Scotland & England

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Scotland & England
Karen Bowden To all camp K and K subscribers
So for this chapter of our little camp K and K we will be heading to the South west of England, Coventry, Scotland and Cambridge and a few places in between, so grab a cuppa and here we go.
So now that we have settled into the London lifestyle and worked out how damn close we are to everything we have been heading out every other weekend we have been heading out on the tourist trail.
One of the First trips we did was with Kaz’s cousin and her husband and we headed down the South West of England. Hired a car and took of on a Friday afternoon went and checked out Stonehenge, which was cool. I think it is funny that they really have no idea of what the purpose is of Stonehenge and they just come up with these random ideas to fill in the info brochure.

We headed down toward the coast cruising along all those little hedge lined roads, lined with old thatched roof cottages and sheep with tails. Found ourselves on the west coast looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. The coastline there is so very dramatic, high cliffs and wind swept hills, very protected harbours and fishing villages on the coast. Amazing old ruined castles. Found ourselves staying in an old fishing village on the coast that had been devastated by a flood in 2004 and it just happened that the weekend we were there was the weekend that the town was having it re-opening which was great to be a apart of. To see how devastating the flood had been. To see all the work that this small community had done to put Boscastle back onto the map and more importantly the Tourist map. So we cruised the coast for a while, found ourselves on the side of the road with a flat tyre, headed up through Dartmoor National Park, which im sorry but it is just a very large Paddock, It is no National Park.
It is a lovely part of England, which is way too big and way too much to see in 3 days.
Had a weekend trip to a friends place at Kenilworth and went to Coventry to the old cathedarel.Warick and the castle there, which is an impressive castle. Went to Stratford and saw were good old Shakespeare grew up. That astounds me that we are going places that has a history of hundreds of years or even over a thousand years in some cases. It is also astounding to see the destruction that England has witnessed through war, fire and famine. (That sounded very profound of me didnt it)

To see the festival of Hastings, a battle, which was lost in 1066, the passion that is held when they re-enact this battle is weird and for us wee convicts a bit funny. Seen im sure us Aussies take nothing seriously. Especially a battle that was lost nearly a thousand years ago but that is what they do hundreds of people all dressed up swords in hand and the whole battle is re-enacted. For us on the day the kids won. There must have been about 50 kids all with toy swords charging each other hour after hour, now if England had these kids on there side they so would have won that battle. (I think England lost that battle)

Now for Scotland, the first words that I heard in Scotland were from our taxi driver who told me to give the door a “hefty bang”. At that moment I just new I was going to have a ball in Scotland, any place that says hefty bang is a friend of mine. I loved black pudding and haggis.Kaz on the other hand thought I was mad and I got her black pudding every breaky time. Right now, I have to say if anyone is in Aberdeen go to a pub called the Blackfriars and have the ale pie. My goodness it was yummy. More importantly in Scotland were the landscapes, the castles and the amount of water. The number of Lochs. The greenness of the grass, it truly is a beautiful place. We hired a car to travel Scotland which was great, and I think if you have the time and want to get off the beaten track a bit it is the best way to do it. To be able to stop at as many castles you want, or for me even more importantly the sunsets.

The Isle of Skye was a gorgeous place and was great to be able to spend a couple of days there. I had kaz in stitches a few times while I was driving, the car, and the roads in the main towns for example Perth where I drove down 3 wrong way streets. One of which I drove all the way down the street because I was over trying to get out of this town, so I just continued all the way down this street, made a bus move off the road, dumb roads. To give humour back to kaz, she had me in stitches when the poor little bugger booked us to stay in a wigwam, thinking that was a name of a hostel. It was quite late at night and as we headed for this Hostel, named wigwam, which I thought was a weird name for a hostel but she had the booklet. It was only when we headed out of the town and turned down a dirt track that I started to think it was all a little bit un hostel like. Nothing can describe the look on kaz’s face as the headlights of the car swung around and focused smack bang on a wigwam, which off course is a wooden tent.

For anyone who is reading this and does not really know kaz, she is not known for her camping skills. The wigwam won, priceless i think, because even though kaz never actually admitted to it, I think she may have enjoyed it a bit...
I can’t say that Kaz or I are whisky fans, we went on a whisky tour, and because you know that is a very Scottish thing to do.Yukkkkky, we dislike it a lot. As part of the tour of the factory, we got a taste of 12 years old scotch; it took all my energy to be able to swallow it. I don’t get people who like it, it is shocking stuff. So if any of you out there has the whisky tongue, is there a special way you should drink it. I tried holding my nose and that didn’t work, trying to skull it, that doesn’t work. Even trying to sip it, nope that didn’t work either.

I also thought I had too much whisky when I saw my first hairy coo, like really what is a cow with so much hair across its face that it cannot see. Only in Scotland really do they call there cows a hairy coo. Odd little things aren’t they, I don’t understand the point of evolution and giving these coo’s more hair. Is it to keep them warm because really all it would be doing, would be annoying the poor little coo, because even thou it is cold in Scotland it is dam more windy then anything else. Poor coo’s with all that hair across there faces
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Talking of the weather in Scotland it stoped us from making complete idiots of ourselves because it was so wet and miserable when we arrived at St Andrews that we decided not to play golf on the old course. Oh that and the fact that it was going to cost us $300 a round. The first story is better. It is a lovely part of Scotland though, the beaches are quite nice and if you do like golf I believe, there are about 45 golf courses in that area.

I think we took about 500 photos in 10 days. Which I think sort of worked out more photos then we had taken through turkey. I have narrowed it down a bit now thou.

Our next tour was to Cambridge, this want take long, it was Educational.1 University with 31 collages.Kaz had fun having a go at punting.

This is attempting to drive a punt, row a punt. What ever you want to call it. She thought that was very cool. Therefore, Cambridge is a bit of a half-day type of a place, the trees looked lovely, you know it was autumn.

So that is where we are up too really, loving London still, heading to Camden Markets and knotting hill, been to the theatre a few times, the last thing we saw was Chicago.
We are having a ball, room for anyone if anyone wants to call in; you know we are not really that far away.
Hope all is well in your neck of the woods and we will be in touch soon.

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Photos

Scotland Castels
is it time for a scottish jigg.

Loch Nessy
it in there,if you look hard enough it will appear.

What the hell is a wigwam
So I tried to book somwhere nice thinking that a wigwam sounded posh... little did i know it was a wooden tent

stirling castle
kaz let down your hair,they can never take away your freedom.

the crowd goes wild
eat your heart out tiger.

its nessy and kaz
hold on to him kaz,and they said he never came out of the loch.

st andrews in autumn
scotland,sunshine one second,snow storm the next.