Travelling the UK in 2008

Yes I’m home and I know I’ve seen quite a few of you but I thought I’d write one last blog to finish off.

I arrived home last Thursday at around 7.00pm, although not technically in Australia I was 40000 or so feet above the ground when my nephew was born about 2.30 hours earlier. I was supposed to be home the day before but I missed my flight.

Yes it’s true. I completely arsed it up. I forgot that in that weird plane time 11.55 isn’t 5 to midnight but in fact 5 to noon. So there I was at Heathrow all befuddled as to why there was no one else checking in at the Singapore airline desk, when I was told I had in fact turned up in 12 hours late. D’oh.

Fortunately for me, I was able to get on the same flight to Singapore the next day. But getting home from Singapore was more of a problem. I might be able to get on the same flight home or I might have to wait 9 hours… It was up fate to decide.

You know there is someone looking after you when time your arrival at Heathrow perfectly and get the last seat on the flight from Singapore to Melbourne. Too early and there wouldn’t have been one available, too late and someone else would have got it. It was perfect. Except that on the flight from London to Singapore there was a little baby screaming for most of the time. I’d just be nodding off to sleep and then he’d start, after six hours of this, I was going a bit spare and by the time 10 hours had passed, I was ready to parachute out of the plane.

So now I’m here. Everyone’s been asking me whether I’m happy to be home. The only answer I can give is yes and no. Yes because I was pretty tired of the moving around and missed everyone and no because it’s not there and as nice as here is, it ain’t London or Scotland.

The last three months have been a bit of a whirlwind really. Finishing work, flying off, the blur that was my holiday, coming home to a new nephew (James Victor by the way – very very cute) and other pre-arranged commitments. No wondered this week at work, I haven’t quite been with it.

There are so many stories from my holidays that I haven’t told – places I saw, things that happened. I know that there will be conversations about it but in the meantime, I thought I’d finish off by letting you know some of this stuff.

Favourite Places
Canterbury and Dover – great castle, the white clifffs, city walls, the cathedral (even if some of the service was in Latin), the snow, good hostel and friendly people.
Hadrian’s Wall – I know it’s only a wall but it’s beautiful. The absolute precision of the brickwork that is still standing despite pilfering after 2000 years.
Malham – Beautiful English Countryside with cute non-aggressive sheep. What everyone imagines England is like.

Favourite Big City (because a city is anything with a cathedral).
London – It’s big, bustling and full of tourists but a brilliant city. There more you learn about it, the more stories there are to learn. Almost any area you go into has an amazing bit of history that enlivens your experience. I’ve not seen enough of London. Next time I’ll explore those places where tourists don’t normally haunt.
Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow – These are all the other big cities I went to.
I really liked Edinburgh but they have to do something about the Royal Mile. There are more tacky tourist shops in that mile than is right. Glasgow was interesting but I really liked Manchester (the industrial revolution stuff is really interesting) and Newcastle. If I had to pick one I’d go Newcastle – the river and bridges are lovely and you’ve got to admire a city where you can’t understand a word anyone is saying but is styling it’s the cultural capital of the north. Also had a great night out with some Irish lads, met a girl that was just like me and saw Alan Lawson (Mr Jarndyce from Bleak House to you).

I wish I’d gone to Vegas….
1. When I was walking up those mountains in Glencoe
2. When I missed the bus that was going to take me to my walking holiday (although not entirely my fault).
3. Walking through the fields in the peak district with all my pack and bags worried about being attacked by sheep. When the guy at the tourist office told me it was less dangerous to walk on the roads, that should have been a sign.

Least Favourite Places
There were lots of places that I didn’t like very much. Edale was up there, although that was more because of the youth hostel being all snotty and the above mentioned walk with scary sheep. Glasgow – it’s just an odd city. Cornwall wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be. Brighton was loud, trashy and full of French people (which begs the question, why?). But in all these places there was something that I did that was good. For instance in Edale I was limited in where I could walk but I did see this lovely valley and mountain. Glasgow had the Kelvingrove and a good night out on Buchanan Street. Cornwall had the Minack Theatre, St Michael’s Mount and the Eden Project (a rip off but still pretty). Brighton had the Royal Pavilion, which was stunning.

The list of favourites could go on forever but here’s a few more…
Best castle – A tie between Stirling and Windsor. Both have huge historical significance to their countries. Stirling is more your classic castle, while Windsor does actually have a ruling Monarch there on a regular basis.
Best tourist activity – When you do something everyday there’s a lot of things to think about. I guess the steam train from Fort William to Malliag was worth the money, as was the Historic Dockyards at Portsmouth – despite the questionable security arrangements. Battle Abbey was also really good.
Best church, cathedral or place of worship – I loved Canterbury (tomb of Thomas Becket, tomb and armour of Edward the Black Prince, lots and lots of history) but the Italianate Chapel on the Orkney has to win. It is simply amazing. The POWs made on of the most beautiful churches I’ve seen with what they had on hand. For that reason alone it has to win.

Okay so that covers all the touristy things I did but we still haven’t finished quite yet.

People

At the beginning of my trip, I really didn’t meet many people, it was a bit early and there wasn’t many people travelling. In the first three or so weeks I really missed home especially some of my friends that I know would be great to travel with. I got over that though when I got back into the swing and stopped comparing this trip with my previous one. Still everywhere you went there was always someone to talk too.
In London I met a woman on the bus, who had lived in Melbourne and used to be the chief economist for BHP. On the train to Malliag there was a teacher who’d taught at my high school. There was also this guy who was one of the last traditional glass blowers in England and had spent three months making the chandelier for Kew palace.
I could go on and on. Probably the people I liked most were Tammy – we hiked together in Scotland and I stayed with her in London and Mike the tour guide in the Orkneys. He was just amazing – instead of just telling you the history of the thing you were seeing in the Orkney he would tell you the legends and folk tales it enhanced the whole experience.
The Brits should be very proud that I only met three of their countrypeople that I would describe as absolute tools. In most cases the people I meet that did qualify as tools were foreigners and frankly going through all of them would take some space. So what did these Brits do to earn their title?
The first guy called me a man, not once but twice. I was sitting on a train and he had only seen the back of my head. An easy mistake to make when you have the worst haircut on the entire planet (if your hairdresser ever suggests that you cut your hair like Victoria Beckham remember this story and just say no!). He did apologise for his mistake and I could forgive him that but then he made it worse by repeating “you know I really thought you were a man”. At which I smiled politely but was thinking should I tell him to sod off, throw something at him or offer to prove my status as a woman to him.
The second wasn’t so much a tool as just a person to avoid at all costs. I met this woman from Aberdeen in Glasgow. She was with some other people I’d met and they were discussing initimate details of their sex lives. And by initimate I mean gory details. It then went onto drugs where this woman happily admitted to smoking heroin. Finally she finished up by telling us (not in a sad way) that she was only allowed to see her daughter two afternoons a week but needed to be supervised (any wonder). While see was telling us this, she was downing vodka like it was water, which she then threw up before running out of the room and letting us clean it up.
The winner however, is this guy called Ben from the first day of my tour in the Orkneys. You know things are bad when the tour leader gets back onto the bus after dropping him off, looks at you and says “he was hard work wasn’t he?”. Within half an hour of meeting Ben, I wanted to tell him to shut the eff up. He was so annoying. He talked almost no stop about absolute garbage. He complained about the food he got at the pub, maligned Aussies on Haggis tours (in front of an Aussie who’d been on a Haggis tour), said how much he’d hate to live in the Orkneys where everyone knows your business and decided it would be a great idea to get Mike to discuss the drinking habits of his hotel manager in front of a cafe filled with Orcadians. And then on the tour of the Shelia Fleet Jewellery factory he just took over and wouldn’t let anyone else ask anything. Seriously the guy was a complete tool. He is the first person I’ve ever meet who had travelled as much as he had that was still so ignorant.

Okay so did you know like meet anyone??????
Of course I met Anyone. I also met Someone and Anyone and Someone Nice. And now I’ve put that question to bed (perhaps a poor choice of words). Although I have to say most people haven’t asked, which is very restrained of you all. Let’s just say if I had of meet my Mr Wonderful, you’d have all been the first to know. Mostly because in the unlikely event that happened I wouldn’t have been able to shut up about it.

Food…

Yes I was slightly obsessed with cheese rolls but the cheese in England is really good. On Mull I had this sensational highland smoked cheddar and I’d buy the Mull of Kintyre extra mature cheddar, which was also really good. I’d eat cheese with either a bread roll or oat cakes. Oat cakes are like heavy savoury biscuits but with texture (with that description you’ll all be racing out to sample them). However, towards the end even I couldn’t eat anymore cheese – although weirdly been craving it since I’ve been home. Perhaps I’m part mouse.

Scones.

