I am now in a country I have never visited before - and boy was it windy driving over the Severn Bridge! Took all my concentration to keep in the traffic lane - and then they charged us for entering the country!
Sue and I shared the driving from Helston to Trecco Bay (in Porthcawl) - a total of 240 miles and we did it in around 5 hours - not bad really considering the atrocious weather most of the way. Dartmoor was very dark & brooding with a massive raincloud over it. Luckily we went around to the north of the moor so we missed the worst of it.
Although it seemed as though the weather was playing games with us. We went to Glendurgan gardens just below Falmouth and walked all the way down to Helford Passage and up again, had a cuppa and as we were walking to the car down came the rain. The same happened when we took my friends, who had very kindly put us up in their caravan, out to lunch - it started raining as we left the restaurant!
Glendurgan is a fascinating garden with its laurel maze and lots of aussie plants. We also did St Ives, Land's End (by accident as we missed the turnoff to Mousehole), Minack Theatre, bits of Penzanze and saw St Michael's Mount. Blowing a gale, freezing cold (by aussie standards) but brilliantly sunny.
Today we're off to visit yet another cousin and to check out a waterfall my sis reckons would be a perfect swimming hole for a dragon.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Random thoughts on a rainy day
Yesterday sis and I did nothing - except our laundry!
For those of you who don't already know, I drive a Hyundai FX Coupe, silver, all curves and very sporty. So far I have seen one silver, one red, one dark blue and two black, much to my delight.
They also have the Tiburon over here but it's not called that and it has the Hyundai H on the back, not the T like in Oz.
As for driving - British drivers are very polite, not at all like Aussie drivers. While hooning along motorways or major roads, I've noticed that if I was coming up behind someone in the outside (slow) lane but someone was about to overtake me, they would move over into the inside (fast) lane to let me overtake without driving into the back of the car in front. Most times. There was one time I did have to slow up rather fast because the car overtaking me couldn't move over because he was being overtaken too! Also, when in a narrow street and you have to give way to someone, there's always a hand wave to say thanks.
Cornish towns have very narrow streets. On Thursday while driving to Helston we went through Boscastle which a few years ago was badly damaged by a flash flood, but Sue was driving that section. Then when we got to Helston we got our directions muddled and she directed me into the town instead of around. Yikes! Single lane streets, a main street that has little rivers down each side, so be very careful when parking, and a total maze of little twisty streets. We got ourselves thoroughly lost so parked and perused the street map and found we were not too far from our destination, but as Sue admitted later, she would not have liked to be driving to get ourselves out of our pickle and to where we meant to be. Not sure if that was a confidence booster for me or not *g* She did say I looked very calm and in control.
Today we're going to Glendurgan which has a maze.
Last random thought - traction engines go VERY slowly. We got stuck behind one for six miles - took us 45 mins to do that stretch and we were getting closer to it, but then we got to a roundabout and to everyone's delight the engine turned right - you could hear the cheers for miles!
For those of you who don't already know, I drive a Hyundai FX Coupe, silver, all curves and very sporty. So far I have seen one silver, one red, one dark blue and two black, much to my delight.
They also have the Tiburon over here but it's not called that and it has the Hyundai H on the back, not the T like in Oz.
As for driving - British drivers are very polite, not at all like Aussie drivers. While hooning along motorways or major roads, I've noticed that if I was coming up behind someone in the outside (slow) lane but someone was about to overtake me, they would move over into the inside (fast) lane to let me overtake without driving into the back of the car in front. Most times. There was one time I did have to slow up rather fast because the car overtaking me couldn't move over because he was being overtaken too! Also, when in a narrow street and you have to give way to someone, there's always a hand wave to say thanks.
