Day two. Second country.


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Europe » United Kingdom » Wales » Denbighshire » Llangollen
July 19th 2005
Published: February 9th 2006
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It's off to Wales now
Thirty-five minutes from Bath
The sun shines again!

Our morning start of 8:30 seemed so late! Guess I'm still used to the early morning wake ups from Australia. Plus the fact that the sun rises much earlier here now that it is summer. I had a great sleep even though I woke up several times during the night but as per usual just fell right back to sleep right away. The first time I woke up was at 00:26...I felt like I had been asleep all night! But it had only been 2 hours. LOL For a shaky metal bunk bed, it was pretty comfortable. Perhaps it was just a good mattress and not too much movement from Wai-ting down below. 😊

Breakfast was included with our hostel so we all went down for cereal, toast and bad coffee - I should have gone for the tea! There was yummy black currant jam for the toast but I was disappointed there was no peanut butter. Mind you, I don't like the peanut butter that I've tasted so far in England. Guess I just like my over processed Kraft peanut butter! lol

Right now we have a 35 minute ride from Bath before getting to Wales. The fields around here seem so lush and green. I guess it seems especially so after being in dry Australia. LOL Plus I have to keep reminding myself that it is now summer where I am.

Oh, a quick petrol fill up stop in Pennsylvania before we continue on our way to Wales...time to enjoy some of the scenery...

River Severn - border between Wales and England. It cost £14.30 for our bus (£4.80 for a car) to enter into Wales. It is no charge to enter England. Here are some fun facts on Wales as provided by Fergie:
* Population = 3 million
* 120km from top to bottom
* 50km from East to West
* Official languages - English and Welsh. All of the road signs are bilingual. The Welsh language contains a lot of words that have no vowels!
* Some famous Welsh folks: Tom Jones and Charlotte Church.

We'll stop in Chepstow to see...a castle. Go figure, the Chepstow Castle. Not the most impressive but where Prince Edward the First introduced the first Prince of Wales to the World. Looking on the outside you can see the "patchwork" of castle extensions. We only had about 20 minutes so I didn't bother paying the £3 to see the inside. Now it is 10 minutes away to go to Fergie's favourite building in Wales...Tintern Abbey.

Tintern Abbey...amazing architecture but the building is literally falling apart. Looks like they're trying to restore it but if you "go back in the mists of time..." This time about 900 years ago it must have been amazing...The scaffolding is to help keep the building up and they'll never fully restore the place to it's original splendor since in the past it was burned down by...okay so I can't quite remember...For 900 years ago it was amazing with running water and "flushing" toilets and everything. haha

Brian, I sit on the bus and your fave Bon Jovi song is currently playing..."It's my Life..." Oh good times. LOL

Anyway, we're currently on our way to Hereford. Funny, while stopped at the Tintern Abbey, Fergie couldn't for the life of him remember the name of our next stop. He could remember all of the stories and what we'll be seeing but not the name of the town that we'll be going to. Anyway, "going back in the mists of time..." 800 years ago, a map of the World from the 13th Century is displayed in the Hereford Cathedral. The Mappa Mundi. We didn't want to pay to see the original Mappa Mundi encased in the environmentally controlled case so we went to the gift shop and looked at a copy/replica of one and I bought a postcard. lol

I wandered off with Dee and we went to check out one of the bakeries for lunch and we just hung out there for a while before deciding to walk around a bit since the sun was shining again before heading back to the bus.

Currently on the bus I'm just listening to Daniel, Dee and Robert talking about their Contiki bus tour experiences. Like the games they played...wrote postcards to someone else's mother, talked of fellow traveller's they didn't like, the bad driving/accidents (backing into things, lost mirrors, scratches, bumpers hanging on by masking tape.)