I love scones and tea but they were disappointing in England and Scotland. Over there they call them cream teas. The scones weren’t cooked fresh, nor were they heated up. They were a bit dry and chewy. With this they usually give you jam and clotted cream, which is sickening. It’s sort of like cream that’s been semi buttered. It actually spreads like butter. It’s rich and not very appealing. Give me a good ‘ol devonshire tea any day.

Best meal.
1. Homemade mushroom soup and rhubarb crumble on the Orkneys. The soup was so sensational I asked for the recipe. What makes this meal more outstanding was the backpacker price.
2. Beef and stilton pasty in Penzance. They didn’t skimp on the stilton, there were nice big chucks and the pastry wasn’t flaky but wholemeal shortcrust – really good.
3. Steak – London. Getting a steak, chips and vegies in London for around 16 Aussie dollars is an absolute bargain and it was good steak too.

Worst meal.
Okay mostly stuff I cooked myself ranged from pretty good to barely edible. I can’t cook potatoes. I’ll put them in the water, they be soft enough to put a fork in but when I eat them they’ll be raw in the middle – yum. My cooking style could be described as impressionistic. Rather than havea recipe in my head I will buy things in the supermarket that I feel like eating and hope that something edible comes out when I cook them. For instance I had rice, sweet potato, green beans, red kidney beans and carrots. I can honestly tell you that cooking that up and mixing it all together isn’t as nice as it sounds, especially when there’s no soy sauce or anything to give it some flavour. It was pretty much the worse thing I ate while I was away.

So that’s it. There could be endless lists, favourite things etc but if your actually still reading then I’m impressed anyway. I am glad I did this trip, even if it was more up and down than I thought it would be. I still had an amazing time and got to see some of the things I’d wanted to see for a long time. (If I’ve missed something that you want to know email me and I’ll answer it for you).

I found backpacking more difficult this time – probably because I’m older and have greater expectations on hygenie and comfort. All in all I didn’t fair to badly with the hostels. Would I go backpacking again? In a flash.

You see there is something infinity alluring about slinging your pack onto you back. Even though I was completely exhausted when I arrived in Melbourne that feeling was still there. The moment I put my pack on my shoulders I could feel it. The vibe. A feeling that makes you seek your next adventure. A happiness for the complete freedom that comes with it. All over England and Scotland that’s what I felt whenever I had my pack on – where’s the next place, what’s the next cool thing we’ll see and do. It’s that yearning that keeps you wanting more and will hopefully keep me seeking out new travels in the years to come.

The land of nooks and crannies.

This post comes two weeks after my trip to the Orkney’s. Again internet access has been a problem but I have also found myself strangely lost for words (a rare event). In the two weeks I’ve done a lot, traversed Scotland from the North to the West and South. I’ve seen castles, mountains and lochs, wildlife and some of the most beautiful scenery on earth.

I took the Jacobite steam train from Fort William to Malliag across the Glenfinnan Viaduct (aka the bridge from Harry Potter) through some of the most spectacular scenery in Scotland. This route is called the Road to the Isles. On one side of the train was mountains and sea lochs and on the other mountains and fresh water lochs. I just sat there on the train wondering how Scotland can be so beautiful. It got all the looks and England got all the power.

After feeling like I’d had enough and could come home early, I went to Stirling Castle and got my third wind. As castles go it rivals Edinburgh not for spectacle and gilting but for history. Robert the Bruce (I think) said that if you control Stirling you can control Scotland. The castle is built on a rock that overlooks the Trossach mountains. From the top you can see Stirling Bridge, where William Wallace defeated the English in 1297 and Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce defeated the English in 1314 – thus securing Scottish Independence.

At Stirling castle James the first of England and Scotland was baptised. Apparently Mary Queen of Scots hosted a three day banquet to celebrate the baptism, where much feasting and debauchry went on. The castle also boasts a tapestry studio where you can watch weavers re-creating a medieval tapestry of the Capture of the Unicorn. It was amazing to watch the artists at work and it’s not at all like the way we’d do tapestry at home.

There are lots of highlights from those two weeks. Including going to the Highland Games at Blair Castle, where I felt like I’d stepped into Brigadoon. At the games, I watched heavy men, throwing heavy things including the Caber (Gaelic word for log) and lots and lots of pipers playing Scotland the Brave over and over. Probably the memory that will stay with me the longest is sitting at the fort in Fort William and watching dusk fall across the loch. The sun had a particular angle, where one mountain shone bright green in one area and the rest was in shadow. As I sat there I wondered how I could ever drag myself away from a place that I have felt total peace.

I don’t know what makes me so attracted to those mountains. It’s certainly not the idea of climbing them. But they’re mine and when I see them I can only think of the tranquility which I felt there. I love the way the sky surrounds the mountains and the mountains tumble down into the lochs. Photos can never do justice to them really.

On my last night in the highlands, I went to a highland night, which was a bit daggy but at the same time a fitting tribute to end my time there. The song Loch Lomond performed that night, contains the famous lines “you take the high road and I’ll take the low road and I’ll be in Scotland afore you”. It’s a sad song about two lovers seperated after the Jacobite rebellions. That song said everything about how I felt about Scotland too.

I can understand why people wept as they watched the mountains becoming specks on the horizion as their boats sailed away during the highland clearances. Scotland has that effect on you. In Fort William, I didn’t know how I was going to be able to get on that train to take me Stirling. To seperate myself perhaps for a long time from those mountains, maybe I’ll never return there again.

I went to Scotland because I felt like I had unfinished business there. I’ve tried to finish some of it but alas I just want more now. Maybe because I’ve seen more and realised there is more to see and maybe because I was slightly disappointed that I couldn’t see more even though I saw a lot.

Scotland is the land of nooks and crannies. To truly see Scotland, to emmerse yourself in it’s beauty, you need a car. You need to be able to stop go down the little side road to see a waterfall or a loch or a forest. These places aren’t accessible by public transport and has much beautiful sceney as you get from the train, this is only part of the story.

Perhaps one day I’ll be able to take the high or the low road again and be back by the bonny banks of Loch Lomond.

Orkney Islands…
Getting in touch with my inner Viking.

Getting to the Orkney’s is a pain in the bum. From Inverness it’s a four hour train trip, then a thirty minute bus ride and then a 40 minute ferry and then another twenty-five minute bus. This will get you to Kirkwall the capital of the Orkney Islands.

This route will also take you past John o’Groats, which I was delighted to find was as disappointing as I’d hoped. Let’s face it JoG is famous but for absolutely no reason. It is neither the furtherest point north or west on mainland Britian. I didn’t have very high expectations when I went there but had to go because I’d been to Lands End, which at least is the most easterly point on Mainland Britian.

The SYHA in Kirkwall was weird, it reminded me of being in an episode of Get Smart. You know in the credits Maxwell has to pass through all those doors in a straight corridor, that was the Kirkwall hostel. A bit disconcerting if you need to get up in the middle of the night. I was surprised when I got to Kirkwall to find that a girl I’d meet in Newcastle was there with a Haggis tour it was nice to see someone friendly in such a remote place. And she got my Haggis tour leader too.

It was really difficult to get any information on buses in the Orkney’s until I actually got there. In fact the only timetables I did get, from the very unhelpful woman at the Tourist Information who was too busy having a private phone conversation to actually help at JoG, were two years old. So I got there, and found out that if I wanted to see all the great sites on the Orkney’s I needed to do a tour. I booked into two days of tours with Wild About Orkney – run by a guy called Mike and his wife Christie.

That gave me a day to look around Kirkwall, which was frankly too long. There’s only three attractions the Cathedral and the Earl’s and Bishop’s Palaces. Despite everything telling me how great the Cathedral was, I didn’t rate it against Canterbury, York or even Newcastle. The Earl’s and Bishop’s Palaces were interesting though.

Kirkwall is quite claustrophobic. The streets are the same colour as the houses and they’re very close together. After I while I just wanted to get out of there, which I did. I moved to another town called Stromness, which was a lot nicer.

The next day I got picked up for my tour by Mike who was really nice. He told me he was 70 but seemed way younger. We picked up the other people on our tour and headed off to see the Orkneys. The tour started by seeing the Churchill Barriers – basically concrete barriers that have been used to block the passage through four of the islands in the Orkneys. This formed a causeway that allowed traffic to get around with ease.

The highlight of the day, was the Italian Chapel. In World War II, the Italian P.O.Ws were allowed to create the Italian Chapel, as part of the work they did on the Churchill Barriers. They used two Nissen huts and by using the things they could get around them (laterns out of Corned beef tins) created a church equal in beauty to anything I’ve seen anywhere. One POW in particular painted the walls with frescoes and without plaster, the paint work looks like it’s in 3D. It’s really amazing. Probably the highlight out of everything I saw in the Orkneys.

