More from the UK

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Here is part two of my travel blog, I haven’t been moving around as much as I thought I would have at this stage but I’m still having a blast. Managed to get up to Scotland for 8 nights which was great fun, I really love it up there. Read on to see what I got up to and hopefully you enjoy the photos.

Day 20 - 26 WHITBY
I made my way back to Whitby after London as I had a few things to sort out and I was also taking a friend from Perth up there for a few days. I eventually ended up staying longer than expected as I was pretty keen to watch some ashes cricket and I knew of a pretty good pub there where I could watch it. I don’t know what it says about the time I spent in Whitby but the bar staff started to know me by name and I actually made friends with a few of them. One night after their shift finished I got invited to join them to go see Ice Age 3 in Middlesbrough which is an hour drive away and what do you do when you have been drinking since 11am and its 9pm? You go don’t you, can’t say I remember too much about the movie but I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it.

Days 27 - 30 EDINBURGH
I decided to move on up to Edinburgh in Scotland. I’ve been to Edinburgh before a few times but the place is amazing, by far the most beautiful city in the United Kingdom that I have been to. There was still quite a lot of stuff there that I had not done before as the last couple of times I had been there I was only there for a couple of days with a mate and we didn’t get a lot done except for Edinburgh Castle and propping up the bar.
The first full day there I spent doing some of the touristy bits. I went to Mary King Close which is crazy. For everybody who hasn’t been to Edinburgh before I’ll try and explain it. The main streets in Edinburgh are linked by little lane ways that they call a ‘close’ and these lane ways can range in width down to as skinny as a metre or so. The buildings either side can be up to 3 or 4 stories high so not a lot of light gets in to some of them. Approximately 100 years ago the government wanted to build a new council building (I’m pretty sure it’s a council building or at least something like that) on the Royal Mile (the main street) so they found a section of land that they liked and looked at demolishing the buildings and setting up the foundations. They realised however that to do this would be very costly so instead they just knocked off the top story of all the buildings already on that land and used the remaining floors as the foundations for the new building. This meant that under the new building there were still houses and these ‘closes’. One of these closes is Mary King Close and it is completely sealed underground with a small entry way through a new building, we got to walk around it and go through the houses and it’s unbelievable to think that there is still a little mini neighbourhood completely underground. The tour guide also tells you stories about the plague that ravaged the city all those years ago. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photographs so you will just have to take my word that it is great and make sure you do it if you ever get to Edinburgh.
On the first day I also went up Scott’s Monument (don’t ask me why it’s named that, no idea) and took some photos of the city from an elevated view, the scenery was amazing.
On the second day I went along to watch Edinburgh play Aberdeen in Aussie Rules Football. My mate was playing for Aberdeen so I went along and had a kick before the game and got asked if I wanted to play but as people know, I’m certainly not the most athletic of people and I was a ‘little’ hungover from the festivities the night before so kindly declined the offer. Edinburgh ended up taking home the points from an injury depleted Aberdeen. One of the highlights of this day was the news that Adelaide had trounced the Dockers back at home 130-13, ha.
That night I headed out on the town with the Aberdeen boys.
Sunday was spent lazing about the hostel bar watching Ashes cricket and having a few bevies. How England got away with a draw I have no idea and I get the feeling that that draw could come back and bite us in the arse at the end of the series.

