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Published: June 27th 2017
Wrapping up the Travel Blog has been sitting on ice for six months since we returned... I'm now publishing our last entries.
Our flight from Munich to London highlights included an incredibly ill-timed poo by Roman which he requested when the stewardess had her serving trolley blocking the aisle. It was overall a good flight though. Our arrival in Heathrow was quite painless; we pro-actively gave the kids mobile phones with games to play in the long customs lines and got through with no tantrums or little fights which was better than usual….
We stepped out to find no transfer driver! Alicia checked her email and found one timestamped from whilst we were in the air saying our flight reference number was wrong so they aren't on the way to pick us up!
The transfer company scrambled well when we called and got a new driver there in 20 x mins and we used our car seats in his car successfully. We had an hour-long transfer with loads of shocking traffic. Nick marvelled all over again about the terraced housing in England, even in the rich areas. It's seems absurd what small blocks they
build on in England when you know Australia. We went to the hotel, ate dinner, and Nick had his first taste of good British beer again (Fullers London Pride) and were asleep before 10pm.
For our first day in London we decided on an unambitious itinerary and made our way via underground to Buckingham Palace. Lucy was unimpressed she didn't get to meet Princess Kate, or the Queen, or the fact she couldn't tour the palace. We tried to explain they didn't want visitors inside their own home…
To tick off the kids wish list we then caught a red London bus. The kids liked being on the top floor of the bus at the front where could see the world going by and I must confess it was a great way to see London, if slow. We jumped off the bus at Knightsbridge to Roman’s dismay; he immediately demanded we reboard another bus.
After a brief walk we found that bloody Harrod's had already decommissioned and boarded up their Christmas windows… boo! Slightly deflated we entered Harrods where Alicia scored herself some Harrods brand tea. She wasn't happy with the limited brands available and
was hoping for some proper stuff, but assumed Harrods must at least rebadge good stuff (her review upon tasting was it's good but not as good as her usual Assam black tea). We also found some Neuhaus Chocolate (Alicia's all-time favourite in Europe) so she grabbed a small selection of these and Nick grabbed 100g of milk chocolate fudge for the kids to nibble and keep them out of trouble.
We bus and tubed home and fed the kids some lunch before putting Roman in the stroller for a long walk with Alicia, whilst Nick put a cranky Lucy in bed for a rest.
We set out again around 15:15 feeling it was too ambitious to try a decent attraction so we instead headed for Leicester Square to try for cheap theatre tickets. The cheap tickets place advised us ‘at this time of year all the kids shows are chockers’ so there's absolutely no deals to be had. We accepted this defeat with grace and after a little exploring around the square we made a bee line for Covent Garden and returned to Nick's old favourite pub 'The Porterhouse'.
Nick ordered some drinks including a
nice Malbec for Alicia and some Pitta & Hummus to keep us going. Nick's order was the 'Plain Porter' which is actually a nitro dry stout that they claim to be a medal winner. It was a gorgeous looking beer with beautiful head and head retention, and the foam stayed thick and creamy throughout the whole drink.
The bar staff gave us a double-take when they delivered our food and said “You can't have kids in here; the policy is no-one below 21!! Didn't you see the sign out front?!” we were genuinely puzzled and nonplussed so they backed down without too much trouble and served our food and asked us to try to leave once our order was finished. With that said I asked Alicia to go and buy me another Porter ASAP so I could get my last try of their beer in before we were banned forever more.
After that with the kids starting to get a little tired and crazy we decided to head for dinner and got to the local 'Lord Nelson' pub in Southwark. Lord Nelson pub is allegedly known for having great burgers and Nick had a “Juicy Lucy
burger” which consisted of a meat patty packed with even more cheese – it ended up being very juicy, cheesy, and extremely delicious. Very, very filling too! Alicia attempted to break her 32- year ‘chicken burger’ drought but they mixed up the order so she got beef by mistake, but she was fine to keep the drought going.
Going back to our hotel room after dinner we were dismayed that 5 metres from our hotel room door Lucy, who had been running down the corridor, tripped in the T-intersection of the corridor and smasher her forehead into the skirting board of the wall. We bustled her back to the room with a cold Fullers beer on her head in lieu of ice and were concerned to see a horrific 4-5mm high lump (almost egg like) forming. After determining she could remember the accident, wasn't vomiting, and/or having bad headaches we diagnosed her as ‘ok’ and popped the kids in a long overdue bath and finally to bed. Further head injury checks reassured us she was fine to keep sleeping.
The next morning we headed to the London Transport museum where we learned a bit about the
history of public transport in the city e.g. how the Underground was built. The kids got a chance to join a children’s sing-along session and play on many vehicles. Highlights included them dressing in period costume from the 19
th century and sitting in the driver seat of a modern bus where they could play with all the controls and steer the wheel. It was a pretty good museum for both kids & adults and we had a good morning there before setting off for some lunch.