The tour went on to the Tomb of the Eagles, which was found completely at random by a farmer, who noticed that some of the rocks he was seeing were placed together quite regularly. He dug a little bit around the area and found himself staring into a tomb with over 300 human skulls. It was a tomb from the neolithic age, containing lots and lots of eagles talons, as well as the bodies. The farmer told the authorities but they didn’t come and excavate the site, so after 20 years he did it himself. It was a remarkable discovery and story.

On the following day, I did another tour with Mike, who had with him the new boy Chris who was about to start doing tours as well. This tour took you to all the neolithic and bronze age sites on the Orkneys. It started a Maes Howe, a “tomb” although they don’t really know if that’s what it was. The most interesting thing about the site was the runes, carved into the rocks by norsemen who broke into it in the 1200s. Most of them were just graffiti – Thor woz ‘ere and that sort of thing. Seeing those runes I thought that somewhere there could be one from my very long distant relation. No doubt his would be something witty and intelligent – like me.

There were so many neolithic sites on that tour, from Maes Howe you go to the standing stones of Stenness and then the Ring of Brodgar. Both of which are a lot like Stonehenge, although a lot older. Big stones stuck in the ground that no one really has any idea what they were for. There was some idea that maybe the stones at the ring of Brodgar formed a place where the different tribes met, as the stones were grouped in fives but there is no way we’ll ever know.

The tour went onto Skara Brae, a neolithic village that was uncovered when a severe storm hit the Orkneys in the 1860s. It was interesting to see how the neolithic people lived. They had running water through their houses about 2000 years before the Roman’s did. Pretty remarkable.

Frankly after Skara Brae, I kind of tuned out. There was just so much that it all become a bit lost on me after that. We went to the Broch of Gurness, which is a round tour from the early ADs, built they believe as a defensive measure but I’d lost the time line by here. We’d moved about 5000 years forward in history in the space of a 5 mile drive. We’d gone from the Neolithic through to the Vikings and Picts.

I liked the Orkneys but found it a long way to go. The landscape is fairly barren, as the roaring winds make it difficult for the trees to grow. Mike who ran the tours was amazing and if it wasn’t for him, I doubt I would have enjoyed it quite so much. It’s perhaps interesting to note, that everyone who seemed to be involved in the tourist industry were Orcadians by choice rather than by birth. I got the feeling that the Orcadians would just as soon you not be there -they weren’t overly friendly, except in tourist areas.

Again, there has been a problem with internet access…. so here’s a summary of the last weeks events.

Glasgow.
A city of contradictions.

Ah Glasgow, what can you say about it? The city centre isn’t pretty but the west end is. There isn’t much tourist wise but it has one of the most popular museums in the UK. It has a vibrant nightlife, where you have to dress up to get into a club but a problem with public drunkeness. Its a somewhat crumbling city that is overshadowed by Edinburgh but it’s bigger and louder. For these reasons it has a bit of a PR problem but it is a real city where people go to work, go out, drink and live.

I got to experience all these parts of Glasgow in the two days I was there. A group of people from the hostel went out and because we couldn’t get into a club, we stood on the street listening to this amazing busker with some of the more dodgy Glaswegians. There were lots of police around (about 8 in about 40 minutes), we were offered alcohol and while the police were two metres away a drag on a spliff (an marajuana cigarette for the uninitiated), which we declined. One of the people standing there listening was fined by the police for being drunk and disorderly.

There are however, a few interesting things to do. I did this self guided walking tour of Glasgow, that took you past some of the more notable buildings from the glory days. Most interesting was the Necropolis, where huge crumbling remains of monuments to the dead stood. It’s a bit of a metaphor for the city, as most of them had seen better days. There is also this odd but sort of cool museum called St Mungo’s Museum for Religious Life which had icons and information about the worlds major religions. It was interesting to see how Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and Hindis viewed life, marriage, death and the universe.

The most popular thing to do in Glasgow is the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. Like most museums it has in it’s collection stuffed animals that were so popular in the Victorian era. Instead of showing them as here’s an elephant, they use them in a display of the best in the animal kingdom and as information on conservation. The single best thing in the museum though, is Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross. It’s an amazing painting showing Jesus on the cross from the perspective of him looking down on us. It uses dark colours for the sky and Jesus hanging on the cross makes a semi-circular shape with his arms and body. (I’m not that good at describing it so everyone should just google it) Despite it being Dali, it’s one of the most amazing paintings I’ve ever seen.

Walking in Glencoe.
Climb every mountain, forde every stream (btw finally get what fording every stream in that song means).

I was so excited by this walking holiday in the Scottish highlands. It was going to be the highlight of my trip. That part of Scotland is so beautiful, lochs and mountains everywhere you look. It should have been spectacular… Instead it was lots of hard work and a bit stressful. When it comes to Scotland, I think they need to remove the whole holiday thing from the title because walking (read hiking and sometimes climbing) isn’t wonderful and relaxing.

All the walks in that area are quite hard, even the easy walks are considered at an immediate level in other places in England. The first day was easy enough. Tammy and I were in the front for most of the way. Coming down it was harder because it was wet and we were walking on scree. One of the ladies with us nearly fell down the side of the mountain because of the slippery conditions. Luckily she wasn’t hurt. But we got to the bottom, with me only slipping over three times.

Both Tammy and I decided to try something more challenging the next day. So I went on the intermediate walk. It was the hardest walk I’ve ever done in my whole life. It was, I was told, harder in the first part than the hard walk.

It all started well for me, a nice steep climb uphill, just to clean the lungs out, which left me sweating and gasping for air but this wasn’t the hard bit… We had to cross a stream on a wooden bridge. The leader of the walk told me that I should walk on the balls of my feet and lean forward. Absolutely the best advice ever. Next thing I knew I was toppling forward… Going, going, gone. I was just grateful that I didn’t break my Calvin Kleins (who ever thought I’d use those words in a sentence). It also earned me a couple of stunning bruises on my hands and wrist. Shaken but relatively unharmed. But this still wasn’t the hard bit…

We then walked for a while and came to a river, one had a bridge (no slipping) the other we had to forde. This meant that I had to find rocks that weren’t slippery to get across to the other side. Even with the leader John going put your foot here, I was still shitting myself (sorry couldn’t think of a polite way of putting that). This still wasn’t the hard bit…

No the hard bit was after we crossed the river. We had what seemed like a vertical climb uphill on springy heather and tussock ground. You put your foot down but the springyness made you sink, which then meant you needed twice as much effort to pull it up again and take the next step. Added to this was the steepness of the mountain and it went on and on for what seemed like forever. I’m somewhat embarassed to say (because I was the youngest person on the holiday) that I needed help to get up there. I was struggling.

After what seemed like a lifetime, but was about two hours we got to the top of this hill with a cairn. The views were spectacular. There was still snow on most of the hills and you could even see the peak of Ben Nevis. All around you were lochs and mountains, it was beautiful. You could see almost to the isle of Skye. It was almost worth the effort to get there.

I didn’t feel any satisfaction at my achievement, mostly I wish I’d gone to a nice sunny beach where they have drinks with umbrellas. But actually I’m glad I got up that hill because I had to tell myself that I was going to keep going no matter what. I mean, I either had to go up or down, go on, go back but standing still wasn’t an option and being a philosophical kind of gal I took all sorts of lessons from the whole day.

There were three highlights that day for me, the view, since I need to take some comfort out of the whole thing but seriously if I had of known it would be that hard I’d have just brought the postcard; gunning the last 2.5km (down hill on a proper surface) in about 20 minutes and the help both emotionally and physically from my fellow walkers.

The third day of the walking tour, everyone except for four of us wanted to go up Ben Nevis. Tammy really wanted me to go with her but I realised that I could have made it but not in the time frame they had set out to do it in. With no other options available I had to go on the easy walk. It was sort of nice. A bit boring but we did get to see two birds of prey circling each other protecting their territory. We could see at various times the other group up on mountain and when they started walking in the snow we were glad we could look over Fort William instead.

I did find the whole walking thing stressful; keeping pace and not trying to look like a total loser who couldn’t keep up, in front of people who were on the most part well older than me. All the other parts of the holiday were great though. Everyone was really nice and I made friends with three really nice people. The whole setup of the holiday was cool too. You just decided the night before what you wanted for lunch and dinner and volia, there it was when you turned up. They gave you a massive array of snacks to take with you on the walks that grew expedentially over the three days I was there. And I had a room of my own, with a shower I know had been cleaned in the last month, after coming from a 12 bed dorm in Glasgow it was heaven.

Oh and I wowed everyone with my knowledge of Scottish history. One night we did this quiz where I outgunned the English people because I knew that the Stone of Scone is reputedly a toilet seat and the whisky translated from Gaelic means the water of life. Everyone was seriously impressed. At least we know that something goes into that vacant space in my head that apparently doesn’t come out the other side that easily.

Oban, Mull, Iona.

I’d been to Oban once before really hadn’t seen that much of it, alas it was going to be the same this time as I didn’t get there until nearly 8.00pm. Oh and I know hold the world record for time spent in Ballachulish. I watched the sun set over the harbour though, which was nice. Mostly I went to Oban to go out to Mull.

