Advertisement
Published: July 10th 2007
Triathlon
This was the first Triathlon that I competed in. Fi took this photo of the start of the Swim leg.
Daniel Anderson Well it's been quite a while since our last entry, things have been pretty busy but we haven't done any real major traveling. I thought I would use this entry to fill everyone one in on our most recent comings and goings and what we have been up to. It will mostly be to show some of the photos we have taken and I won't bore you with big long winded descriptions of our trip.
I recently finished my first semester of Uni which actually went really well. I was quite surprised at the marks I received which were pretty good, but it just goes to show what you can achieve when you actually do some study rather than get on the turps with your Army mates all the time. Fi has been pretty busy with work, she's had an interesting time looking after not only American ships, but she's also had some Peruvians, Chilians and Brazilians (no it doesn't involve waxing or shaving) to look after. To keep me fit and entertained I've taken up Triathlon and competed in my first one about two weeks ago. I'm only doing Sprint distance ones at the moment but am planning
Castillo de San Marco
Here's the Southwoods inside the Castillo de San Marco, a 400 year of Fort in St. Augustine, the oldest city in the US. on doing an Olympic length one in a couple of weeks time. The sprint distance ones are a 400m swim, 16km bike and 5 km run whilst the olympic ones are 1.6km Swim, 40km ride and 10 km run - little bit more training required there!
John and Judy arrived recently and it has been great to have some family over here. They were lucky enough to be here for the 4th of July celebrations which were just huge. The road in front of our place was just packed with people the whole day. It was so busy I was surprised they didn't close the road to traffic. We were entertained just watching the antics of drunk Americans on their bikes riding up and down the streets throwing fireworks at each other! At one stage the blokes letting off fireworks in the vacant block near our placed stuffed up and we had a firework shoot into our balcony and very narrowly missed Thomas our German friend! When the main event arrived we were close enough to the fireworks to be able to watch them from our balcony which was really cool. It was a nice balmy evening and we
St. Augustine
This is a street shot of St. Augustine, the oldest city in the US. It was settled by the Spanish in 1565 and is only 30 mins drive south of Jacksonville. had a couple of beers on the balcony and just watched the show!
We have been playing tour guide and doing a bit of travel with Mum and Dad Southwood. The first place we visited was St Augustine which is only a 30 - 40 minute drive south along the coast. Its a beautiful little seaside town that just happens to be the oldest town in the USA!! It was founded by the Spanish in 1565 and although it burnt to the ground, was captured by various different countries and was attacked by Pirates, it's still kicking on. The main attraction in town is the Castillo de San Marco, which is an old fort that was built in 1672 to defend the town. It was never captured by force and is still in amazing condition.
After seeing a little of what Florida had to offer it was time to do a bit of traveling in the heart of the 'Deep South'. Our first trip was to Savannah which was established on the Northern coast of Georgia in 1732. It is quite a unique old town as it escaped burning during the Civil War by surrendering to General Sherman
Savannah
Here's the Southwood's on the steps of a Georgian Mansion in Savannah with another mansion in the back ground. during his famous scorched earth march. It is quite picturesque and was planned quite uniquely around 20-odd city 'squares'. These are basically city blocks that have been kept as small parks or plazas and make the city a beautiful green place to live. The squares are surrounded by numerous old buildings that were quite opulent for their time, and many have now been restored. Savannah was quite a large cotton transportation port and the old warehouses along the waterfront have now been converted into shops, restaurants and bars, however they have kept the old cobblestone roads and original architecture so it is a quaint place to go for a meal. It was here that John started his love affair with American Style Chicken wings....we also introduced him to Ribs which were pretty popular too!! The weather wasn't too friendly on the first day there, so we spent most of the time sitting in a restaurant having a beer or scurrying from shop to shop.
