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Published: June 14th 2012
The Crow
Dark Wings, Dark Words (one for the Game of Thrones fans). We only had a week to see the sights outside London in the UK. Yes - not much time, but we really wanted to focus on Europe. After looking at different train fares (really expensive unless you book way in advance) and trying to work it all out we realised that a hire car was going to be the way to go.
Tuesday morning, Katie kindly dropped us off at the station (thanks again for being so generous Katie!) and we went in to Victoria station to get our car. From there we drove West out of the city heading for a pile of rocks called Stonehenge. As we attempted to find out way out of the city, we discovered that it's sometimes hard to work out what the speed limit is, and even when you know - noone else seems to pay any attention to it. If the UK govt wanted to raise some money, they'd just have to start cracking down on speeding - it's astonishing how fast some drivers were going!
As we travelled West, the rain got more and more fierce, and when we got to Stonehenge it was quite heavy and pretty
Stonehenge
Taken during a break in the weather. hah! well sideways. We had waterproof jackets and a brolly, but our legs got soaked. Entry to the stones was around 8 pounds, which seemed pretty steep, but we had come all this way... The lady in the paying booth (which was a porta-cabin!) convinced us that getting an "English Heritage Visitor Pass" was the way to go. 43 pounds for the two of us and we'd get free entry to all English Heritage sites, and a guide book. Seemed good.
Stonehenge was really impressive - larger than we were expecting, and quite eerie. There was some good information on the audio guide, but given the insane weather we didn't listen through all of it. It'd be great to go back sometime on a sunset visit with decent weather - even more awe-inspiring.
After Stonehenge we took a little detour off the motorway to see one of the many white chalk horses. Profiles of horses (spanning at least 10 metres at a guess), were carved into hillsides around the area. Some descripitons suggest they were a sign of victory after battles of territory. We had to drive to the top of the hill to get a better look at
White horse
This looked great from a distance. Shame that rather than doing the normal weeding that has to be done for upkeep, they decided just to concrete it in! this one and at one point Chris pulled off the road and reversed to get a good photo - subsequently dropping one side of the car into a ditch. Fortunately a local guy was passing and saw us and helped push the car out. We thought if we moved the slightest bit more we could have rolled the car into a steep, nettle-filled ditch! Bit of excitement for the day and here's hoping that was it for any car dramas!
From there we travelled on to Bath which is a city containing a natural hot spring that the Romans (of course) loved. We got in pretty late and had been unable to sort some couch surfing options so we got a couple of dorm beds in the YHA Hostel, which is a beautiful old mansion up a steep hill (11% gradient for the cyclists) from the city. Bath is classic old style city - full of curly narrow one way streets and easy to get confused in even though it's quite small.
Wednesday morning we wanted to go in to see the Roman Bath museum, but unfortunately it was very expensive, and it's not an English
Bath in Bath
The water was bubbling and looked pretty hot (though a little festy). Heritage building, it's a National Trust building so we would've only got a 10% discount. Instead we opted for a guided walking tour around the city which was really interesting and showed off some of the great architecture and history of the town. We went to one of the most expensive streets, called "Royal Crescent" where John Cleese currently lives, and Elton John, Bill Gates and others have previously owned property. It was pretty beautiful. We were considering doing funny walks up and down the street in the hope that John Cleese would come out and say hi, but then our tour group moved on. There was a spa in town you could still use, but at a 26 pound entry for 2 hours, we declined. We found out on the tour it cost around 40 million to build, so we can understand the entry fee!
From Bath we drove North up to Worcester to visit Julia and William who own and maintain a really old walled garden. It used to be the garden for a large house that is still next door and William and Julia live in what used to be the servent's house. The
Mansion/Youth Hostel
A pretty amazing old building. Quite a nice hostel. A lot of older and quieter people staying there which was good. garden was beautiful and they have done a lot of work to restore it from the completely overgrown state it was in when they bought it. There are lots of edible and medicinal plants and it's all organic. Nena had met William and Julia in Goulds back home, and they were really generous and kind in letting us stay for the night, feeding us, and showing us around their garden.
