The ferry pulled in to Dover. We were back in the UK!! Our first job to do was to get an MOT for Vladimer the car so we drove to the town of Canterbury we stayed the night nearby in Chilham at the wool pack inn. it was a very historic town with old little cottages and an old estate. We had a good night there then the next day we headed to London because Dad and I had tickets to the last day of an Ashes test and Mum needed to go to New Zealand house. We spent a couple of days there the first day we wandered through Hyde park and into town when we got back we were very disappointed to find out that Australia hadn’t been able to even make the game go till the 5th day so Dad and I had nothing to do the next day. We headed away from London and towards Stratford upon Avon the home of William Shakespeare on the way we stopped at Windsor we saw the castle where the queen lives most of the time. We got to Stratford late and set up camp. The next day we had a quick look around but then had to rush of and see Gwynneth and Alan before they went on holiday we stayed the night with them and visited Gwynneth’s mother Beaty she is 100 and got a birthday card from the queen. The next day they headed off but let us stay for a couple of days so we spent the day relaxing and exploring the village the next day we took a day trip to iron bridge we arrived there quite early and went to a museum about in the olden days when Iron bridge was an important town in the industrial revolution when Abraham Darby smelted iron out of coke which was cheaper than coal. There is actually an iron bridge in Iron Bridge and it is actually made of iron. It was the first of its kind. After wandering round the town we headed back and the next day we headed north-east towards the yorkshire moors we drove past some nice country side and picturesque villages till we got to a very nice little camping ground sadly it was full so we had to stay in a B+B but that was all right because we got a huge delicious breakfast the next morning before we drove off again but it wasn’t a long trip and we got to Durham nice and early we set up camp and headed to Beamish a huge open air museum showing life in the olden days in this area. First we saw the mining village there was a lot of coal mines around Durham we learnt that if you worked in the mine you got a free house for you and your family but as soon as you stopped working or died your family was kicked out of the house we got to see and go inside some of these houses as well as see the church the school and one of the pit ponies which were used down the mine to drag the coal but this one was very fat and had never done a days work in its life we also got to go down a mine it was very dark and even I couldn’t stand up properly but we were told that the average hight was only 75cm and there could be 15cm of water on the ground Dads grandfather was a worker in the mines. Next we saw a manor house for the rich people and then we got on one of the free buses it was an olden time bus they looked really funny but they were really cool. It drop us off in the town which had all sorts of old shops including the lolly shop, the printer, the general store, the mechanic, the dental clinic and others it was very interesting. last we saw a very old farm. Later we went to Durham cathedral it was MASSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (but not as big as St Peters). We left Durham and headed north we visited the town where captain cook went to school we also climbed uup the hill to his monument there were great views of the countryside the hills were purple with heather and it was really windy so we climbed back down and carried on to Morpeth were we met Freda and Alistair. Alistair took us for a walk round the town we visited the bagpipe museum which was cool it showed the different bagpipes from around the world. Then we climbed up to the castle. That night we stayed with Paul and Livia and Robert and Mathew we had a good time with them. We left the next day and went to Alnwick to see the castle it was really big and we got some good views of it. They used this castle in one of the Harry Potter movies. Soon we will be in scotland and heading for Inverness.