Monday 31 August 2015

The day we didn't go down a Welsh mine

First day of our Wales tour and you can tell... someone knew where to go and what to look at, and we came along with them.  In this case it was our driver, Philip. Along with us, he has another 13 Aussies.Philip lives in Dorset and is not Welsh, but he is doing a great job so far of giving us a feel for the place.

It seems the group will, again, be pretty good at keeping to time. We had a good test today when we went to St Fagan's natural history  museum-which is a bit like the historic pioneer village near Tailem Bend in that it has buildings brought in from other places and planted there to give people an idea of what life was like in different times.  We had just under two hours, and could easily have spent four there as they had well informed staff who would chat and give you a great insight into things. The group was back on the bus and ready to go right on time. We had an excellent discussion with one bloke about peat fires and how to make the best window out of linen and ash frames. The castle there was also really informative and gave an idea of what life would have been like for the servants and the gentry.
One of the blokes was even on the lake in a curricle (is that where "rub a dub dub" came from?)


Trevor checking out an old urinal. Not sure how cleaning would have gone. It was open on the other side and divided into three section so three men could use it at one time. Nothing for the ladies as they were not expected to leave the house much!


We started the day with a pick up in Cardiff and a brisk tour of the old dock area-now a cultural precinct instead of full of coal boats and trains as it would have been a generation ago. Saw the church where Roald Dahl was baptized,  and the preparations for power boat races. Also a tricky statue in memory of merchant seamen.


same statue taken from two different directions

Most of the buildings in the centre of Cardiff have been built in the last 25 years.

After the docks and historical village we headed into castle mode with a quick stop to take a shot of the red castle (which reminded me of Rapunzel)-owned by the Marquess of Bute (same family that gifted the remarkable Cardiff Castle to the city)

It even has a drawbridge and a moat and gets lived in a few weeks of the year if it is lucky!

Then on to Caerphilly Castle which has a great filled moat all the way around and geese which can get a bit nasty. 




The plan was that we would then go down a historic mine to gain an insight into the coal  mining which really made this area what it was ,  but when we arrived at the big pit mine the doors were closed, and there was a notice saying they were closed due to industrial action, so we took a scenic back road and arrived at our hotel early.

The view from the window as we drove along a narrow hillside road on a back road detour. A bit of a steep hill.

The Bear...  our home for the next two nights.
Since we had arrived early we caught up on news via email and facebook and went for a walk in the rain looking for that very cute bridge that we crossed on the way in to town.  As it worked out we also found the broken down castle in a park which dates from the 1100s! !! These old old buildings are still stunning me.



Useless info for the day: the word for microwave in welsh is pronounced  "Popty Ping". I think this is such a great word I am aiming to include it in my ongoing vocabulary when I return home. 

Sunday 30 August 2015

Wales

Today we drove to Wales.
Reluctantly we left Oxford via the Cotswolds.
Arriving in time for lunch, we still managed to have a ride on the hop on, hop off bus and to enjoy a trip to the magnificent Cardiff Castle.
How over the top can one castle be????
It has old Roman walls, and lots of additions since then.The original Roman walls are extra thick.



Tomorrow morning we start our Wales tour.

Saturday 29 August 2015

Checking out Oxford for Thom and Laura


Looking straight ahead at the gates-units 1-30 are straight ahead and around to the right at the end.
First priority is to get this post up for Thom and Laura. Part of our reason for coming here was to see where they will be in the coming years and have a bit of a feel for Oxford.
I wanted to be able to picture the city and area when thinking of them so far away....

So last night after we arrived and found some tea we took a drive into the city and out to the area where they may well be living come the end of September.

The area has lots of joined units /duplexes which seem to be fairly well maintained. (Not fussily) as though normal families of mid type income live there. No rubbish in the streets and junkies.
There are local shops with a supermarket , fast food, etc on the bus route and easy walking distance from home (maybe a km from your place if you walk on the roads. ) we didn't find a cut through, but there may be one.

Bus ride took about 20 min from centre of town (number 3 bus) and the buses go about every 6 minutes during the main hours,  then 15 mins later till about 10 and less frequently after that.