Days 31 - 33 ABERDEEN
After Edinburgh I went up to stay with my mate in Aberdeen and check the place out as a possible area to get some work at a later date. I was originally just going to stay 2 nights but ended up staying 3 nights for reasons I’ll explain in a minute.
Aberdeen itself is very grey and I mean that the buildings all seem to be built from the exact same material as every building is the exact same colour which means that the city doesn’t seem to have a lot of charm about it. It’s a fairly big city and as most people would know it is the Oil and Gas centre of the United Kingdom so there is a bit of money around. I spent a day wandering around the city checking out the place, there aren’t really any touristy things to do, just a few monuments to people like William Wallace, etc. That night I went to the movies and saw The Hangover which was extremely funny, I highly recommend it.
Like I said before I was going to only stay 2 nights but ended up staying 3 because I decided to do a day trip to St Andrews, the home of golf. Yes people that’s right, another sport based trip for me. Now I have to admit, I didn’t really know much about St Andrews other than it had a famous golf course which is my only reason for going, however, when I got there I was surprised to realise that it is actually a really cool place. Like everywhere else though there were plenty of Aussies unfortunately including one busking on the side of the road, I considered throwing an Australian Dollar in his hat just to be a smart arse but I didn’t have one on me.
Ok, so St Andrews has the ruins of an amazing cathedral and it is huge. I had a walk around the grounds of it and took some photos. After that I walked along the sea side walk and ended up at a castle which I went in and had a walk around. Well, I should say that it is the ruins of a castle, but still they were pretty impressive and after the castle which I read to be over 600 years old, I finally made my way to the hallowed turf of St Andrews Golf Course, or the 6 courses in fact.
I booked in and did an hour walking tour of the ‘old course’ the one where the Scottish Open is played and probably the most recognisable course in the world. Well, when I say a walking tour of the course, I actually only mean the 1st and 18th holes, it would take a lot longer than an hour to get around the whole thing. Our tour guide was a wealth of knowledge and I learnt some very interesting facts about the history of the course, some of the more interesting ones I’ve listed below:
• There are actually 6 courses all lying next to each other
• The land is actually owned by the Scottish people meaning that the golf clubs around the course do not own any of it
• Up until the late 1900’s people were allowed to take turf from the course for their lawns as it was them who own the land
• Once again up until the late 1900’s people were allowed to wash their clothes in the nearby river and then lay them out on the fairways etc to dry, golfers had to play off the clothing if they landed on it and this actually was allowed at any time, including the Scottish Open
• Kids in St Andrews play for free and get two free lessons a week until they are 16
• A round of golf on the old course costs 130 pounds and a caddie costs 50 pounds. Contrary to popular belief, there is not a long waiting list to get a round (I’ve heard upwards of 3 months), if you are willing to wait around for a few hours you can actually get a game on the same day you put your name down.
• No buggies are aloud prior to 12 midday, before this time all clubs must be carried. I think this is because they need to give some work to the 230 caddies they have.
• And finally, golfers have to give way to pedestrians because it is treated as a public park in a sense. We took photos on the 18th with the Royal Golf Club building in the back and while doing this the golfers had to wait for us, they could only start again when we had got off the course.
After the golf course I had a walk through the British Golf Museum and there were some really interesting displays on the evolution of equipment, etc.
I did not have one beer or alcoholic beverage in my three nights at Aberdeen, some people will be proud of me for that (mum) and some will shake their head at me (everybody else) but I certainly needed to give my body a rest for a few days from it.

Day 34 EDINBURGH
After Aberdeen I spent another night down in Edinburgh and didn’t do much except watch cricket (well, a bunch of guys calling themselves the Australian Cricket Team try and play cricket) and drink with a bunch of Aussies down in the hostel bar. Don’t remember much after the cricket so must have been a pretty good night.

OBSERVATIONS & THOUGHTS
• Every second shop in St Andrews is a golf shop
• Seagulls in Aberdeen must take the prize for the noisiest in the world
• My body needs to get used to not waking up when the sun comes up, because it comes up at 4.30am!!!!!!
• I don’t care about the saga of Michael Jackson, stop filling newspapers with that crap
• A fleecy hoodie is not a rain coat but it’s working well as a substitute
• England seem to have forgotten about the 2007 Ashes series and seem to refer to the last Ashes as 2005 in all the media outlets.
• Me and cameras don’t mix. Bought a new one for this trip because my old one had a cracked screen, my new one lasted till day 34 and now has a cracked screen, I blame the alcohol for it.

So, until next time, I hope all is well and feel free to leave comments. Enjoy the photos.

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Comments

[Maric]

Great Blog
Wow sounds fantastic keep on keeping on love the blog , great idea stay safe love from us in WA !!

[aidan]

rock on
sounds like you are havin an awesome time dude... keep the updates coming so i can party vicariously through you!

[Lester]

mmm...
sounds likeyou are having a blast, but where's all the girls? be sure to add a photo of the first pair of swedish backpackers you come across at your earliest conveniance! :) take it easy Lester