I don’t actually know where Mull got it’s name from but it’s a pretty island about forty minutes by ferry from Oban. I ended up getting to the capital Tobermory at around lunch but there’s literally nothing to do that doesn’t require travelling (and the buses aren’t that frequent), so basically I looked in all the shops and sat by the harbour in the sun. Tobermory is really pretty. The main street faces the harbour and the houses are all painted in bright colours.

The next day I had to get up really early to get the bus to Iona. Nothing is simple when you have infrequent public transport and single track roads. It was a two hour bus ride and a ten minute ferry ride to Iona.

Iona is lovely. You can stay on Iona but mostly you just go there for the Abbey started by St Columba in around 700 AD. There is also a nunnery that was started in the 13th century. It is believed that the Book of Kells was written there, before being transferred for safety, to Ireland. The abbey is small but it’s been rebuilt and you can now live there for a while if you want. There is also pilgrimages every Tuesday.

The highlight of the Abbey is the burial stones and crosses one of which has been standing in front of the Abbey for 1200 years. There is something about idea that makes me all warm and fuzzy. Think of all the people who have seen it, all the millions of people in 1200 years that have seen that cross. Pilgrams, tourists, kings. The Viking raiders couldn’t remove it, nor wars, nor any of the kings of England, or even the weather. It’s just stood there, lighting the path of people, without us having to do any conservation work on it. It is a wonderful thing.

There is also a graveyard, where they are reasonably certain that Duncan and MacBeth (not just characters from a Shakespeare play – they’re actually early kings of Scotland) are both buried there but they’re not sure where and if any of the fantastic burial stones in the museum are theirs. It was the burial place of all the early Scottish Kings. It was a lovely day, even if the promised sunshine didn’t eventuate.

On the trip back from Iona there was a traffic jam, there were five cars and a bus going one way and one car coming the other way. It takes a very long time to sort out this on a single track road, especially for the oncoming driver who usually has to reverse and find a passing place before they can move on. Although the scenery at that end of Mull was really lovely, it does make a tedious journey when your stopping every two minutes to let some pass you.

After Oban, which I still haven’t seen properly, I travelled onto Inverness, where I have absolutely nothing to tell you. Seriously, unless you have a car you can’t get around on public transport on a Sunday. And now I’m in… Well the whole place I’m in now is so cool, it deserves its own blog when I leave.

I’ve so forgotten what day I’m up too…. And because I’ve had so much trouble with getting internet access this is more of a summary of the last week.

Northern England.

When I left you last, I was in the Peak District but since then I moved onto the Yorkshire Dales, York, Northumberland and Newcastle.

The Yorkshire Dales was so beautiful. I did this 15km walk (not as bad as it sounds), which took about five and a half hours. It took you passed these fantastic rock formations the most amazing of which was the Gordale Scar. Two cliffs with a waterfall running through the middle of them.

There was something about that walk that made me feel so much better than I’ve felt in months. As I was walking along, I found myself just letting go of some of the angst caused by (well we all know what it’s been caused by). It was like I decided that I wouldn’t bring it back down from there with me. For the first time in about six months I feel like myself again.

When I got to the end of the walk there was a cliff called the Malham cove. There were all these people with telescopes there, I had no idea what they were doing until I saw the sign that they were looking for the Falcons. They basically sit there all day with their tweed jackets, thermos and blankets watching these birds. It’s just so English.

The other thing I did in Yorkshire, was a falconry course. I’ve always wanted to try it but it’s not as easy to do in Australia. It was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done. It was both exhilarating (I know that’s spelt wrong but I don’t have a spell checker) and ultimately completely pointless.

You fly a bird of prey, they land on your hand and you feed them raw meat. The birds a supposed to hunt and can kill rabbits and hares in the wild. People who own them actually use them for this reason. I just kept giving them bits of chicken. The best bit was going out into the fields with a hawk who would see me about 200 metres away and then fly towards me. They can judge the distance perfectly. You think they are going to crash into you but they put the brakes on and make a smooth landing. It’s pretty cool. It was a great experience, even if I’d never do it again.

From here I moved onto York, which was disappointing. York is a rival to Canterbury in that they are almost the same kind of city and even the whole religion thing as well. The Minster at work was undergoing major renovations, so the most famous bits of it you couldn’t see and they still charged £7.50 to get in there.

The rest of the city had a few interesting parts. Especially a street called the Shambles, which used to be where all the butchers were. The houses were still as they were in Tudor times. There are two on opposite sides of the street where it is possible for people to lean out the upper story window and shake hands.

From York, I went out to Hadrian’s Wall. I’d always wanted to see this an 84 mile stretch of wall running from Newcastle to Carlisle. I know it’s just a wall but it’s absolutely beautiful. 2000 years of absolute Roman genuis. The prescision of the bricks is amazing. You can still walk right beside it, which I did.

On the walk I saw what is called the “Kevin Costner Sycamore Tree”. It’s the tree from the first few scenes of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, where he saves the boy from the guards with dogs. After this he says that they will be with his father for dinner, considering Nottingham is about 100 miles south it would have been a very very very very very very very late dinner. But that’s Hollywood. (I was wondering if they made him walk to that tree like everyone else.)

Newcastle… What to say about this city? At first glance it’s very pretty, not at all what I expected lots of Georgian and Victorian architecture. But as the guy in my hostel said “it’s after a few hours that you notice that it’s a city with lots of man-made fibres”… Which is pretty much a reference to the fact that I all the locals seem to wear parachute like trackie pants. Another person in my hostel said that you can pick the non-locals as they’re the one’s that are attractive. A tad harsh but also scarily true.

This is the land of the Geordies where it’s actually quite hard to understand people when they talk fast. Most of the time I could only understand the swearing. Apparently Geordies use 82% of words from Saxon times they like to think of themselves as the true English.

Newcastle it trying to change it’s image as a rough industrial city to a cultural oasis of the north. There are a stack of art galleries and sculptures around town. I went to this one called the Laing, which had an exhibition on Love. Yoko Ono is going to make a piece of art work out of messages of love you had to write. That should be cool, when it’s done.

I meet a group of Aussies who were all leaving for Scotland in a few days so we went out celebrating and ending up drinking with these Irish guys… How do I manage to always end up with the only Irish guys in Newcastle???? Anyway it was fitting, if somewhat messy end to my time in England.

So I’m now in Scotland. (I’m going to write a bit of a sum up when I get a chance).

Day 12
Paradise Re-gained.

Coming to Newquay was all about seeing the Eden Project. A environmental project created by someone with an excessive amount of money and tree-hugging love.

It costs a staggering 17 pounds, including the bus pass (that’s about 42 Aussie dollars) to get in. In there you get to see plants, lots and lots of plants. In fact you could call it a zoo for plants. It’s been created to conserve, preserve and educate and in there you see these biomes.

What’s a biome? Well it looks like half a golf ball, stuck to the ground, it’s very sci-fi, Doctor whoish. There was also the outside biome, basically a euphemism for a garden in the great outdoors.

The day I was there, the sun was shining and the blooms were – well – blooming (sorry). Around the place was dotted cool sculptures (PJ you would have loved it). There was some plants native to cornwall. Also a good section on plants that have folklore about them.

After walking around for ages, I went into the tropical biome, which was plants from the tropical regions of Asia, Africa and South America. It was about 28 degrees in the biome and probably about 80% humidity. Coming in from the outside, sunny but cool, it was a bit much, I doubt the English would have coped well anyway.

As plants go, they were pretty nice and interesting. They had created a water fall and river that ran through the middle of the biome. There’s also information about destruction of the forests, cocoa and coffee bean production. It’s not bad, although my interest in that sort of thing is really limited to sort of caring in a very distracted sort of way.

Then you go into the Temperate Biome – plants from the Mediterrean, South Africa, California ie Melbourne. In this biome you get to see olive trees, gernamiums and plants that I can walk out of my front door and see for free. Okay there were some cool sculptures but I was a bit disappointed. Especially on the hard sell on the tulips at the beginning of the biome.

You left that biome and returned to the outside biome, got to see a lot more really pretty flowers, sculptures etc. Lots and lots of daffodils, which every time I saw, I couldn’t help but saying to myself “don’t pick the jonquils” (okay I know only 5 other people are going to get that one. I’ll explain about the jonquils when I’m back – something to look forward to I’m sure). I’m reasonably sure that I’d have a got a worse response from the boffins at the Eden project if I had of tucked an armful under my jumper than Mr Farley. All the flowers were so nice, really lovely. You could have just spent hours there looking at them. In fact I did spend hours there looking at them. I definitely lucked out on the day I went. But… Although I had enjoyed my day, I still felt vaguely unfulfilled. I wanted more, I wanted to be blown away, instead I felt like I’d paid €17 for a day in a garden, where I was constantly reminded on how my presence had this major impact on the world. I’d expected to see a desert biome but of course they still need the money to build this. Donation anyone?