In the afternoon we took a massive bus ride to get it out of the kid’s system and to see more of the city this way. But for the awful traffic it was a pretty good journey but wasted a lot of time. We finally got to the London Natural HHistory Museum in the later arvo where the crowd lines were 90+ mins long and totally out of control. We’ve learned through this experience and the failure to get Theatre tickets the day before, that it’s very unwise to come to London during a holiday period!
There were crazy, dense crowds at South Kensington Underground stop and Roman & Nick got separated
Kids on the Train
The kids stayed out of trouble nicely on our train ride from London to Stokefrom Alicia & Lucy by a fast closing train door! Thankfully we could lip read through the door and met up down the line quite easily. It was a bit of funny, painless lesson for the kids to see how easy it is to get lost and separated.
For our last night in London we popped down to London Bridge to view Tower Bridge which was handsome as ever and lit up purple. Nearby was ‘the Shard’ looking impressive and lit up like a Christmas tree. We then set out to find dinner but to our dismay were thwarted by all the decent food Pubs either chockers and/or refusing to admit kids. We ended up in a slightly rough looking pub close to our hotel that was quiet enough and to our pleasant surprise had decent ribs, grilled chicken, bangers & mash, and scampi (which is something Alicia always enjoyed in England before and still did).
Overall we didn’t get much out of London in our brief time there, with the city bursting at the seams at every tourist attraction and the kids a bit cranky through tiredness but it’s still a fabulous city.
Fullers London Pride is a great beer too.
The next morning we departed London for Wales via Stoke-on-Trent. Trying to get up at 05:45 to get out the door with kids very tired and absolutely not wanting to wake up wasn’t much fun. Our transfer drive to Euston Station was very brief but worth the 25 pounds for reduced grief and Alicia's peace of mind. To our pleasure our train carriage was 90% empty and we were able to ignore our reserved seats and take tables near our luggage. Nick wrote Travel Diary whilst Alicia relaxed and the kids played on their tablets for the 1.5 hour journey to Stoke. Upon arrival in Stoke it was bloody cold and foggy with everything out the window covered in frost.
We grabbed our hire car and made a bee line for the Burleigh Pottery factory nearby and Alicia spent a good 40 mins pondering her options whilst the kids drew and played in the good facilities there. Shortly Alicia spent our entire family fortune on teapots, cups, platters, and jugs plus shipping to Australia and was very happy and excited (but for our new poverty). We
then had a decent high tea at the tea rooms where the kids ripped through their cake and Nick had a scone with jam & cream; hopefully the first of many good ones in England. With kids fed we hit the road to drive to North Wales. Thankfully the exhausted kids fell asleep promptly and Nick & Alicia enjoyed a nice drive listening to our music and chatting. We reminisced about driving north on the M6 motorway toward Manchester/ Warrington/ Preston again (where we’d lived for a few years pre-children when we lived in the UK) and generally had a good little two hour drive to Conwy in North Wales and its historic and famous castle.
Conwy was reasonably sunny with limited clouds on arrival and we enjoyed a nice fish & chips lunch down by the waterfront and the kids chased the absolutely massive seagulls around. We then headed to the castle that was well liked by all.
Nick had a stab at explaining to Lucy & Roman why the English had built the castles along the Welsh coast in their conquest of Wales and why they’d need to defend them from attacks from land and supply
Fond memories
Alicia and I had spent many hours driving the M6 up and down. We've got fond memories of all the places on the signs. from sea. It went pretty well using concepts the kids could grasp and thankfully we didn’t get into the morality of it…..
Conwy Castle is certainly in a great state of preservation with brilliant views around the picturesque surroundings and we climbed many towers and stood at many battlements to soak it up. The fences to stop kids plummeting to their deaths weren’t top-notch though so Alicia was greatly relieved to get out of there as the sun began to set.
We made our way to the nearby town of Caernarfon as the winter sun set. Caernarfon has a similarly famous & historical castle but we knew we’d have to put off site seeing until tomorrow.
We hit our old supermarket chain of choice ‘Morrisons’ in Caernarfon but failed to find the delicious pretzels we remembered fondly from our former life in the UK. They did have decent beers though including, of all things, some American imported IPA we can’t get in Australia like Goose Island and Lagunitas which Nick duly snapped up.
That night we found a great Welsh pub for dinner and plugged the kids into their tablets
fairly promptly so we could just relax and enjoy. We had filling Welsh food, stunning beers (including BrewDogs Elvis Juice which is a stunning IPA made with Grapefruit pith) then headed home happy.
In the morning it was New Year’s Eve (NYE) and we frittered away the morning with a good sleep, a 30-minute exercise workout, and breakfast. We decided against touring inside the Caernarfon Castle but walked outside around the waterfront a bit and had some nice views and photos of the castle, town, and boats. It really is a brilliant looking castle to see from the outside and we were glad we made it there despite the limited time. We would have liked more time but had to get across the country to Yorkshire by mid-afternoon.
