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London
The LondonEye ferris wheelMay 4th. As mentioned earlier, we were able to get an upgrade again into business class with our frequent flyer points and this time we were upstairs in the Boing 747-400 for the flight from Singapore to London. The trip was indeed great, and as we were able to lie down, we both slept most of the night; I can heartily recommend business class for the long flight. At the end of our trip, one of the young male flight attendants came up to us and gave us a huge bottle of French champagne for us to celebrate our trip. This was extremely out of the blue!! We were quite taken with this and of course very appreciative of his offer. We were fast tracked through customs, as were all from first and business, and found the train for Heathrow Express. We arrived at Paddington, and were given the wrong directions to our hotel, so with our entire luggage in tow on foot, we travelled quite a way in the wrong direction. Finally we found the hotel, (it was about half a block from Paddington Station). We were leaving our luggage to go for a walk, as our room was not
London
Westminster Abbey and Big Ben ready till 11am (this was 7am). It was then we discovered that our new camera was left in the side window box on the plane!! Well, we tried NOT to panic, but of course I (Wendy) did, and after many phone calls, I decided to take the train back to the airport to see what we could do. We were very lucky, as the plane was not leaving till lunch time, and a security guard had been handed our camera off the plane, probably by a cleaner… Thank God, as, if it was sent to lost property, we could not access it for 2 weeks!!
So after spending another $50 to get a return train (and not the express, as that was much more expensive) we arrived back at our hotel at 12pm.
We caught the tube, paid for a day pass each, for Zone 1 and 2, costing £5.10 each, and saw Big Ben, the houses of parliament, Winchester Cathedral, and Tower Bridge. London Bridge was sold to the US, so we saw the new bridge and walked around the London Bridge area. We were spoken to by a man from another country and asked if we would give
London
The London Tube - fantastic system our opinion of the Tower Bridge structure, on camera for a documentary he is doing. We did this, and then when asked what it was for. He said the footage was for his country people to see. That county is Iraq!!
May 6th. This am we took a train to Windsor, I was not sure if this would be worth it, but it sure was. The Castle is of course worth seeing (we did a tour of the castle with audio). The Queen was in residence when we were there. The town itself was just so quaint, and we walked around the town and along the Thames, then back by train to Paddington. We then went by tube to Leicester Square to get half price tickets for a show at the West End. We got tickets to “We Will Rock You” which I saw in 2004, but Rob wanted to see, of course, I was happy to see it again. Well worth it, brilliant show and we took the tube home again.
I need to mention that the weather here in England is a warm 23 - 25oC. Also, the daylight hours are very long with a long twilight.
Paddington
Rob's hire care - a lotus. Just dreaming It gets light about 5am or earlier and doesn’t get dark until 10pm and even then there is still some light after that.
May 7th. We caught the tube to Kings Cross Station, then overland to Luton airport to collect our hire car. Took forever, but we then left for Stratford Upon Avon. Arrived there late afternoon, found a quaint B and B to stay, went for a walk, then had dinner at this great old tavern, the same place I went to with a friend, Veronica when we visited in 2004. The town is just so beautiful, peaceful and sweet. Our hostess, Annie, at the B and B called “The Twelfth Night” is just gorgeous and she has great attention to detail in presenting her B & B.
May 8th. We are now travelling to Liverpool, via the M6 motor way. Big delays from junction 18 to 20, so we will see how we go. Before getting on the motor way we travelled from Stratford Upon Avon via a normal country road passing through very quaint old towns and farms. When we were on the motor way we were travelling at 70 mph (about 112kph) and the
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle - the Queen was in residence cars were whizzing past. Rob tested the speed of a couple by keeping up with then and some cars were still going faster when we were doing 90mph. They must have been travelling at least at 100mph (160kmh).
Driving to Liverpool was quite stressful as trying to get in the right lanes was quite difficult when we weren’t quite sure which one to take. Several times we would realise we where in the wrong lane or had taken the wrong turn when it was too late and we would end up driving around trying to correct our mistake.
When we arrived in Liverpool, we spent probably nearly an hour going around in circles trying to find accommodation along the harbour street called ‘The Strand’ as there were a lot of road works and one way streets. We found a great location overlooking the harbour in a hotel called ‘The Thistle’ for an excellent price of £89 which includes breakfast. We went for a walk to the docks area, had a light dinner, and back to our room.
May 9th. We had our room till 12pm, so after breakfast we got organized and checked out, before leaving our car
in a secure park at the hotel. (You have to pay everywhere in the UK) We walked to Matthew Street to visit the “Cavern Club” which is where the Beatles began their career, all those years ago. Also visited the Cavern Pub, the place they all went to for a drink, which is opposite the club, no alcohol was allowed in the club. We got a cute Beatle T shirt, paid £25, which is ridiculous, but great to have it… Then walked to the Docks area again to visit the Beatle story, learning a lot about them, some I definitely did not know. This was well worth the cost and time.
We left Liverpool for that afternoon, for Nottingham to stay with Rob’s nephew Craig and his lovely partner Toni. This took much longer to drive to than we thought, and we ran into trouble as the street signs are not evident in most cases. Anyway, we did finally arrive, and went straight out for a very late dinner at a nearby pub, very nice.