Scientifically I wondered what the point was as well. These are not controlled environments. There’s no spraying, covering or leaving bags outside. You can eat in there if you wanted. Birds and Insects can get in from the outside and presumably get back out. So it’s not a natural environment.

Although it’s sort of a noble gesture, it could very well have environmental impact in a bad way. Insects could take out seeds or pollen to the outside world and there you go, false birds of paradise growing in some farmers field in Cornwall becoming a weed that they can’t get rid of. I really just think that if they want to do what they say they’re trying to achieve, they’d exercise more control over the whole thing.

I returned to Newquay, where I managed to sneak take away (fish and chips) in past the rather Nazi-esque staff at my hostel. Seriously I’ve never been to a place with that many rules and reasons for them to take away your €30 deposit. Some of these rules were too much noise, too much alcohol, food in your dorms and a whole lot of other reasons probably made up depending on whether the staff were feeling happy today or not.

The fish and chip shop I went to was in the top 10% of the fish and chip shops in Cornwall. But here’s the thing. In getting them ready of you to take away, they use these foam containers that aren’t big enough to fit the fish in them, so they have to hold onto them. That’s right, they place their presumably scrubbed hands that they hopefully haven’t put through their hair, up their nose, or any other unmentionable places on top of your fish to keep it on the tray before they wrap it in paper! Why is this so? Why not use tongs and put the fish directly onto the paper? Why not wear gloves? Why subject their customers to the sight of them with their dirty mits on your cod (actually it was haddock)? It’s truly one of the mysteries of life.

Day 13
A taste of Bristol.

When I was originally planning my trip, I was going to spend about 3 nights in Bristol. It was going be a bit of a base to see some of the country around. Also it sounded like it would be a pretty cool city to see. In the end I spent one afternoon and night there.

In one afternoon, it’s hard to know what to think of city. Although with the canal and the houseboats running through the middle it did remind me of Amsterdam, without the rampant red light district. I guess if I had of spent a bit more time there, I could of found heaps of things to do. In the end I only did one thing, which was go to a church called the St Mary Redcliffe.

Elizabeth the first said that the St Mary Redcliffe was the most famous parish church in all of England. I have no idea why, nothing I read actually explained that to me. As churches go, it was pretty nice. Lots of history and meaning.

There was one thing in there that had me going sometimes God and all that stuff is so cool. It was a cross, that had been built so a water tube ran up the back of it. There was a semi-circular metal drain running the length of the arms and a pendulum that swung back and forth emptying the water into the drain.

So what’s all that about? (I have pictures that will explain it better) and why is it cool???? Because no one knows which way the pendulum will swing. In a minute it may go one way and then the other. It’s a mystery unexplainable by science.

And of course, it’s all deep and meaningful. The sign explained it as St Mary Redcliffe’s movement into science but of course it’s more there movement into what science can’t explain and the mysteries of the universe. I thought it was such a simple thing and it said so much. I was very impressed.

Bristol was a pretty vibrant city and I thought it might have been okay to spend a bit longer there.

Day 14-15
Putting the Man and Chest into Manchester.

I didn’t know quite what to call this post. Several ideas came to mind – about peeking through the Manchester and other ideas that played on the name. In the end this title in summed up my experiences in this city.

I liked Manchester from the moment I arrived. It reminded me of Melbourne, as it seemed by far the most mulitcultural of all the cities in England I had visited so far. How I got here there was a bit of the luck of the draw. I literally got to Birmingham (where I had to change trains) and since I couldn’t decide between Manchester and a place called Ironbridge gorge. I went to whatever place I could get a bed.

There’s quite a lot to do in Manchester, there’s the Lowry – an art centre with theatres and a gallery. There’s the art gallery – with the largest collection of pre-raphaelites in the country. There’s the museum of Science and Industry which delves into the industrial history of Manchester (except for the cotton stuff not as interesting as it sounds).

Mostly though my Manchester experience can be summed up by the pub crawl I went on Thursday night with some people from my hostel. It’s been ages since I’d been on a pub crawl and since I’m really not able to go out that much at night, I mostly went to see what the night life was like.

There really wasn’t many of us on there and what a surprise most of us were Aussies. We started at this place where apparently all the footballers hang out. It can mostly be described as a bit of a sleazy man’s fantasy – sculptures and paintings of naked woman (not men), and lots of velvet and leather.

We introduced ourselves. One of the girls who worked at the hostel said that when she ran the pub crawl last week at the introduction bit, she made everyone tell their best poo story (yes you read that correctly). So there I am thinking you know I’m just not a poo story kind of person and in fact, thank goodness, I happen to be friends with the normal people in this world that don’t actually have conversations (other than the medical sort) about the contents of their bowels. Anyway it set the tone for the evening and things pretty much went on a downward trajectory (in terms of conversation) from there.

We moved on and I started to notice that because most of people on the pub crawl knew each other, there was a bit of a weird “I feel like the new girl on these mates night out” vibe. None of the pubs were of any note, until we went to the dry bar. Famous in the day for being a part of the Manchester scene. It was actually probably the nicest place we’d been too all night.

Cheap drinks were required and we went to this place call Baa Baa’s. It’s near Canal street, which is the centre of the (apparently) world famous Manchester gay scene. It actually not a bad place, the music was pretty good and there was heaps of people there.

There was this one guy, who was a bit funny. When I first noticed him, he was holding his crotch (never a good sign). He was really skinny and wearing dark sunglasses. On the dance floor, he spent an hour watching himself in the mirror (probably the best dance partner he ever had). It was hilarious.

We lost a member of the party at this point, an 18 year old called Anna, who I believe participating in horizontial tourism. And so we moved on. We moved in Canal St proper to a pub called New Union. One of the girls on the pub crawl worked there, which begs the question – would you really want to go to your work place on your night off? This girl was really strange anyway – in a your not someone I’d ever want to spend time in because your just odd way.

I had pretty much started to lose interest by now anyway but I had no idea how to get back to the hostel. Couples had started to form and I was left chatting to this very sweet 18 year old boy called Nathan who was totally in love but also really drunk. Honestly I just wanted to leave. After a while they all got bored and we went to another club called Cruz 101. So this is where the man and chest things comes into the title. It was a gay nightclub with great music, lots and lots of men and lots of them with no shirts on. Great for the perv factor and also good for being able to dance without men trying to ask me not my name but whether I have a boyfriend.

I was just trying to dance and have a good time, but the girl leading the pub crawl kept telling me that I should relax more and remember that no one here will ever see me again. I’m not exactly sure what she thought I should do to indicate that I was having a good time (perhaps she sensed my I really wish I was in my bed now vibe). Ripping my top off would probably have been a bit ott.

If I needed to relax, then this guy on the crawl needed to seriously take some medication. He wouldn’t go to the toilet at Cruz 101, presumably because he thought he’d be chatted up. He told me he felt uncomfortable but then he also made himself stand out because he wouldn’t do anything other than stand with his back to the wall. Boring. I told him that he should just forgot where he was a behave normally, although that might have been normal for him.

It’s like 3.00am and I had a serious case of the munchies. We’re back at the hostel where they provide free toast, 24 hours a day at this place. So it was toast and tea and a chat with this cool Danish guy and his English mate for a while. Talking to them was probably the highlight of the evening.

I had a good time of the pub crawl, until the bit where everyone started hooking up and I felt like the fifth wheel. But I also don’t know and don’t want to know people who talk about bodily functions as pretty much the be all and end all of their conversations. It’s just weird and kind of gross.

Oh and I drank more on that pub crawl than I have since I sort of gave up drinking in 2006. I didn’t have a hangover the next day – nice to know despite my semi-teetotalism I’ve still got it.

Day 16-17
E-stale

I was really looking forward to going to the peak district on this trip. I wanted to do the whole Elizabeth Bennet, Pemberley thing. I should have changed my mind though, when I couldn’t get a hostel bed in the place that I wanted and had to go for my third choice.

The hostel is 1.5 miles from the train station, there’s no shop there so you have to bring in all your supplies. The guy at the tourist office told me that I could follow this marked path up to the hostel but he failed to mention that this marked path, went through sheep paddocks, over fences and was in the mud. I was probably carrying about 14 kilos too. So not happy!!!!!

Eventually I got to the hostel though and having recovered I went for a bit of a walk in the afternoon, which was nice but the weather was pretty bad and it wasn’t really safe for me to be out to much on the peaks on my own.

I wanted to change hostels on Sunday and managed to get a bed in the hostel I wanted to be in but the snobs at Edale said that I couldn’t cancel without losing my money. They’re very busy and important you know. They could fill the hostel twice over every night. So I was stuck in Edale for another night.