Cornish towns have very narrow streets. On Thursday while driving to Helston we went through Boscastle which a few years ago was badly damaged by a flash flood, but Sue was driving that section. Then when we got to Helston we got our directions muddled and she directed me into the town instead of around. Yikes! Single lane streets, a main street that has little rivers down each side, so be very careful when parking, and a total maze of little twisty streets. We got ourselves thoroughly lost so parked and perused the street map and found we were not too far from our destination, but as Sue admitted later, she would not have liked to be driving to get ourselves out of our pickle and to where we meant to be. Not sure if that was a confidence booster for me or not *g* She did say I looked very calm and in control.
Today we're going to Glendurgan which has a maze.
Last random thought - traction engines go VERY slowly. We got stuck behind one for six miles - took us 45 mins to do that stretch and we were getting closer to it, but then we got to a roundabout and to everyone's delight the engine turned right - you could hear the cheers for miles!
Friday, July 3, 2009
July 2 - King Arthur
Today we travelled from Bude in north Cornwall to my friend's place in Helston, via Tintagel. It was raining, so we didn't go across to the site because the paths were grassy and wet and neither of us fancied getting a broken ankle or worse!
On the walk to the castle we popped into the Old Post Office, a really ancient building with tiny rooms (and must have been occupied by very short people) and I found a lovely little book of stories about the Tintagel Dragon.
That will be in the ever-growing parcel that will be mailed home before I leave the UK.
Then we saw some drystone walls - so precisely laid I just had to take a couple of photos.
Then we got to the castle.
Not really much to see any more, but that's another tick on the bucket list!
On the walk to the castle we popped into the Old Post Office, a really ancient building with tiny rooms (and must have been occupied by very short people) and I found a lovely little book of stories about the Tintagel Dragon.
That will be in the ever-growing parcel that will be mailed home before I leave the UK.Then we saw some drystone walls - so precisely laid I just had to take a couple of photos.
Then we got to the castle.
Not really much to see any more, but that's another tick on the bucket list!
July 1 - churches & steps
There is a place I'd always wanted to see but when I was a child we would always bypass this little town, but this was my chance.
Wells is like Adelaide - full of churches and... a cathedral. This cathedral has a set of steps that have always fascinated me, and I believe have been used in movies. But the rest of the cathedral is also worth the visit. When it was being built the foundations began to sink (shades of the Leaning Tower of Pisa) so they came up with scissor arches to spread the weight.
And these are the steps that have always fascinated me - took a while to get a clear (ie no people) pic, but to actually walk up them was a special moment. They have replaced some of the most worn steps but as you can see at the bottom, they have been well-used.
Wells is like Adelaide - full of churches and... a cathedral. This cathedral has a set of steps that have always fascinated me, and I believe have been used in movies. But the rest of the cathedral is also worth the visit. When it was being built the foundations began to sink (shades of the Leaning Tower of Pisa) so they came up with scissor arches to spread the weight.
And these are the steps that have always fascinated me - took a while to get a clear (ie no people) pic, but to actually walk up them was a special moment. They have replaced some of the most worn steps but as you can see at the bottom, they have been well-used.
June 30 - Part 2
In between driving all over the Wiltshire countryside we stopped off at Avebury - the village inside a stone circle - or henge to give it the correct name.
In the background, right from when we saw the first horse at Westbury, all we could hear in the morning was small arms fire, rifle fire and the occasional F1-11 flying over because Salisbury Plain, at the southern side of where we were, is all Ministry of Defence land and they were having exercises or training and generally making a lot of noise. Right until we got to the last horse, near Devizes, in the afternoon they had changed to artillery fire, and on one of the roads there were roadsigns for tank crossings!
Avebury is a lovely little village, and we managed to walk around the entire stone circle, and photographed pretty nearly every stone! My sister, like myself, is an imaginative soul and we were seeing all sorts of different things in the stones, but our two favourite are the beagle and the cat.
There are dozens of other stones, one of which reminded me of a character out of Star Wars and another that looked like an alien in a Dr Who episode.
Like I said, wild imagation!
We actually passed through Avebury a few times - first was immediately after seeing Silbury Hill, which unfortunately they don't allow public access to any more because of erosion, and we missed the sign for the carpark, then again later in the afternoon when we were headed up to the Broadtown and Hackpen white horses and then back through a third time to get to the Roundway horse.
