The Spaceship (London and Southern England)

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We picked up Apollo 14 (our "Spaceship") at about lunchtime on Monday and after completing the regulation systems checks with the onboard computer, we blasted off and set off for our first destination - the Cliffs of Dover. It was somewhat intimidating driving out of London and along the main roads in England. The speed limit does say 50 miles-per-hour, but the reality is that the cops are few and far between, and people seem to go as fast as they want. The fact that it had been snowing throughout the past week didnt seem to really faze too many people either.

It was a relatively short trip to the coast of England, but it was getting dark by the time we arrived in Dover. We made our way to the Cliffs, but the light wasnt all that good, so we vowed to come back in the morning. We travelled the 10kms to the next town, known as "Deal" and parked the car just near the beach for some sleep time. The van wasnt too large and the heating system, while quite good, was obviously not able to be run during the night, which resulted in some very cold temperatures during the evening. It was just a taste of the cold that was to come that week though. To see the Cliffs of Dover the next day was an amazing sight and it was a very surreal feeling. We read that the sight of the white cliffs was a sign to returning travellers and soldiers for hundreds of years that they were finally home and safe.

The next day was a trip down the south coast of England to Hastings to learn about the Norman conquest. Unfortunately, the castle at Hastings was closed, but a guy at the tourist information office told us to drive 20mins up the road to a small town known as "Battle", which was where the actual battle of Hastings took place in 1066. Back in Paris we met a Canadian couple who had just been travelling through Engalnd. We got talking to them and they gave us their National Heritage membership card, which basically gave us free entry into a number of significant sites throughout Engalnd, including Battle Abbey and Stonehenge, to name just a few. Anyway, we actually couldnt find the card, but the bloke on the door just let us thorugh anyway. Champion. Battle Abbey was an absolutely amazing place and we learnt about the Battle of Hastings, and the significant changes in society following the victory of the Normans.

From Battle we drove on to Salisbury and found a caravan park just outside the town. It was another very cold night and there was no one else at the park, which was a little bit spooky too. The next morning we woke up and headed straight to Stonehenge to have a look. Thanks to our Canadian friends, we once again got in for free and spent the morning learning about those amazing rocks. We left Stonehenge for the city of Bath, but some communication difficulties with Houston meant that we didnt stay long there. An unplanned stop in a small town called Ciancuster resulted in us stumbling across some very cool christmas markets and one of of new favourite shops - Poundland (no, not a place where dogs are kept, but a place where everything is one pound - everything!!!). We tried some quiche and chocolate cake, which could only be described as OMG! The food as amazing, but we had to leave it all behind because we wanted to head up to Oxford to look at the Harry Potter university.
When we arrived in Oxford, we were able to navigate to the street where the caravan park was located with relative ease. Major problems were encountered, however, when we discovered that the road was closed due to major roadworks. We tried to go around, but we took a turn into a small area of Oxford that could only be described as a ghetto. At first I thought it might have been the caravan park, but we quickly discovered that it wasn't and high tailed it out of there. When we finally made it to the caravan park, I spoke to the lady behind the counter about the ghetto, and she said a band of trvaveliing gypsies had set up shop there for the time being. Hmmmmm....

Anywy we wandered into Oxford the next morning and spent the morning looking at the amazing architecture within the city centre. It was a beautiful city, but later friends we met in Ireland told us that once you walk about ten minutes out of the city centre, the city is quite dirty and the crime rate is reasonably high. We moved on from Oxford and headed to the small town responsible for the greatest writer England ever produced - none other than the one and only Mr Shakespeare. Stradford-Upon-Avon (WTF?! it will be referred to as SUA from here on in) was a pokey little town with some very cool architecture. When Laura took a photo of the church near the place where Shakespeare died, the camera showed a very interesting ghost-like figure. I'm sure Trav could explain why the exposure etc on the camera wasnt right, but the fact of the matter was that we were both slightly spooked by the photo.

We moved on from SUA and travelled to a very small town near Cambridge called St Ives, where the caravan park was located. When we arrived at the caravan park, there was absolutely no one there and we ended up leaving the place to find somewhere on the side of the road. Mission accomplished, purely by accident, when we discovered a camping ground just behind the local soccer stadium. The next morning we headed into Cambridge for a look at the arch-rival of Oxford. It was touch and go which we preferred out of the two, but I think I'm going to have to go with Cambridge. That may be because we went up the top of the tower and got some great views of Kings College. We also were big fans of the grasshopper clock which could allegedly run for the next 200 years by itself.It was kinda creepy too though.

We then monouvered the party to a town called Ely which is home to one of the bist cathedrals in Europe. Amazing stuff. Ely is actually a collection of islands that have in place an ancient draining system that prevents flooding. It was amazing to hear and read about the mechanics involved with that. Ely is also famous for the famous Oliver Cromwell, a man who- amoung other things- was responsible for spreading Protestant views over the lands- a decorated hero- more on that a little later.

After Ely we travelled down the road back to Hitchin (where Jenni and Paul lived and where we had stayed the previous week) for a quick doctors appt for not-Indy who had succumbed to some space sickness and required medical attention. We also stalked Jenni and Pauls house for about half an hour but they were out so I'm sure the neighbours were un-impressed by two weird people hanging around the place.

After not-Indy had been sorted, we headed down towards Windsor for bedtime so we we coud check out the castle the next morning. We found a carvan park that turned out to be the most expensive and crappy caravan park ever (had a slight dispute with the owner regarding the quality of their facilities the next morning). The next morning we headed into Windsor to have a look at the largest castle still inhabited by the Queen.

Unfornately it was time for our intergalctic adventure to end and we made our way back to port to return Apollo 14. Once the spaceship was docked, we took a train and a bus down to Gatwick to our hotel - it was a little exciting though, because the next stop is Ireland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Photos

Sandwich...
So hard to get a feed here

The Battle
A great battle took place here... and the victor was the Jordanians