On Sunday though, I went to this place called Castleton, which was famous for it’s caverns. I went down this one on boat, it was really narrow and you had to wear a hard hat. The tour told you stories about miners have to work down there in those conditions mining tin. It would have been really scary with no light and in that water.

The second cavern I went to was famous for being the largest cave opening in England. It wasn’t as good as the first one, mostly because they were still doing heaps of exploring in and around the tunnels. The woman doing the tour as well just seemed to talk really loudly. It was a bit bizarre. She also expected a tip and stood there watching as you left. I just walked through the gate and gave no tip. I’d paid an entrance fee and well bad luck really. The only tip I’d have given her was you need to stop shouting when you talk.

Oh and the hostel was empty on Sunday night. I had the whole room to myself. So much for filling it twice over. Prentious gits. I was very happy to get out of Edale on Monday. I’d only recommend it as a hostel if there was no where else in Derbyshire you could go. I’m sure if the weather was good it would be nice but when the weather was crappy it wasn’t very nice at all.

Wednesday – Day 6
“Kiss me Hardy”

The title of today’s adventure comes from a quote, spoken by Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson to Captain Thomas HARDY after the British fleet had won the battle of Trafalgar. Lord Nelson had been mortally wounded by a musket shot from the French and had been unable to see how the battle progressed. You can see the HMS Victory at the historic dockyards in Portsmouth, along with the Mary Rose, the HMS Warrior and a whole lot of navy boys.

When you arrive at the historic dockyards, you are greeted at the gates by a policeman with a really big automatic weapon. The reason for this is that the Royal Naval School is on the same site. There are no security checks and you just pay your money and walk on through to the boats.

Although the Victory is the star attraction, I started at the Mary Rose. A Tudor warship built by Henry VIII that sunk off the English coast in 14somethingorrather. It was found and raised to the surface by a group of archaelogists in the 1980s. Half of it had disappeared but they were trying to make the ship fit for viewing by a pretty cool sciency thing.

The Mary Rose was in a large glass sided swimming pool. You couldn’t see through the windows that well because they were covered in condensation. This is because the ship is being sprayed 24 hours a day 7 days a week with a conserving agent called PEG (poly ethalene glycol). It had been sprayed by this for 10 or so years and isn’t due to be completed until sometime next year. Think about that nearly ten years to conserve a ship so that people like me can gawk at it. Still I get really excited when I see science being used like this… It’s makes it cool.

So to the Victory. Well okay it’s one of the most famous ships ever. And unlike the other ships it’s not on the bottom of the ocean. You can walk on it, see the canons, where Nelson had his rooms and died. It really was great. Except for the groups of French school children I was really enjoying myself. Until…

As I was standing on the deck, a police car drove up and I heard the bobby say that they found a “suspicious package” – namely a black bag. They ushered us all off the deck saying that we needed to clear the area. They let us continue around the boat though, just below decks. Once you finished on the boat, you were coralled into a area and locked in while they wanted for the bomb squad.

I didn’t know that we were supposed to stay there so I went back round the front, hoping to continue looking around. Well we were blocked in there too and indeed there was a policeman with a really big gun so I thought I’d better not test whether I could sneak out. With nothing better to do I went back to the area and heard one of the guides say to another couple that “in high season this happens seven times a week but it usually turns out to be a false alarm.”

What the???? So they call the bomb squad seven times a week for a false alarm!!!! That must really pee them off. I’m sure they have way better things to do. And it begs the question… Why don’t they have better security checks in the first place, so when some dumbarse kid leaves their bag they don’t think it’s a bomb and accidently blow up their lunchbox!!!! Seriously odd.

After that excitement the rest of the day went without incident and was pretty good. The Mary Rose Museum had heaps of stuff they’d got off the ship, which was interesting and the boat trip around the harbour was okay. (Some people just shouldn’t do commentary).

Thursday – Day 7
When William meet Harald

On October 14 1066, two armies of roughly equal size meet in a field in a township that became known by what happened there… Battle.

The invaders, led by William Duke of Normandy claimed that the English crown now being worn by Harald had been promised to him and he’d come to take it.

The English had the best position up on top of the hill. They fought with two-bladed axes, swords and on foot. The Normans on the low position had archers and knights on horseback. On paper they were the stronger force.

A few volleys of bows are fired, it’s just the prelude to the battle. A few English not protected behind the shield wall fall. There is a pause, when there is much gritting of teeth and revving up. The Normans cry out and begin charging up the hill. The battle for England starts.

It goes on for some time without pause. Swords clashing, hacking and slashing. There are bodies and blood everywhere. There are deaths on both sides and no one gains the upper hand. Suddenly the left flank of the Normans break and run down the hill. There is a rumour that William is dead.

Seeing this from the middle of the battle, William reigns his house and gallops towards those troops, as he’s doing so he raises his vsor and says “I’m not dead, now get back in there you cowards” (okay he didn’t actually say that and he would have said it in French but you get the idea).

But the English have misjudged what’s happening and chase after the Normans, the knights following William, round the English cutting them off from their line. There is no escape for those soilders and they are slaughtered.

It’s now noon and there no break. Both sides are exhausted but they can’t give up the field. The French keep charging and the English keep defending. It goes on for another three hours before William realises that he needs to change tactics.

He instructs some of his troops to break the line, hoping that the English will follow as they did previously. The English fall for it, those troops are killed and their line is thinned but not enough to be desicive. He needs to do something else. He brings up his archers – they fire volley after volley after volley. The English line is so tightly packed that those that are hit don’t even fall. The Normans charge again.

There is a cry from the English side. Harald, brave and valiant King Harald has fallen. He’s dead from either an arrow through the eye or being hacked to death by four knights on horses. More than likely both of these things happened.

In Harald’s death the English side are defeated, William has won the day, the crown and the country. He is crowned in Westminster Abbey on 25 December 1066. In defeating the English, he ended the Saxon culture of England and changed the world forever.

A few or so years later, he built an Abbey on the spot of the battle. Both to commerate his victory and at the Pope’s insistence, as a penance for the loss of life. Although, the first really cancels out the later. Now it’s just a ruin but a ruin that IS the beginning of history as we know it.

I always feel a bit funny when I walk on battle fields or other sights where thousands of people died (the Normans didn’t believe in taking prisoners, so they finished off the English). I can never view these sights as just a field. No they are a field where (a thousand) someones died. I felt the same at Culloden and at Dachau. It’s unnerving to look at something so plain as a field and think that nearly a 1000 years ago, 7000 or so people lay dead on it. It’s a number that would cause outrage today, I suppose it did then to for the mothers, wives and children who never saw there brothers, fathers, sons or husbands again.

Day 8
Travelling…

Not much to tell you today. I travelled from Brighton to Penzance, which took about 8 hours. Although there are a few more Brighton details to tell you about. After my visit to Battle. I went back to Brighton for a walk along the pebble covered beach. It was actually really hard work to get along there. The pebbles are all different colours in the range of brown, white to dark grey. They are also in various sizes with the smallest one’s being closest to the sea and the largest one’s up top.

My hostel in Brighton was probably the oddest one I’ve been in. You had to make your own bed, which wasn’t a bad thing. The duvet cover I was given had pirates on it. The rooms also didn’t have locks on the doors, which meant you put your locks on your bags and hoped that they’d be there when you get back.

One night in the hostel I slept with the lights on. There was this older French guy in the hostel who seemed a little odd. How did I know this? He started a conversation with me, asking whether I knew if they have ravoli in a can in England (seriously). Mind you he did have great taste in music but he was someone who I was keen to avoid. I think Val wouldn’t let him stay anymore after that night.

I think the French were trying to invade from Brighton. There were French people everywhere. In fact I heard more French, than English in the three days I spent there. There were French groups of school children. Lots of French people in the hostel. Including one youth group that pretty much involved a soon to be French music star and as far as I could tell his groupies. I suppose it’s one of those French things to kiss each other on both cheeks in the morning.

So that was Brighton – noisy, full of French people and lots of really drunk people that called out from the street in the middle of the night.

Day 9
There are no pirates in Penzance

It was much to my disappointment that I found out that Pirates of Penzance is actually a play or something and there really are no pirates in Penzance. So buying the eye-patch and the parrot really just made me look silly.

I was going to be all outdoorsy and do the walk from Penzance to Lands End. It’s only 9 miles and according to everything I read before I left home, an easy walk. The guy managing told me that it was ambitious of me to want to try the walk and it would take something like 7 hours, minimum to do it. So I decided to see the Minack Theatre and walk to Lands End from there (about 4 miles).

The Minack theatre, is amazing. It has been carved out of the cliffs and looks something like a Roman ampitheatre but will the sea crashing behind it. It would be so good to see something there. I was giving a bit of Shakespeare a go myself. I thought the St Crispin’s day speech from Henry V, would go very nicely. Although anything that had some level of violence (ie no lovey dovey Romeo and Juliet) would go well in that amazingly dramatic arena.