We made decent progress on our long drive and ate lunch at a 'Little Chef' roadside diner (a chain apparently) just inside the Wales border. Alicia was very dubious about its merits but it turned out fine. She had a decent scampi and Nick a sandwich.
We made our destination in time and got to Harrogate and parked up in front of Betty's Tea shop at 15:45.
Betty’s is a well rated tea shop, fairly famous, and Alicia was determined to tick it off the list. Alicia had delicious Treacle tart and a brown-bread ice cream(!) She loved the tart and was very happy; her tea was pretty good too. Nick had some nice scones in an impressive tiered tower and a Tim Taylors Landlord beer on bottle (you can get ale just about everywhere in the UK!). The kids nibbled little cakes and were happy enough.
With evening approaching and knowing we were staying at a middle of nowhere Highway service complex where we didn't like our chances of a good dinner we decided to eat at a Wetherspoons chain pub in Harrogate which was fine. Nick used to, and still does wish they had Wetherspoons pubs in Australia (the food is fine and the beer selections excellent) and you know the quality & menu will be the same wherever you are. Nick had a couple of pints of Sharps Doom Bar which is a very drinkable Bitter before we resigned ourselves to our dull NYE night.
At our hotel Nick harangued the check-in guy for charging 67 pounds a night (which
was a ludicrous price for such a middle of nowhere place) the chap justified it as NYE. “Sigh”.
Our NYE consisted of putting tired to Lucy to bed and having Roman (who’d slept in the car which usually leads to him being up past 10pm) keep us company. Alicia read her book and Nick watched ‘Match of the Day’ the Football (soccer) highlights show. Roman had a huge jump on the bed and wheel barrow walks on his hands to wear him down then fed daddy Fullers London Pride beer and vegetable crisps (which thankfully he didn’t like, but liked feeding Nick) for 20 mins. We finally got Roman to bed and calm by 22:30 and we were asleep soon thereafter. Bit of a dud of a day.
Our new year 2017 began with the lofty goal of driving to the charming seaside town of Whitby.
Enroute we had a delicious roast pork Sunday lunch in a little pub with a cosy cast iron fireplace on the way. We loved seeing Yorkshire puddings again alongside a roast and despite the kids not eating too well we didn’t let them kill our buzz and
we enjoyed the fire and a chat.
In the early afternoon Alicia drove through some blustering winds on the winding roads through the moors on the way to Whitby. The moors were desolate as ever but it looked like some good hiking country.
We arrived in Whitby in narrow streets choc full of parked cars; nowhere to park in sight so we had to stop with hazards and frantically unload everything then race the kids and luggage in from the chilly wind. Our friends Gareth & Vicki arrived soon after and we met 8 month old baby Zelda who was very sweet and able to sit up unsupported. Not crawling yet but looks likely. Lucy was ecstatic to have some Zelda cuddles and a bath with her later.
With the arrival of our other friends Ruth & Stephen and their kids over the next few days in Whitby we had some relaxing days. Gentle walks in the brisk sea air, child friendly itineraries, ice creams, meals together, and a few pints in the various pubs. By virtue of being in a house we also managed to get caught up on all our washing.
Nick’s body began falling apart. A knee from constantly running with Roman and carrying him up stupendous hills in various countries, and some bad heartburn and reflux from the endless heavy quota of daily beer drinking. Nick was unwilling to let his frail body undermine his European & English beer drinking agenda so bravely (stupidly) soldiered on with antacid and countless pints. At least 3L a day.
We tended to have evenings in with our friends; getting the kids off to bed the chatting, playing games, and listening to music on Youtube (with much critique of one anothers choices).
A few other Whitby highlights outside of the highlight of seeing Alicia’s best friends was more nice scampi, the charm of the great seaside town, and a cracking kids play park where we were first entertained by grey squirrels running about in the park then by some excellent quality equipment including numerous balance bridges, pirate ships, crows nests, and a spring loaded see-saw that spun and was absurdly dangerous and liable to slingshot your kids off to their broken limb/ paralysis/ death. Alicia and I had a go on the slingshot spinner too and it was
a bit like jumping around in low gravity and was very fun. Nick remained extremely stressed about little Roman being on it though as the kids had to hold on very tight.
Eventually we farewelled our friends on the last Whitby day and after a final play at the great park and a nice morning tea we set out to get to Manchester (2.5+ hour drive) aiming arrive before sunset. On the way we pulled over to a popular looking fish & chip place in the middle of the Yorkshire countryside. We had nice scampi for Alicia and a giant and quite tasty piece of battered cod for Nick. British chips remain laughably poor, it’s amazing that anyone can eat them.
Read on for the final entry of our trip as reminisce in Manchester and fly home to oz.
As always click through to the next pages for more photos
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