The house is in a gated area with all places of similar structure and type.  There are about 50 units all put together in pairs (joining one other).

As you enter the gated area you turn sharply to your left to find number 32.

Gates in from the road

You can just see your place coming into view down the back.The first wall as you head down there.


The place is empty we realised,  so we put our faces up to the window and then took a couple of pics inside. (How snoopy are we??)

The back loung/dining area is pretty small, but has room for a small table to seat 4 (currently in it) and a 2 seater sofa, with room for another 2 seater or a desk or 2 singles by the window.  There is also a basic shelf/small bookcase in place on the end by the entrance. 

So I'm looking in the back window. That is the table on the right side (pine) . The entrance is visible on the far left . You can't see the shelf/bookcase at all.  Sorry. There is still some reflection despite my best efforts. 
The kitchen window (at the front)revealed a single sink. If you stand in the kitchen, looking out the window from the sink there appears to be a washing machine(floor) and dryer (mounted above bench)on your right. To the left is some bench space and then a stove top. (Looks probably electric) and I'm assuming an oven under that. The kitchen is pretty skinny,  but there are 6 overhead cupboards on the back of the lounge room wall, as well as bench space all along there, and also 4 under bench cupboards and a deck of drawers plus the fridge.  I'm guessing there are also a couple of under bench/sink cupboards on the other side. Lots of power points and not ugly.


We can only guess that upstairs there are a bathroom (you can see the smaller window at the front )and  probably 2 bedrooms.



There is a clothesline just out the back which had clothes on it today.
This is looking at the back of the house.  Lounge room window and upstairs bedroom window visible.
As you look from the clothesline or lounge window backwards into the yard there is grass and trees like a park.  Something (maybe moles?) Is digging in the lawn.




This path leads down to the back of the property. Walk down it a little way and look towards the left and you see the view below. 


We followed the path around to the right to the T junction at the end and it curved around and finally came to a wrought iron gate which has a sign on it "keep locked at all times" which was hanging open, so we went through.  We saw this gate last night from the other side, so we then knew that we could follow the path down to the lock and could get across the river there.  On a bike you can do it too (you have to wheel the bike across the lock)

We took the bus out to your suburb from the centre of town.  It took about 20 minutes max. The road(Iffley Rd)  is 2 lanes and fairly busy but has bike lanes on either side marked. Sometimes cars are parked in them.

The student who gave us our Oxford tour said the spot is good for the hospitals, as it is "up the hill". We didn't particularly notice it, but the city of Oxford is down hill, and your place and the hospitals area are both up hill, so you avoid effort by riding your bike around to them at about the same height instead of dropping and then climbing again. It is only about 3-4 miles into town max too, so very doable on a bike. About the same to the hospitals.

We followed the bike track across the locks and part way into town,  taking lots of photos (it is lovely) of canal boats, rowers, and stopping for a cup of tea at a farmhouse tea rooms and pub  (the isis farmhouse) before reluctantly leaving the delicious smell of roasting pork, and heading out of there and over the bridge and getting a bus back into town before it started to rain any more. (Only got a bit wet)

Brasenose
We got a look at this as a special concession from the kind man looking after the entrance today after hearing our story. We could only see the quads but they are lovely.

 Chapel under repair looking over the "deer park"
Looking from the formal quad back towards the main entrance and the Radcliffe Camera (apparently an amazing round library that you can study in) 
Brasenose is right in the centre of town so very convenient that way.


I have lots of photos of the river etc, but they take forever to upload. I hope this gives a bit of an idea.

We had a good tour walking, and picking the student's brain,  and then a bus trip around on the tourist double decker. So many amazing places and amazing history.  It will be an incredible place to be.

We also saw old documents in the library-Magna Carta,  old bibles, original score for the Messiah,  wind in the willows, Shakespeare's first bound volume of all works in one. Etc.  Too much to handle in one go.


I've never covered off on the trip to here from Devon. Sorry, but need to head for bed as we need to be up early driving to Wales tomorrow.