Next stop: Ludlow. Old Market Town built on the hill side. Timber fronted shops built in the 1600's a few from the 1300's. Ludlow Castle being one of the attractions of the town...We were given half an hour to explore the quaint streets of Ludlow. Some interesting old buildings...Tudor style. Walking some of the streets I almost felt like we were on a movie set. It seemed unreal to be on such old cobble stoned streets. Sort of like a Disney Street or something like that. lol I love how they call everything "old". The Old Bakery. The Old Fire Station. The Old Butcher. Isn't everything old? I'm surprised I didn't see the New Bakery. The New Fire Station. The New Butcher. haha

Our next stop is pretty much to our accommodations for the night. We're staying at a farm house. Quite a nice and quiet place to stay especially since it is just the 10 of us. It is our big BBQ cook up tonight for dinner. We stopped at Sainsbury's for some groceries and pooled our monies together to buy the extras like salads, chips, dip and everyone picked their own refreshments for the evening.

The driveway leading up to the farm house, Tyadyn Buchan, was really narrow and Fergie thought he hit something at the side of the bus but it was just the bottom
Hanging in the BBQ hutHanging in the BBQ hutHanging in the BBQ hut

A bit fuzzy but from left to right: Daniel, Anja, Shanti, Rob, Scott, Bonnie, Dee, Julia and Wai-Teng
oft he bus scraping out! We were greeted by Susan and shown to our rooms and then that was the last of seeing her! The weather suddenly turned cloudy and a bit breezy so everyone in shorts quickly changed to pants. lol Once dropping our things off we all pitched in to prep the food. Make the garlic bread, dump the salads into bowls, grab the plates and cutlery etc. to bring out to the little bbq hut. Oh yes, before I forget I have to mention the trampoline jumping dogs. Okay, so they are not on actual trampolines, but they jump like they are on trampolines.

Anyway, back to dinner. Yesterday we preordered meat from one of the local butchers. I ordered a kebab and lamb steak and was really looking forward to some good meat for dinner! Instead of everyone cooking their own food we all appointed one cook. I appointed Daniel since he seemed to be right in there from the beginning. But we all moved over to the BBQ hut to help out if not give a little moral support.

The meat cooked up quite well and the salads were distributed quite nicely so there was a lot to be eaten by all. Burp! Excuse me! haha. The BBQ hut was quite nice. It was decorated in Scandinavian decor - including reindeer pelts. Apparently this hut is either for BBQing or can be converted into a sauna. I can see it getting really steamy in there. We were basically finished dinner by 7:30. Hmm, now what is there to do? We ended up sitting round the BBQ and chatting...nothing else to do. Well, Anja did want to play Yahtzee earlier but nobody else seemed very enthusiastic about that! lol By 9 the group started to get smaller. First Julia and Wei-Ting left for showers and then Anja and Shanthi eventually left by 9:30. Geesh, it is early.

The boys and Dee and myself stuck around a bit longer and chatted more. Dee, Dan and Rob kept talking about the Contiki tours they'd been on. At one point Scott made a rule...if you start talking Contiki talk you have to put up your hand so that the others (basically me and Scott) know it is Contiki talk and we'll seem a little bit less lost. It's interesting listening to some of the Contiki stories and it has given me an even greater appreciation for the Intrepid tours concept and practice! In fact Contiki almost seems like a cult to me. Morning wake up songs, playing the same song four to five times a day and at certain points of the day. Poor Rob - "Sweet Child of Mine" is forever etched in his memory and probably elicits bad memories. Mind you, if you sign up for a 45, 46 or even 29 day tour what do you expect?!? But some people like this sort of thing. Or perhaps I'm just showing my age. 😊 Dee mentioned that she's actually signed up for another one in Italy. I still can't believe that she went to 17 countries in 45 days! It was pretty apparent yesterday that it was pretty rushed when she started talking about some places and then admitted she couldn't remember certain places in particular because it all seems a little blurred together. I guess taking a "rushed" tour like this will give you a taste of a place that you may want to get back to in the future. I'm still with the train of thought that taking it in slowly is the way to go...you know, stop to smell the roses sort of thinking. Sometimes you have to remember you can't see it all...

Back to last night. Once the fire died it started to get a little chilly. Dee and I decided to retire around 10:30 since we were thinking the room would be asleep already...just like yesterday. To our surprise everyone was still awake! Good thing since I needed to find my stuff for my shower before bed. Mind you by the time I finished in the shower I was the last one up...everyone went to bed quickly! lol


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