Saturday 16 July 2011

Off to Cambridge this morning on the A1 in the pouring rain!!!!@#$ It really was chucking it down and consequently the trip was quite stressful for Kev and for me also. We are just sitting recuperating prior to heading off down town for a spot of lunch and a look around. Can’t let the opportunity go by to have a bit of a look at Cambridge! Mum you will be pleased to know that I now have a bright pink raincoat so Kev can keep tracks on me. It has a hood so that will be good today!

I would not have bet any money on the weather clearing up and ending the day with clear blue skies and being nice and warm, we got a bus into Cambridge centre and it didn’t take that long – certainly not as long as it looked on the map. We wandered the streets and entered parts of the university to take photos and generally just look around. There were some lovely buildings and large open green spaces all over the city. There are hundreds of bikes everywhere, young people riding the streets, bikes locked to special bike parks or to every downpipe or lamppost that there is in Cambridge. University is finished for the year and there must be enrolments for the coming year going on as there are young people everywhere and as the afternoon wore on the more exuberant and out of it the young girls became.

We went looking for a place to eat as we had decided to have early dinner because we went without lunch. Found a lovely “French” restaurant and both had half a chicken with beans and potato jane – delicious - and then we shared an ice cream sundae with hot chocolate which we poured over the ice cream. After dinner we walked down to the river and watched the people on the punts – the river was a lot deeper than the Avon, back home, and the young guys poling the punts had to lift the pole a long way out of the water. The poles were about 5 metres long. Everyone was having a great time. Reminded us of Dunedin when the varsity students were around during orientation week. We went back to the bus station and it seems that our bus didn’t run after 6.40pm so we walked back to the B&B. Through the parks and it wasn’t that far really. Would have liked more time to look around Cambridge – it is a really lovely place but off to London tomorrow to pack up and get ready for Paris!