After a delicious breakfast and another quick look around the garden we continued heading North towards the Lake District. Along the way we stopped at Tatton Park for lunch. The weather was pretty dismal so we didn't stay for long. That night we stayed in an amazing old barn that had been converted into accomodation for travellers. It was HUGE - four time as large as our house at home, and for some reason noone else had booked in so we had the whole place to ourselves. Mattresses, kitchen, solar hot water, microwave, kettle, comfy couches, and all! There are a few of them around the Lake District. Not bad for 8.50 pounds each! I definitely recommend these and they'd be great fun with other campers/hikers staying
Walled Garden, Worcester
This is William and Julia's house. When the sun came out for a bit, it got quite hot inside there. Really nice sitting and drinking tea while chatting. too.
Friday we backtracked a bit and then drove through the middle of the lake district and then up to Edinburgh. The lake district was pretty stunning. Chris wants to come back in summer and go mountain biking... oh wait... this is summer. Anywho - a beautiful area with waterfalls, creeks, lakes (duh) and trees. We got in to Edinburgh around dinner time and found our way to Sylvie's house who was hosting us for the next couple of nights.
Saturday we firstly grabbed a scone and tasty coffee (a great little cafe called Wellington), and then did a free three hour tour around Edinburgh which was excellent. So much info on the history of the city and the country. Some fascinating tales involving murder for money, fake puppy dogs, uni students stealing historical artifacts, and some more murder (this time for religion). The rest of the day was spent just wandering around different areas and eating some tasty haggis (vegetarian of course). :-)
Sunday we jumped in the car again and drove down to Whitby, stopping along the way to wander around Warkworth castle (using our Heritage card as much
Comfrey Compost
This is great. Just a big piece of PVC pipe with a lid on top, and a funnel in the bottom that drips into a watering can. Just rip off confrey leaves and stick them in the pipe. As they break down they drip liquid fertaliser into the can. Water it down a lot and pour on your plants. as possible). It was still raining a fair bit, so rather than camp, we opted for staying in a hostel. Strangely enough we were the ONLY people in the hostel. Kinda weird wandering around a 5 room hostel complete with kitchen, lounge room, and toilets and being the only person there. For dinner we finally got the fish and chips we have been waiting for. Chris had scampi (a type of very small lobster tail fried in breadcrumbs) and chips, Nena had fish and chips with mushy peas. A couple of Irish beers added up to a good wholesome meal.
On our last full day in the UK, we first visited Whitby Abbey which was a pretty impressive sructure with an amazing history. The front door was blown off during shelling from German boats during the first world war. During the middle ages, the Church owned 1/7th of all the land in England! A bit further driving through the bleak moors brought us to Scarborough Castle which was built in the 12th century, but there have been settlements up there since around 1000BC. It's funny to think about - the history is so huge compared to Australias
Walled Garden
More of it. Such a great variety of plants. 200 years since settlement, but on the other hand, there is evidence of Aboriginal middens that date back at least 40000 years, which kinda makes 1000BC seem not that long ago.
By now, nena was regretting not having any decent shoes with her (ie waterproof). Shoes and socks had been soaked several times in a row. Chris was regretting this aswell, as the smell coming from the socks could've caused paint to peel off the car! Nena says this is good reason for Chris to buy her some shoes...
From there we drove down to Nottingham to stay with a couple of couch surfers in there beautiful house in Sherwood. We were not robbed by any Men in Tights along the way. Thanks to Lizzie and Dave for their hospitality and hopefully we'll see you in Oz sometime!
The next day we drove to London to catch the train to Brussels to begin our Europe tour. The only minor misshap was Nena had her knife confiscated at the bag xray, as it's a prohibited weapon (folding blade which locks out). Bummer!
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