So then I began the walk. Let’s just say it was one of my more stupid ideas. I got about half way there and started thinking about what would happen if I fell over or hurt myself. There were not that many people around so If something happened I could be lying there for ages with no one knowing. You were supposed to follow some path makers with acorns but I went the wrong way and ended up added about half a mile extra to the trip and walking really close to the cliffs.

Eventually after 2 hours and forty minutes of extremely hard work, I got to Lands End only to find everything (including the bloody Dr Who exhibition – the only reason I wanted to walk there in the first place) was closed. Except of course for icecream and the guys trying to scam a photo of you under the sign for some obscene amount of money. So really all that effort was for nothing. And with nothing to really do except look out at the stuff I’d been staring at, when I was worried about falling down a crevice, for the past two hours, I went to the bus stop and went back to Penzance. Frankly the whole thing was disappointing. And as much as I could rev myself up about doing it, really I was just kind of knackered and annoyed.

Day 10
The Causeway to St Michael’s

Today was supposed to be a quieter day. I went to see this thing called St Michael’s mount, which is literally a rocky outcrop off Penzance that one day in about 800 a fisherman saw a vision of St Michael near. And thus they built a church (as they did in those days).

At high tide you cross by boat. You walk up a steep hill (never seems to a shortage of those or stairs around), have a look around the castle and the church and wait for low tide so you can walk over the causeway back to the shore.

So that’s what I did. It was pretty cool and a little bit scary as there were no barriers and you could (being a un-co spack like me) have ended up in the drink. But I made it safely to land.

The highlight of today though was the Beef and Stilton pasty I had. It was amazing. The pastry was flaky but wholemeal shortcrust. There was lots of beef and Stilton in it too. I had another pasty of the same flavour made somewhere else and it was no where near as good.

The lowlight was the nuff nuff guy at the hostel. Another person who gave me the heebie geebies. He was Zimbabwean and he obviously had to immigrate because of the problems there. He said that he really didn’t like England that much.

Anyway he said two things (in seperate conversations) that alone mean nothing but together paint an unsavoury picture. He told me how in Zimbabwae the trains have to go really slowly through the National Parks because if they hit anything edible all the Africans jump out of the train and fight each other over the meat. I almost said, well you would too if you were poor and starving. (Also if he’s Zimbabwean isn’t he African too?).

The second conversation disturbed me more. He started talking about what had happened in his homeland. He didn’t say much and he stopped because he said he was getting upset. Although he did add this little end to it… “I hope someone kills the black bastard”. Okay so I didn’t say hey that offends me, because he knows way more about Africian politics than I ever could. But I found the whole thing really awful actually. I started to wondered about the whole “colonial mentality” in the way some people view their own homeland. In my thinking Mugabe is a bad man because he’s a bad man not because he’s black or white or yellow for the matter. He’s just bad. So what does it say about you if you bring his colour into it? I’m sure I can’t draw to many conclusions from one rather odd person’s view about such things but I did make me wonder.

Day 11
As I was going to St Ives…

I went on a flying two hour visit to St Ives today, I really liked it. It reminder of somewhere in Italy, with it’s blue water and white houses.

Things take much longer in Cornwall. It took me two hours to go 20 or so kms up the round to Newquay, where I was staying.

I arrived in Newquay and round it to be kind of weird. It was all about the party and the beach. The beaches looked quite nice but the pokies they have there are no more appealing then they are in Australia.

There’s nothing much to tell about today really except that where I was staying had four beds in a room that should have only had one. Seriously if four people had of been in there with their bags, there’s no way you could swing a cat or eat a cheese sandwich on the floor (like I did).

Thursday – Day One
London – Seeing Things From Another Point Of View

As I was walking to the toliet on my first (early) morning in London, I heard church bells ringing to tell of some unknown time through an open window. The city was lit up and looked beautiful. There was a breeze blowing and to complete the romantic picture, a bird started it early morning performance. It was then that I had my first moment of perfectness. It was contentment, happiness and thankfulness to God for the opportunity to be doing this. Here I was in London, on holidays and about to begin an adventure. So there I was in my moment, of “wohoo I’m in London”, when I misjudged the height of the windown and hit my head. Ouch. (I’m sure that there is some metaphor in that about the need to balance pleasure and pain but mostly it just kinda hurt). Welcome to London.

At breakfast the next morning, there was a guy availing himself of the breakfast spreads – one of which was Vegemite. Now I know I should have said something but I thought I should let him try and see if he liked it. Mind you, he was spreading it on rather thickly. A few minutes later there was much hilarity from me as the guy realised that Vegemite, is not another form of Nutella but in fact something black, salty and made from yeast. Well that last bit I had to explain.

I decided that today would be a quieter day with just a stroll round the city to re-aquaint myself with it. I was staying in the opposite side of London to where I’d stayed previously so nothing was familiar. According to the hostel they were in walking distance of the “Major Attractions”, so I was going to see if they were right. I eventually found my way onto one of the major roads that took you into London. I came to St James’ Park, where the trees were in bloom and the ducks quacking. As I was walking through I heard a brass band and decided to walk and see what it was all about. What I stumbled upon was the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. As everyone cleared off after the first part of the ceremony, I managed to secure a place right near the palace gates for part b of the spectacle. While I was standing there I heard England’s finest play a selection of classical music – you know the theme from James Bond and Michael’s Flatley’s Lord of the Dance (he’s not even English). After the finished playing, there was much stamping and yelling of commands and then one band came out with a company of troops behind them and just when you thought it was over, another band with a company troops playing different songs came out as well. So it was kind of cool to see but from my rather colonial (rather than colonical) view, I kind of wondered what was the point.

I continued my walk into the centre of London, which took me passed Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and the horrible blight on the landscape, the London Eye. All of this I had seen before but it was also new. Staying at the other end of London was giving me a different perspective on things I had seen before. Although I remembered it, all these sights of London seemed fresh and as beautiful as at my first viewing. Where before I saw the whole, now I could stop and see the details. There were also things that were hidden that were revealed because I was walking from a different direction. For instance there is a chapel beside West Minster called St Margaret’s, I spent several hours in WM last time I was there and I don’t ever remember seeing it before. It’s not new it’s been there for a couple of hundred centuries but because the tourist path doesn’t take you that way, you wouldn’t see it.

There was really nothing I needed to do tourist wise in London so I decided to go to the National Potrait Gallery for a while. The museums and galleries are mostly free in London, so you don’t feel obligated to see everything. In there are potraits of famous Britons starting with Tudors. People as diverse as Edward Jenner (a point for anyone who knows who he is), the royals, poets, writers, artists and politicans. Going there for me though was all about the Chandos potrait of Shakespeare.

As you know, I’m slightly obsessed with Shakespeare, so to see the only picture of him that can claim to be painted in his lifetime was going to be special. So there was standing in front of it and it was so much more rich than any copies of it I’d ever seen. I stood there for a while and just looked. He had a bit of a Mona Lisa smile – slightly amused, slightly knowing but his eyes had real warmth that told of his humanity and intelligence. So there I was with the single greatest writer in the history of the world or to quote Dr Who – the most human human ever. I wondered what he might have made of it – probably write something about gawking strangers.

I had good first day in London. I found a city that was both historical and full of life and colour. If the highest compliment you can pay to a place is to say you could live there, then London gets that from me…

Friday – Day 2
The British Museum had lost it’s charm.

I went to Breakfast this morning with a girl from my dorm. We had a full English breakfast, which included bake beans, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, toast, tomatoes and chips. That’s right chips, it was really disgusting. I was so turned off by the presence of chips in my brekky. Who the hell what’s to eat fat, greasy chips at 8.30 in the morning? British people obviously.

The British Museum is usually on everyone’s to do list for London. Except mine – it was one of those places I know I should see but wasn’t really a priority. Anyway off I trudged to one of the most famous and best museums in the world. I walked through the gates passed the school groups – an ominous start.

Here’s the first thing about the British Museum you learn, there’s very little in it about British history. In fact it’s all stuff they pilfered from other places when the Empire was in full swing. So why do they call it the British Museum?

I started in the gallery with all the Egyptian Statues – including the head of the Ramasess the Second. There were heaps of Egyptian artefacts all of which was really interesting and well perserved. But I found myself being really annoyed by the other museum goers. Everyone was looking at things through the back of a lens, not with their eyes. They were not even reading things just taking photos of them and moving on. In fact I think I may have been the only person not taking photos but because they were I had to make sure I wasn’t in the way of some nuff nuff wanting to take the picture of their nan/child/second cousin twice removed in front of a statue.

This raises questions about why people do this? Why take a photo of something without first looking at it to find out whether it means something to you? I only take photos of things that have meaning – photos for me are memories of thoughts and feelings when I saw something. I don’t just take a photo so I can go home and say oh look here’s the British Museum. I what to be able to tell people about the way it looked – the colour of the stone or the uneven grain or a story that I thought was interesting or something. Besides it’s rude! It impedes other people’s viewing.