Thursday 27 August 2015

Barnstable and Bideford -road diversions and rain.

This post will cover our adventures on two days as we had a catch up post yesterday and then ran out of steam.

Yesterday we

  • Visited Lyme Regis 
  • Travelled to Salisbury and left the tour to pick up our hire car
  • Found Salisbury Cathedral and visited
  • Drove to Barnstaple and then to Shirwell 
As you can probably see from this rough map of where we went-we ended up doing a lot of km effectively just to see Salisbury Cathedral.  This was  because we (I) really hadn't looked very hard at the geography of where we would be the night before and where we wanted to end up.  We probably could have made thing much easier on ourselves by getting dropped off earlier, but we would have missed seeing Lyme Regis and Salisbury.

As it was Lyme Regis was interesting because we got to see the rocky beach and the bathing boxes and to see the wild sea doing what wild seas do at the seaside all over Britain-crash in on rocks in the wild weather in the middle of Summer. We started our walking tour of Lyme Regis under a clear sky, but ended up skipping out on some of the seaside promenade and hiding in a tea room,  drinking a cup of tea.  I know it was wimpy ... but the English seaside is not a nice place when it is cold and wet and windy. I didn't even take a photo of the crashing waves because it was too wet to take out the camera.

It was great to finally see bathing boxes at an English seaside town-but only one was being used.  It think the rest were being used for storage only as it was not a bathing type of day, and the cost is £100 a week at this time of year!

I loved the many varied pebblessed on this beach-but I was glad I had my shoes on, and wasn't heading for the water in sensitive bare feet. 

We've seen stands like this at many shops in the last week or two.  The weather may be rainy , cold or cloudy, but it seems that a crab net, a bucket and spade are essential for every kid at the seaside.
What is it about cathedrals and clocks? This is the second extraordinary clock we have seen in a cathedral in the last week.  This one is said to be the oldest working clock in the world. It has no face or hands, but chimes on the hour. It was once in the bell tower of the cathedral, but is now housed inside it. 

The baptismal font is also unusual. Water runs continually out for each corner and it is very still and reflects the beautiful windows and architecture  (if no-one is disturbing it).I could have stood and watched the reflections for hours if we didn't have to be somewhere else.

As we headed from Barnstaple to Shirwell on our last little leg of this trip we were stopped by a police road block.  A lorry had tipped over on the side of a hilly road just ahead,  and they were trying to get it upright and out of the field. This meant that we needed to use some very tiny single track lanes, ford one creek and back down a hill at one stage before finally making it the back way to our B&B. The Spinney is an 1800s house with five guest rooms, and they have been fantastic. The welcoming cuppa on arrival, the cooked breakfast and happy chatter and loan of walking map have been a just great.  It's a pity we don't have a few more nights here. 


Today we

  • went to Barnstaple
  • Went to Bideford
  • Went on to Torrington and the back to Barnstaple
  • Did our washing and dried it
  • Drove on to Ilfracombe via the coast.
  • Back to the Spinney at Shirwell

We were hoping to chase up some family history in Bideford as both Trev and I had family who came from there. It ended up being a pretty fruitless each though. The local history section was closed and no-one else could help. 

We headed for Bideford anyway to see the town and hoped we might have some help there, but they weren't really helpful either. Had to turn around because of some problem on the road ahead.  It's always fun to try to find another way when you are not familiar with the roads. We took a wrong turn which took us past a whole series of houses using rubber boots as decorations, sculpture etc on their front verges, walls and fences.  

We visited the Methodist church in Bideford (where the relatives probably all worshipped) but there is no churchyard or graves and we couldn't get in to the church.


We visited the old cemetery which was sadly unkempt, with many broken and/or overgrown grave stones-it just made us quite sure that we would like to be cremated when our time comes. 

Next to the old cemetery is a park and around the edge of the park are gravestones!!!

We found one possible relative there.

The old catholic cemetery also turned up no familiar names. 

