £2.5 ($6.5). While we were ... read more

Gday Everyone Well today we started out from the New Holly Inn in Lancaster (we thoroughly recommend this hotel if you are anywhere near there) We decided to drive through the Lake District and then on through the Yorkshire Dales. The first stop we had was at The Aquarium of The Lakes at Lakeside on Windermere where they have some very different fish there including Piranha. We saw some shark eggs that had babies writhing around in them (shark babies), otters tturtles and so on, a great way to spend an hour or so. We then drove on through Near Sawrey and a mile or so down the road was Far Sawrey we didnt actually see Sawrey...don't know even if there is a Sawrey (Jules stayed at the Sawrey Hotel when she was over here with ... read more