Thursday 09/02/12

I had wanted to get my hair colored at the same time as the cut but their rules require a 24 hour sensitivity test, so had booked in for 9 am again this morning. I would just like to add that this was the second time in nearly 8 weeks that we had spent so long apart (90mins to be exact, a testament to our relationship I think).

The hairdresser gave me a heap of advice on what to do and where to go, and being a local we took his advice. So after arming up ( getting dressed in warm clothes) we headed off, walking through the park to the ferry where we caught the hovercraft across to Isle of Wight. This was Marty's first ride on a Hoover craft and he was pretty excited about it. It took 10 mins to get to the isle, then we found our way to the beach and walked a few kilometers along the beach till we reached Seaview. We were surprised to see actual sand albeit orange sand, but still, the first sand we had seen in England. It didn't last for long and soon became pebbles and shells. This was very obviously a popular holiday destination for the English, as there were heaps of holiday things around but nothing was open, they even had those little timber lock up sheds above the beach that you see in the old movies.

We made it to Seaview and on the advice of the hairdresser had a drink at the local. We then found the bus stop and had a tour through the township on the double decker back to the wharf, with the idea of catching another bus out to Osbourne House. Unfortunately we had not timed it very well as the bus to the house didn't leave for another hour. We saw that the hovercraft was about to leave back to Portsmouth, so opted to jump on that. It was after 3 and we knew that Osbourne house was closed and it was possible the gardens were closed too so didn't think it was a bad decision. If we had more time we certainly would have made the journey out to see it gardens. It was Queen Victoria's summer house, it's all where she died and where the movie of the same name was filmed.

Off the hovercraft and in search of the Millennium Walk plaque. We found it easily enough and started following the route through to Old Portsmouth, with it's fortresses a d really really old homes, till we found the 'Still and West' pub to stop for fish and chips. Supposedly the best fish and chips in Portsmouth. We weren't disappointed, well at least I wasn't because I hadn't eaten batters fish for years.

The walk took us the gun wharf, which is a new shopping centre near the spinnaker (purpose built to view the sites of Portsmouth and Isle of wight). We caught a taxi home after skimming the shops.

Friday 10/2/12

We recommissioned our car again and headed to Winchester to see the cathedral, but we stopped at Gosford first to have a tour of the Submarine Museum at Haslar marina, a huge Naval training base. We spent an amazing 2 hours there, including a 45 min tour through the HMS Admiral. We then headed off to Winchester.

I just wanted to see the cathedral, which turned out to be more beautiful and a much more interesting cathedral than Westminster Abbey, sacrilegious I know but thems the facts. It had a crypt we could go down into that was untouched from its original construction and had a beautiful sculpture in it, it also had Jane Austen's body laid in the crypt. It was built in the 600s and was next to a palace which was surrounded by a wall. We parked outside the wall, then when it was time to leave we had to walk through the palace, then got lost and drove through it. The actual town was indescribable, the true English town, with tiny narrow cobbled streets, and beautiful little buildings.
We had a walk through the town centre where they had a market happening and bought ourselves organic cob bread, a selection of balsamic onions, marinated olives, cheese, ham and chicken for our dinner. Lunch at the local, (not very good unfortunately, and with the laziest waitress), but hey, they can't all be good.

Saturday 11/2/12

We did some washing at the local laundromat before heading off to Bath, and i just have to mention quickly here that when we left the motel, Marty took off on the wrong side of the road, i had been driving while in Portsmouth so i can only assume he reverted back to usa style. it was even colder today then it had been the last week, but was a beautiful clear day, probably the nicest weather we had had since being in the uk. We found our way to Salisbury which we were told Stonehenge was near, but couldn't find any directions to it, so stopped in town at a travel agent and asked advice. Low and behold, the girl that helped me had been in Brisbane last year just aft the floods. Anyway, she gave me a map and we found our way to Stonehenge.

Not what I expected, it has been fenced off, has a walking track around it, but first you have to pay admission at the entrance, you can buy snacks, coffee etc at the canteen, then collect your audio guide and listen while you walk around it. Probably more interesting because I thought it was just the huge stones in the ground, this way we got to hear some of the history, ie., there were 2 stonehenges on the same site before this one which was built in 3000BC, and they still don't know why or how. There is also a gift shop on the way out and believe it or not there is a Woodhenge also, with groups of stone structures placed for the same unknown reasons. Not in the same place as Stonehenge but close by.

I saw a really unusual thing while driving to Bath, paddocks full off pigs, what's so strange about that you may ask, but, having had a pig as a pet I know how difficult it is to keep them enclosed, but these pigs were in large paddocks with no special fencing, neither of us had seen so many pigs in a paddock like that before.