It was on the way between the Westbury horse and Cherhill that we saw our first crop circle - quite by sheer happenstance. I was busily looking out the right side of the car, my sister who was driving caught something out the corner of her eye so we screamed to a halt (literally) in the next layby and walked back and there was a crop circle in a wheat field not 50 yards away from us. If there had been a high point nearby we would have gone there to look down on it but sadly there wasn't. In the photo you can see faint markings where the edge of the circle is.
However, we did see a small plane flying around all afternoon in most of the places we visited, possibly taking photos of the crop circles - of which we caught glimpses of many! We did kick ourselves that we could have seen the one at Alston Barnes if we'd walked across the road from where we'd parked to look at some prehistoric earthworks and up the hill and we would be looking down on it. Still, I'm satisfied that I've seen crop circles now - I can cross that off my bucket list!
Here's Silbury Hill.
In the background, right from when we saw the first horse at Westbury, all we could hear in the morning was small arms fire, rifle fire and the occasional F1-11 flying over because Salisbury Plain, at the southern side of where we were, is all Ministry of Defence land and they were having exercises or training and generally making a lot of noise. Right until we got to the last horse, near Devizes, in the afternoon they had changed to artillery fire, and on one of the roads there were roadsigns for tank crossings!
Avebury is a lovely little village, and we managed to walk around the entire stone circle, and photographed pretty nearly every stone! My sister, like myself, is an imaginative soul and we were seeing all sorts of different things in the stones, but our two favourite are the beagle and the cat.
There are dozens of other stones, one of which reminded me of a character out of Star Wars and another that looked like an alien in a Dr Who episode.
Like I said, wild imagation!
We actually passed through Avebury a few times - first was immediately after seeing Silbury Hill, which unfortunately they don't allow public access to any more because of erosion, and we missed the sign for the carpark, then again later in the afternoon when we were headed up to the Broadtown and Hackpen white horses and then back through a third time to get to the Roundway horse.
It was on the way between the Westbury horse and Cherhill that we saw our first crop circle - quite by sheer happenstance. I was busily looking out the right side of the car, my sister who was driving caught something out the corner of her eye so we screamed to a halt (literally) in the next layby and walked back and there was a crop circle in a wheat field not 50 yards away from us. If there had been a high point nearby we would have gone there to look down on it but sadly there wasn't. In the photo you can see faint markings where the edge of the circle is.
However, we did see a small plane flying around all afternoon in most of the places we visited, possibly taking photos of the crop circles - of which we caught glimpses of many! We did kick ourselves that we could have seen the one at Alston Barnes if we'd walked across the road from where we'd parked to look at some prehistoric earthworks and up the hill and we would be looking down on it. Still, I'm satisfied that I've seen crop circles now - I can cross that off my bucket list!
Here's Silbury Hill.
June 30 - horses & stones & circles - Part 1
There are 8 horses carved into the chalk hills of Wiltshire - and we saw them all! In order of sighting they are:
Westbury (the oldest one)
Cherhill
Alston Barnes (this one had a crop circle below it - not very visible from where we were standing but if you look at the right hand side of the photo there are some darker markings in the field below the trees - that's the circle)
Pewsey
Marlborough
Broadtown
Hackpen
Roundway
It took us ten hours - but that did include walking all the way around Avebury - see next post!
Westbury (the oldest one)
Cherhill
Alston Barnes (this one had a crop circle below it - not very visible from where we were standing but if you look at the right hand side of the photo there are some darker markings in the field below the trees - that's the circle)
Pewsey
Marlborough
Broadtown
Hackpen
Roundway
It took us ten hours - but that did include walking all the way around Avebury - see next post!
Catching up...
Apologies for the lack of posts ... it was either a case of getting back to our accommodation very late at night and then hooning off early the next day, or just no connection at all!
So, here are a batch of posts, done by day because there's so much to catch up on.
So, here are a batch of posts, done by day because there's so much to catch up on.
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