Travelling the UK in 2008

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 ... [Continue reading this entry]