We stopped off at Aynesbury and had lunch in a pub that must have been 400 years old, and we were referred to as Sir and Ma'am :). Driving into Bath was awe inspiring, if you have a look at my photos, you will see the picture we took as we we're entering the city, it was like driving into the past. Our accommodation was in a lovely guest house, with a private bathroom rather then ensuite, and full English breakfast included.

We got directions of how to get to the city centre and so jumped on the bus and made our way in. The bus driver picked up on our accent straightaway and asked if we were from Perth, he goes there as often as he can. The center of Bath is unusual, it has the Roman Baths and the Bath Abbey in the center and everything else built around it. We were once again amazed at how many people there were but assumed that it was because it was school holidays, and Bath must be a popular destination. Also all the shops in the city center were really high end shops, so consequently we didn't go in any of them, except the lolly shop.

We did the tour of the Baths, then went into the Abbey, and were lucky enough to have the choir rehearsing, I am not as you know religious but I did really enjoy listening to them and the organ in such ornate surroundings, the acoustics in these old churches are wonderful. It would have been nice to experience a dip in the hot springs, but the only place I saw where you could do it was in a spa so would have to have paid, and I didn't fancy getting into my swimmers in the freezing weather.

We had so hastily left the guest house that we hadn't recorded its address, and we weren't sure where to catch the bus, but found a bus stop and a woman and the bus driver were most helpful in getting us to our home. In nearly 8 weeks I have not met an unfriendly person, in fact it's quite the opposite, everyone is more than willing to help or chat.

Dinner was at the local, a 15 min walk away, which was just as well it was so close because we would have frozen had we had to walk any further, and of course we met a chap, Alex, at the bar who owned several accommodations in Suffolk, and gave us all his contact details and insisted we come and stay at one of them, he also bought us a drink and chatted himself up quite a bit, but still nice enough. He was spending the weekend with his fiancé Ashleigh, who was the bar maid and even she insisted that we must come and visit them in Suffolk.

Sunday 12/02/12

We had a drive around Bath before heading off to our next stop Taunton, we picked this place because it was half way between Bath and Sidmouth where Paul lives, But changed our minds and decided to see a place called Wells, it had been recommended as a nice place to visit.

We found it easily enough and found a parking spot and got out to have a look around, another gorgeous place with narrow cobbled streets and old old buildings, but once again, we walked around the corner and here is another huge cathedral. This was Wells Anglican cathedral built in the 1100s. The inside of this one was quite different but photos weren't allowed so can't share it with you. We spent a good hour looking at it all, then back into the car and had a drive around the town, then headed to Paul's.

We arrived at Paul's in Sidmouth at about 3, met his wife and 2 gorgeous children, we love the english accent but believe me it sounds even better coming from a 3 year old (James) and 6 year old (Hattie). They were all on holidays for the week so it worked out well that we were able to see them at that time. We went out for dinner, then as expected Marty had a lat night drinking with Paul and catching up aft 10 years.

Tuesday 14/02/2012

They took us down to the beach front this morning, this village is a very popular holiday destination but also a lot of retirees live here and you can understand why, although the water is too cold to swim in unless you have a wetsuit, but they do a lot of water sports
Like canoeing and sailing on it. You can see from the picture the red cliffs against the beautiful clear ocean water, it's just breathtaking and the old homes on the cliff tops, I could have stood and looked at the view all day.

We then went for a drive through the Moore's at Dartmoor National Park, through Princetown that had the scariest looking prison we had ever seen, made Alcatraz look like a five star resort. We then went to Dartmoor and were going to go for a walk on the Moore's but it had turned bitterly cold so opted to have lunch at the Two Bridges hotel instead.

That night Paul cooked us our second home cooked meal since leaving home and it was so good. Both then sat with us and gave us ideas on where to go for the next few days. We also booked our accommodation for Falmouth, where we were planning on staying. Notice we are spending a lot of time in places ending in mouth, Portsmouth, Sidmouth, now Falmouth.

Wednesday 15/02/2012

We left early as we had a full day planned till we got to Falmouth, but after leaving went back to the seaside to take some photos. In a very short time we had arrived in Fowey, a town built on the cliffs, but unfortunately we weren't able to stop as the town center was blocked off for roadworks and the only way to get down there was to park at the top and walk down. That would have been fine, but we then had to walk back up, and basically we were too lazy.