Next stop was Torrington -where my Peace relatives came from-just to get a feel for the place.  Then we gave up the search back in time and headed off into more narrow lanes ...including a great surprising view of a solar array as we came around a bend. We never saw a sign of it again, even though we looked.  These hedgerows hide a lot of views.



After a bit of a break to do washing at the local laundrette we headed for the coast further north , stopping for tea at one of the seaside towns before heading home via the narrow roads in the rain. 

there were a couple of good looking surf beaches.

This is blurry-but that's how it was.. skinny little lanes,  rain, dark, wet... I can see why people move to Australia where you can have some space. 


Tomorrow we head for Oxford and will be there for a couple of nights. 

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Cornwall to Devon in the rain -(24th August)

We had a late start leaving Fowey this morning, and since we have had an extremely slack week, with lots of eating and drinking and not a lot of exercise (also somewhat inspired by the amazing rogaining effort of the Colwells in their rogaine ) we agreed that this morning there would be a run.

When we woke, the rain was falling, but we are orienteers, and what is a little rain when we are on a mission? So we handed in our key and out we went into the "Cornish liquid sunshine" . As we walked down through the hotel gardens the harbour sat grey and cold in front of us. The little boats were wishing they were in a nice warm harbour. Space is a premium in Fowey. The streets are very narrow, and the houses are set on the steep hills surrounding the harbour. We saw a number of cars parked in close to the walls on the edge of the street where the driver must regularly have to climb out of the passenger side. The driver's side is within 10cm of the wall! We soon found, and followed a "public footpath" cutting away into some woodland. The path gave us a good workout as it rose gradually, while to our left the land dropped away quite sharply to the mixed oak, beech and inevitable blackberries. We were hoping to find a cliff path and follow it around the edge of the headland, but never did. At one stage we cut down through a corn field into another signed footpath, but the track became very slippery and had lots of nettles, so we backtracked again.

Needless to say today we carried some extremely soggy shoes and clothes in our luggage. Hopefully we will have a chance to get them dry tonight. We appreciated our hot cooked breakfast after the run as we lingered over our cup of tea, looking out over the lovely harbour,


and then made our way down into the town through the very narrow streets so see the old church destroyed by the Spaniards in the 1300s and rebuilt by the locals. I feel slightly uncomfortable about the idea of dead guys lying in a church where people worship ( except if it is their funeral). I'm also unsure about skulls used as decoration in a church. I did like the nautical themed stained glass and also the bell ringers pledge ( complete with fine of sixpence for wearing your spurs when ringing the bells).





We arrived in Polperro in the pouring rain, walked around in the pouring rain, had a Cornish pastie and cuppa inside to get out of the pouring rain, and then caught their little electric tram back up to meet the bus again. The weather put a real dampener on this little visit to a quite cute tourist town where the creek runs in through the town directly between the houses (against the walls). This creek was running so fast that it was brown with mud. The brown colour was running into the harbour, colouring the whole area brown.

We arrived back at the bus very wet, and stripped off the jackets to hang as we rode onwards towards the border with Devon, and a hurried look at Buckfast Abbey.

The abbey was first founded in 1018, fell into disrepair, and a mill owner built his buildings from the ruins,( do your believe that? ) but eventually in the early 1900s it was re dedicated and has an active monastery there still. They make their own stained glass and had a lovely (more modern) stained glass window at the front of the church. They also had a physic and a sensory garden, and a wonderful smelling lavender garden with huge bees doing their work in it.



Onwards, ever onwards we travelled through Honiton... Renowned for it's lace (used in Queen Victoria's wedding dress) following the way of the old Roman road. This is also on the Trafalgar way - a commemorative route which remembers the battle of Trafalgar. Apparently when Nelson was killed at the battle of Trafalgar it took ten days for the news to make it to Falmouth by sea. It was then delivered posted haste to the the king by a man on horseback who rode the Trafalgar way. The one rider rode towards London for 37 hours, only stopping to change his horse 21 times!!!