The second day of our visit involved the city tour and a visit to one of the cities oldest brick homes. The inside of the home was interesting as the historical society had spared no
Savannah's City Squars
Savannah is built around 20-odd City Squares or Parks which makes it a beautiful place. This photo shows two mansions set on one of the city squares. expense renovating it. Of note was the amount of money they had spent to research the wall paper of the period and have the rooms fitted out. Apparently the fashion of the time was as we would describe today...'hideous'. Fake grey brick work, fake curtain hanging wall paper (in bright yellow), it was all very cheesy, but it did show us how they lived during that period of time.
Having seen Savannah we decided to take John and Judy up to Charleston to see some of the big plantation homes that exist in South Carolina. Fi and I have already visited Charleston, but we managed to see quite a few different things. Charleston differs quite a bit from Savannah even though they are both 'Deep South' old towns built on the wealth of the cotton industry. Charleston was considerably more wealthy than Savannah and this is reflected in the size and number of old mansions and state buildings that make the historic district. We conducted the obligatory city tour before touring one of the old mansions in the historic district. It was a beautiful old house built in 1802 - it's central feature was a spiral staircase in the
St. Johns Church
Here's the Southwood's in front of St. Johns church in Savannah - it was amazingly beautiful inside. entrance hall that was amazing. After the house tour we went back out to Fort Sumter again, which I enjoyed much better this time and I wasn't running around the island trying to find a toilet. We dined at a delightful place called the 'Ye Olde Style American Cafe & Ice Cream Parlour'. Among its delicacies was a BLT with 10 strips of bacon (my heart started to seize just watching a bloke eat it) and a Banana Split with more Ice Cream, Cream and any other dairy based fatty substance than you could poke a stick - apparently there's a banana in there too! After a lovely meal of Hotdogs and ice-cream we retired for the evening.
The next day was the absolute highlight of the trip - a visit to Boone Hall Plantation (No relation to David....I asked and only got confused looks. I was very disappointed not to see any 5ft Tasmanians with flared pants though...). The plantation was established in the early 1700's and is still a functioning plantation, although it has undertaken many changes in that time. It was everything you would imagine an old southern plantation to be....a long sweeping driveway lined with
Inside the Church
This picture shows the inside of the St. Johns Church. over 90 old oak trees...leading to a huge Georgian style mansion, white pillars and all. What was unique about this plantation was that the slave quarters were still standing. As they are 'unremarkable' buildings, they were usually torn down after the Civil War before anyone realised their historical importance...so it is quite rare to find them still existing. The plantation was presented really well too, there were 'performances' by actors who were dressed in the periodic clothing and discussed life in the deep south. People were dressed as slaves and showed how the slaves lived, work, what they ate and then sang some of the slave songs that existed. It was a really good visit.
John and Judy start their West Coast tour on the 24 July and Fiona and I are heading up to Canada and New England for a two week driving tour on the 18th July, so standby for some more stories!!
From Fi - Well, I get to read these pages before they are published but all of the hard work is done by Dan! Hope that you're enjoying his commentary (I'm a big fan of the photos...)
When we get back from Canada,
Row of Oaks
This row of oaks led to an old plantation home the is now in ruins. The road ran for almost 2km and was lined with oaks the entire way. wait out for a page of just 'when Mum and Dad were here photos.' We've had a fantastic time with them. Apologies to those that I haven't been in touch with personally, especially those of you that sent b'day wishes (can't thank you enough, was really appreciated!) I don't know where the end of May and Jun (and Jul for that matter) have gone but promise to get in touch when we get back from the wedding in early Aug. For now a quick update on some things that you would be proud of - I nearly got up on a surf board for the first time this weekend, I took Mum to have her first pedicure ever, and have managed to learn how to cook ribs American style ! Love to everyone, keep in touch, Fi
Advertisement
Tot: 0.242s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 11; qc: 62; dbt: 0.0995s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mylo
non-member comment
Try-athlete
OMG! Look how streamlined that head is. That is a head BUILT for racing.