Well currently sitting at Bristol Airport, ahead of my flight to Paris in a few hours. This gives me time to give an update of the past few days.

We left Cork on Thursday afternoon, and arrived here at Bristol ahead of time. From here we made our way to the train station and took the train to Taunton, which took about an hour. Dominic and I then checked into our hotel, which small and quaint, but very nice nonetheless, much like the town of Taunton itself. We then met Chris and Larissa for dinner, who had made there way to Taunton earlier in the day. After dinner we called it a night, it had been a long day of travelling!

We got up early the next day and checked out, and had a look around the city centre of Taunton. It reminded me alot of Fremantle, minus the hippies and bums, and was really nice. We stopped in at a pub for a birthday beer for Chris, which turned into birthday beers! It;s not our fault we had a few too many, the pub was really great, and the cheapest drinks so far (2£ for a pint, which is about 4.50 australian). We left the pub and caught the shuttle bus to Minehead, which is about 30 miles from Taunton, on the south west coast of England. Meanwhile, it was pissing down with rain and we didnt hold hight hopes for the music festival :)

However, it turned out bloody fantastic. All the music festival was held indoors, and our chalets were only a 2 minute walk from all the stages and attractions. And the weather fined up over saturday and sunday. The resort we stayed at, Butlins, was great too (apart from the fact that the chalets only had baths, and not showers, much to Chris and my disgust). There was plenty to do if u didnt want to watch music (bowling, mini golf, water park, cinema etc) and most importantly, the booze was dirt cheap!!! But we had a great weekend there, one of the best festivals we have been too. Great music (dinosaur jr, broken social scene, explosions in the sky, battles, okkervil river, jens lekman, de la soul to name a few).

We checked out this morning and caught the bus back to Taunton. From here I left Dom (who returns home tonight) and Chris & Larissa who go on to London then Croatia and Japan. It was a bit sad to leave them, especially Dom who Ive been rooming with the past 4 and a half weeks. Although I wont miss his god awful snoring!!!

I caught the train from Taunton back to Bristol where I am now. Its been a great few days, but Im really excited about hitting mainland Europe and meeting back up with Ryan and Mal aka Rudy. Not much more to add. Sorry about the lack of photos, most computers dont have the ports to plug in the cameras. Hopefully we can put some up soon. I know Ryan and Chris/Larissa have posted alot on facebook if anyone can access those...

Anyway, signing off.

Paul xx

PS The photo above is an indicator of what most of this part of England is like. Small villages, old but well maintained cottage houses, and rolling green hills. Its quite scenic, the bus and train rides have been quite good being able to see the countryside. Makes a change from planes :)