Away from the big statues there as less of this nonsense and I was better able to enjoy the artefacts. I actually really got into the stuff from Nineveh in Assyria. They had these massive statues of Lions that guarded some temple and whole rooms with panels telling the stories that were sacred to those people. It thought they were a lot more impressive then the Egyptian stuff. I always think it’s remarkable how the ancients managed to do all this stuff using the sun and the moon to measure things. Now it seems we can’t do anything without a computer, which does the thinking for us – so are we really more advanced?

The British Museum is most famous for the Elgin Marbles – stuff they managed to secure from Pathenon, when Greece was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Elgin sold these statues to the British government who built a whole museum around them. It’s a matter of some controversy as the Greeks want them back and the British won’t hand them over. I think at this point the Greeks are asking that instead of giving them back, the British let the Greeks put them in a museum on permanant loan – which to my thinking is the same thing but then I’m not a diplomat.

The thing is the British will never give them back. They quite rightly point out that they are in a first class, world famous museum and that more people will see them there then in Greece. On the other hand, they are Greek history and should be with the other stuff the British didn’t manage to nick. I think it will be a very long time in the future before the marble from the Pathenon are reunited.

Saturday – Day Three
There’ll be bluebirds over…

Today I started on my travels around England. I took a train from London to Canterbury, which was my first stop. I got to my hostel to find out I’d been upgraded to a single room, with a double bed – for no extra cost (yay). The hostel thought they should check with me to make sure it was alright. To which I replied “No actually I’d rather sleep in a dorm with ten other people thank you very much”. But this is not about my sleeping arrangements. It’s all about a song sung over 60 years ago that is intimately tied with the place I visited – Dover. A song I wanted to sing too.

I went to Dover for one reason only, the White Cliffs… After seeing them in countless movies, I really wanted to see them too. And there I was, on a boat sailing around Dover harbour, with those white cliffs in all the glory. They were beautiful, you could see the sun glistening off them making them seem translucent. Those cliffs are as English as Man United, tea and scones and a pint of warm ale – they are a symbol of leaving and coming home. I think one of the kings said when he saw the cliffs that “this is England” or something of that sort. They were so lovely. My one disappointment is that the boat only goes round the harbour and not actually passed them. I guess you need to pay for a ferry ride to France to see that.

After the cliffs, I filled in some time at Dover Castle, which has been there in one form or another since William conquered England. It was a pretty large castle, although most of it is in ruins now. More interesting than the castle was the secret world war two tunnels (although obviously not secret anymore). From these tunnels under the cliffs, operation Dynamo (to get the British troops out of Dunkirk) was run. The tunnels had a telephone exchange where women of the Naval services worked at least twelve hour shifts, with no outside light and lots of smoking. There was also a hospital dressing station where MASH like operations where conducted on mostly pilots pulled out of the English Channel. Most interesting to note is that the anti-aircraft operations for South-East England were run from here but no one knew that. The guys standing on top of the cliffs with their guns ready to fire on command didn’t know they were being controlled from below. Apparently also Winston Churchill came here and personally ordered the firing of big guns (pointed at the Germans in France). It was amazing to think of all that happening underground.

Sunday – Day Four
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eye lashes.

It snowed today. Like really proper, snow. It was amazing. Fortunately I’d packed my long-johns and with my trusty coat and hiking boats I was able to still get around. All the English were grumbling but I was like this is the most amazing thing ever.

I started out by going to service at Canterbury Cathedral, which is massive and the home of Anglicanism in the world. It was a nice service – if rather formal, with singing in Latin and everything (I thought that was a Catholic thing). Here’s the funny thing though, the preacher was from Melbourne.

The real highlight was seeing where Thomas Beckett was murdered and where his shrine lay until Henry VIII ordered it pulled down when he broke away from the Catholic church and ordered Britian to become protestant. Mind you he didn’t mind running off with the jewels from the tomb. Now there is just a solitary candle where it stood. It burns night and day in memorial to a man who was not loved by the King (Henry II) or until after his death the clergy he was in charge of. Other highlights of the cathedral were the tomb of Henry IV and Edward the Black Prince with his vestments some 700 years old are still on show.

Finally today I went to the Augustine Abbey, which was again pulled down by Henry VIII at the dissolution of the monastries (that man has a lot to answer for). But by this time, it was snowing so hard that I really couldn’t manage to see much as it was hard to take photos, hold the audio guide and follow the path. Still it made for some great self potraits of me in snow.

Monday – Day Four
Canterbury Tales.

Would you believe it? Today the sun was shining and there was more blue than white in the sky. Although it was rather cold still. I spent the day in Canterbury doing not much really. I went to see the Roman Museum and the Museum of Canterbury and finally finished with Evensong at the Cathedral. Mostly it was just wandering around looking at old buildings and chilling out. There was really nothing remarkable to note about it at all except that I really loved sung Evensong. It was probably better than the Sunday service. I found the quire of the cathedral (where the service was) to be a peaceful, if rather grandiose sort of place. The only problem I have with such places is that it’s hard to feel the intimacy with God. It’s all so vast that you can be uplifted but I think it’s hard to feel enclosed. I’m sure that really doesn’t make a lot of sense to most of you – so I’ll briefly explain. Christian’s talk about knowing God on a personal level, a relationship just between you and him. In a small parish church that relationship is easier to find because things are smaller. In a grand cathedral like Canterbury, everything is doubled in size so God is harder to find. I don’t know that I’d want to worship there as a parishoner. I was nice to visit and yeah I was uplifted but it’s the place for big things not for the small and humble.

Tuesday – Day Five
The bright lights of Brighton.

In complete contrast to the refinement of Canterbury, I’m now in Brighton. I’ve been here for about five hours. I’ve seen everything I want to see. It’s loud, brash and a bit tacky really. The Royal Pavilion, however, was amazing. It’s built like a moorish palace but decorated with chinese motifs inside. It’s stunning. The dining room and the music room were just spectacular. There were beautiful wallpapers and a roof that was made of 11,000 gilded cockle shells. It was really lovely. If only the rest of Brighton were like this. I’m only staying here because it’s in reach of some days trips I’m going to take. And yep the beaches are really covered with coarse sand (a euphemism for pebbles that the guy from my hostel came up with).

It’s about 26 hours until I get on the plane and fly to England. I know that tomorrow will to go really slowly. It’s always the way when you can’t wait for something.

I never thought I’d do the whole backpacker thing again. It’s weird to think about sleeping in mixed dorms and sharing bathrooms again. But I also can’t wait – it’s a whole different life. It’s simpler – you have fun, you meet people and you move on. It’s transient and about the moment. People don’t care as much about all stuff that bogs most of us down on a daily basis. If a person turns out to be a bit of a tosser, then you suddenly decide that walking 10km in the opposite direction is a great idea and move on.

With my friend Lisa’s help, we came up with the 10 commandments of backpacking…

1. Thou shalt have as much fun as humanly possible
2. Thou shalt take the road less travelled
3. Thou shalt do violence to anyone that refers to themself a flashpacker (it’s so gen whi-ne)
4. Thou shalt not covet your neighbours assests (it’s a mortal sin to steal from a fellow backpacker)
5. Thou shalt not wash your hair more than twice a week (definitely no hairdryers or product)
6. Thou shalt drink your weight in alcohol as often as possible
7. Thou shalt talk to and make friends with people sharing the hostel
8. Thou shalt take snap lock bags for breakfast leftovers (commonly referred to as lunch)
9. Thou shalt scam as much free stuff as you can, as often as you can (a smile and a oh please can go a long way)
10. Thou shalt remain appropriately draped at all times in a mixed dorm

There will definitely be more commandments than this, especially since I’ve skipped a whole major category of the backpackers life – romance, sex and meeting exotic (or not) foreigners. Depending on your moral status that whole area is definitely optional, so we’ll leave it out.

It’s funny how many people have talked to me about the whole romance thing. A colleague even told me I couldn’t come home until I’d meet someone!!!!!!! I’d be away a bloody long time if we were waiting for that to happen. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than meeting a nice guy and then having to leave him behind and spending the next six months feeling forlorn because he’s in the UK and I’m here. No thanks you can keep your holiday romances – it’s strictly love and leave them for me this time (ha ha – you all know me well enough to know that the likehood of me doing this is about as likely as Brendan Nelson winning an election).

This trip is all about having fun. Not about the ephinany, or meeting someone or finding the meaning of universe. When I went last time I thought that’s what would happen (well not the meeting someone bit). Instead I found some amazing friends, had some wonderful times and realised that sculling red wine was really not very good for you. So this is all about seeing and doing stuff and having a really good time.

A quote to finish “I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full. ~Lord Dunsany

The next time I write I’ll be in England, fulfilling my deep urge to see the world.