May 10th. Craig and Toni live very close to a huge park called Wollaton Park and in it a huge mansion called Wollaton
The London Tube
Huge escalator coming up from one of the underground stations Hall. In this park was a golf course, a lake and lots of deer. We went for a walk through a portion of the park first thing in the morning then Craig and Toni took us to a delightful local market to buy produce for dinner, as Craig wanted to cook for us that night. In the afternoon we all went for a drive to a nearby village called Bytham Castle. We chose to do this as our home is called Bytham which was off the old Cowling family home in Castlemaine. We believe this name originated from Castle Bytham here in England and we wanted to see if we could find our more about Bytham itself. We spent ages there, walking in and around the village, (very cute). The old Castle was destroyed a long time ago and is now just lots of mounds were the walls were and is now part of farm land. We finally arrived home at about 7:30pm. Craig started to cook dinner (poor boy) and we sat down to a sumptuous meal at about 10:30pm. It was a very long day, as both Craig and Toni ran for a couple of hours at 9am,
Paddinton
Some real estate at Paddington near Kennsinton Park and we had a good walk for about an hour also.
May 11th. Mothers Day. Rob went for a jog in Wollaton Park then we prepared to fly to Dublin at 12:30pm. Craig and Toni left early for a 30 kilometre run, and we made our way to the airport at Nottingham, dropped the car and went to book in with Ryan Air. We had a rude surprise, we had to pay £120 for excess baggage!! Not happy at all at the time. Cheap flights, yeh right!! Well they are cheap if you are just commuting with little luggage (the actual fare cost just 49 pence each plus taxes) Anyway the flight went ok, but we and a lot of other people had to stand in line at immigration for an hour at Dublin waiting to be processed. Finally got through, collected our car and made our way to Limerick, arriving later than we had hoped. We had arranged to stay with Rob’s late brother in law’s family, the Byrnes family, of Limerick. Jim’s brother, Bobby, his wife Helen and their extended family, Maria, Robert, Michael, Peter, Anne, Theresa and Paul, all met with us, and the family provided
Paddinton
Little Venice in Paddington us with a sumptuous meal, and a lovely bed for the night.
May 12th. This morning we went next door to see Maria’s shop (a general store), and next door to that is Robert and Fiona’s pub, so that is where we enjoyed a great breakfast. Bobby and Helen have retired, but they had the pub for 40 years, and then Robert and Fiona took over about 5 years ago. The family have extended the pub over the years and has been very tastefully refurbished. It has it has a family atmosphere and has excellent food and service. The shop that Maria owns is very busy also, and they have plans soon, to extend into the shop from the pub, and joining the two, which should be very interesting. The family bought the house next door, and later on, the house next door to that house came on the market, so they bought that also, and have opened them up as one large house (they are semi detached houses). The homes are very solid, and quite spacious. It is amazing how the many members of the family all help out in the shop or the pub, so that the
Paddinton
Downstairs in our two story room in our hotel owners can take a break when needed. Maria then took us around Limerick for a while, and then we joined her at her Rotary meeting, where I was their last minute guest speaker. All in all, the Byrne family were absolutely fantastic to us, and we will be forever grateful to them.
Later in the afternoon we drove to Killarney for the night, in preparation for a visit to the Ring of Kerry in the morning
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May 13th. We took the drive around the Ring of Kerry, which took us all day, but the scenery was magnificent together with the villages, all immaculate and in valleys or on cliff tops overlooking the ocean. We also took the drive around the Skellig ring, which is off the Ring of Kerry. I can’t describe the scenery; it has to be seen to be believed!! We will add some photo’s to the blog. We drove back through Killarney and on through Trailee and found a B & B at Listowe. Most B&B’s costing around 75 euro. Of course breakfast is huge, so the meals for the rest of the day need to be very small.
May 14th. Left Listowe to
Stratford Upon Avon
Quaint housing in Shakespeare's home town collect the ferry at Tabert for a one way trip (17 euro) so we can head towards Galway and around the west coast of Ireland. We arrived at the Cliffs of Moher early afternoon; this was a truly beautiful area, as you can see by the photos we have included. The trip went well, seeing all the fantastic scenery, with many changes in the land as we drove further towards Belfast. Some areas were extremely rocky particularly with limestone rock, and houses built up on the hillside and cliffs had spectacular views, but we both thought just how cold and isolated the people would be in winter… We spent the night of the 14th at a lovely guest house in Clifden. The room was very well appointed and the owners were lovely people.
One of the interesting things we have seen throughout Ireland is the housing estates. They range from small estates to extremely large estates with all the houses identical. These are not government housing commission houses that we are used to in Australia, but private, middle class housing. We have included a couple of photos showing these estates.
May 15th. We left Clifden for Belfast, travelling
further up the west coast. We drove through Sligo to Balleyshannon. We had planned to drive along the A47 on the northern side of a large lake called “Lower Lough Erne” to travel across land to Belfast but took a wrong turn and went on the southern side via Eniskillon. Just before this lake we crossed the border from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland. There is no sign of any border control now. We drove on to Belfast, and arrived at Jo and Fra’s around 6:30pm. We enjoyed a lovely meal with Joanne, Francis, Ryan and Tara, before having a very sound sleep, which was very welcome after such a lot of driving.
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Francis
non-member comment
Tsk tsk ! - spelling mistake
What a great way to keep a record whilst publishing your experiences at the same time ! Anyway Eniskillon (May 15th entry) is spelt Enniskillen. Also check your Paddington Photo captions :) Mouse still at large !