Isle of Man and Oxford

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Gillian has tried to set the kitchen on fire twice when trying to cook carrots on a gas stove. David is now expert in cleaning blackened saucepan and carrots are now off the menu.

The trains in England are amazing, they travel at 200km per hour. They are very clean and comfortable. Campbell Newman take note.

We started this leg of our trip to the Isle of Man with a train journey to Liverpool and were impressed at the transformation of Liverpool Docks. The whole area is now magnificent mix of old and new buildings. Elvis and the Beatles memorabilia are everywhere, museums are first class.

Next day we travelled on a catamaran built in Tasmania that the Australian Government would not buy, and we had a very rough crossing to Douglas on the Isle of Man. Our accommodation B and B appeared flat on the map but was instead up a very steep hill. That afternoon we saw the huge water wheel at Laxey lead mine (salmon in local language) we are glad not to be miners in that picturesque but dreadful place.

On the following day we went on an antique train to the end of the island, and on the return trip went to a most intact and well presented castle at Castletown. Gillian shook hands with the King of the Isle of Man. There was enough to see that we could have spent an entire week there.

It took nine hours by ferry and train to return to Bristol, so we rested for a whole day.(We went clothes shopping ).

Having adequately rested we set out for Oxford and spent a whole day wandering around. It is a very interesting and visually striking city, and we of course forgot our camera, so relied on the mobile phone which eventually went flat. Nearly all the important people in the world seemed to have gone to Oxford to study and the most memorable was Richard Burton who was thrown out.

We have three whole days before we go to Stratford on Avon and already are working out how to fill them .

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