Continuing on through the rolling Devon hills, we passed Axminster (of carpet fame) to get to our home for the night - the Fairwater, which is a country house , not really anywhere, right on the border between Devon and Dorset. (quite near to Lyme Regis)

As we neared the hotel we noted again some solar arrays out in the paddocks. We've seen quite a few of these on this trip, along with many wind turbines- big white, three winged ones very similar to the ones on the ranges north of Adelaide. Obviously at least some of the English think that this is a good plan.

Now once again we were relying on sketchy internet connection, so the blog never uploaded.  Hence I'm now comp,eating it and uploading a day late.  Today will have to wait until tomorrow, as we are tired and it is already getting late.
Goodnight all.

Monday 24 August 2015

A wonderful relaxed Cornish birthday

I've had a wonderful birthday.

I woke up this morning to lots of birthday love already waiting for me, since my birthday was already well under way in Australia. It was a lovely way to do it and I felt very loved even before I headed down to breakfast.  I had messages from both my boys, my siblings and Dad and lots of other special people. Thanks everyone.  You made my day.

We had a late start to the day, which meant that we could get up at 8am with no hassles and still have time to linger over breakfast.  Very decadent. The Cornish seem to make strong tea, which suits us really well.

First  stop today was the Trebah gardens.  This is an amazing gardens , set out in the early 1900s and later left to go wild, then re-established .  Now it has beautiful trees, protecting a wonderful hydrangea garden, an amazing "bamboozle",  and a water garden.  A lovely protected beach is where some of the D day troops embarked from. There are entrancing views of curving paths, water reflections, different textures, heights and colours.




 The hydrangeas were outstanding and there was lots of variety.

Had to show you Trev amongst the giant rhubarb.... scary!
One of the traditional cottages on the estate with boats on the mud at low tide.  Sorry my blog is insisting on putting photos out of order so I have given up on trying. 
Another of the cute cottages you can rent.
This is Lewis , our Cornish guide.. he wore a tie to take us for a walk! I loved him for that before he even said a word.  The tie is the Cornish tie-the black and white flag, the yellow for the royalty, blue for the coast and red for the Cornish bird with red beak and legs which is very rare (called a chough "chuff")

The giant rhubarb has this weird pink fluffy stuff, prickey bits on the stems, and dies off in the winter.  (That's the way I  think all rhubarb should be all the time....dead. )

The garden has about 4.5  miles of paths sloping down to the sea, and it was some wonderful vistas. We had a great time wandering, exploring, meeting our fellow bus mates at random spots and sharing discoveries. 

Then we ventured on to Trengothnan estate, where we met a local Cornish guide, who took us for a stroll along the Fal river and told us about the estate. They grow the only tea grown in England here, but also make honey, harvest Kea plums,  apples, have a herd of deer which they harvest, and they also have houses for rent for holiday makers. How is that for diversification? The tide was out, so we could walk along the paths beside the river. See the pictures above as they would not drop into the correct spot.

On to Cornish afternoon tea at a tea rooms so out of the way it should not be thriving, but is.  We had to drive down a road with a sign saying "not suitable for motorized vehicles" between very narrow hedges with granite right behind them . Only had to back up a couple of times. The scones (although cold) were good, as was the jam and the clotted cream (a Cornish speciality which is extremely yummy but I'm sure also disgustingly fattening) . The cottage where we had this afternoon tea also fronts on to the Fal river, and is directly across from where more of the troops embarked from.  Apparently  Churchill,  Eisenhower and Lord Mountbatten sat here to plan for it and could see the ships in this deep harbour as they did so. 







Sorry-this is a bit dark, but it gives the idea.  It was a real garden party. 

Then we headed on across the King Harry ferry (which has been running in one form or another for the last 500 years!!!)

Briefly admired Charlestown with its historic port with a number of old tall ships, and an old couple sitting in the rare sunshine, just soaking it up. 


And finally on to Fowey ("Foy") where we settled in with a view to die for drinking Cornish Gin, ate a delicious and expensive dinner along with some McLaren Vale shiraz (sadly not Wirra Wirra) and admired the view some more  before dropping into bed. 

The view from our spot.
Night shot from our window. 


So now it is way too late again and I must go to sleep. Goodnight all.