Our next stop was the Eden Project at St Austell, an educational charity that took a disused clay mine that had devastated the land so no plants grew, and turned it into the largest the largest man made undercover rainforest in the world. It also had a Mediterranean garden, both gardens are housed in massive big biomes. The rainforest one is hot and humid as you can imagine, so when we walked in we thought it was similar weather to a warm day at home, not hot, just comfy, but halfway round the walk, they have installed a cool room for people that are suffering from the heat, s They also have a huge outdoor gardens. The project is basically to educate the world on the importance of plants and millions of people from all over the world visit it every year. Being school holidays, there were a lot of people there but it it so large that we didn't really notice the crowds.

We arrived at our accommodation in Falmouth at about 4 and then had a drive around, the city center is on the water, and the main street is about 1 1/2 car widths wide, and yes it is 2 way. We found a grocery store and low and behold, next to it is Rick Steins fish and chip restaurant. We liked the look of the town and the accommodation was perfect so booked an extra night here.

We had dinner in the hotels restaurant, the guest house was a converted single family home that was built in 1901, just beautiful and the food was extremely good and very cheap, compared to Australia & the USA. We've been quite surprised at how cheap everything is here, Marty is particularly perplexed at the cost of cars. Brand new Audi A4 turbo diesel for £32000 (AUS$47000), compared to $AUS 105000 to buy the same car in Australia. Marty wants to import one!

Anyway we had a foursome of older people sitting next to us at dinner and the accent of one of the women was entirely different to anything we had heard so far, it was just like Benny Hills character Ernie who drove the fastest milk cart in the west. I couldn't resist asking them where the accent came from and of course it was Cornish (we were in the county of Cornwall). We all got chatting and interestingly enough they had the same gripes about the country as Paul did.

Thursday 16/02/2012

We planned a big day today so set the alarm and got up early, and headed off to Lands End, the southern most place in England. When driving around England, the GPS we brought with us is set to take the quickest route and we quite frequently end up driving through the back streets of little villages. The roads are so narrow, but they park on one side of the road (and you can face either way when parking over here), and the road remains 2 way, if there are 2 cars going in opposite directions then one has to stop and let the other through. And on the country roads, they are even narrower but are lined with either stone fences or hedge fences, meet a car coming the other way on these roads and there is only a bees d*** between your car, the fence and the other car. But it's actually quite exciting, I was doing most of the driving because the Passat was a manual and Marty didn't like driving it in traffic, he did the highway driving.

Back to the story, we drove through Penzance, stopped and took some photos, and kept going. They have built a theme park and attractions at Lands End but being winter it didn't open till 10.30 and we were there early, so had the place to ourselves, except for the navy rescue helicopter that was being prepared for takeoff. We took each others photos at the famous signpost (apparently they have another signpost that they set up during the day that you can put anything you want on it, like where you are from and the date, but you have to pay to have the professional take your photo, we were glad we were there early as we didn't have to pay, but got our photo anyway). The helicopter then started up and took off, so that was an extra bonus to watch.

It was pretty cold and we weren't interested in the theme park so headed to our next stop - St Ives, yet another beach town, that is built from the water up, we found a parking spot
(you have to pay for parking everywhere here, even some shopping centers) and walked down through the tiny narrow cobbled streets to the waterfront. We stopped and had lunch and watched the world walking by, then headed back to Falmouth.

We found Pendennis Castle, built at the entrance to the harbor that Falmouth is built on, opposite the castle on the other side at St Mawes, both built by Henry VIII in the 16th century. Both castles were used in WW1 & 2 and the displays were really interesting, we were also lucky because it was only open that week because of school holidays. This was the first castle we had actually seen the inside of, but imagined we will see much older ones in Wales and Scotland.

That evening we had the best fish and chips we have ever eaten at Rick Steins restaurant, then found out he was going to be there for book signing in 2 days, shame we missed him.

Friday 17/02/2012

This was our last day this end of the trip in England, we plan on seeing north England on our return from Scotland. It had been highly recommended by Paul that we see Lynton and Lynsmouth so headed that way on the way to Cardiff in Wales. They are really one place but Lynton is on top of the cliff and Lynsmouth is at the bottom, they are joined by a road but also by a water driven funicular. It's only 300 - 400 m between the 2 stations but on a really steep slope, there is no engine, they fill the top carriage with water which pulls the
Bottom carriage up, then empty the water out the at the bottom, pump the water up to the top and fill the top one again. I was looking forward to seeing it, but wasn't too worried that it wasn't working (broken).

So instead of training it to Lynsmouth, we drove down and had lunch. We then drove through the Exmoor National Park with its patchwork of fields and craggy coastline, crossed the bridge, paid our £6 toll and arrived in Cardiff. I will end this Blog here, and will start a new one for Wales.