Sophie & Ollie´s Travels

Hey everyone,

Well, we left Devon over two weeks ago now (I need to start writing more regularly) and we have been staying with Ol's Nan in Whittlebury. We had another joyless four hour train journey from Brixham to London. We got back on the terrible Underground, with its lack of aircon, fondness for stopping randomly in pitch black, smelly tunnels, and all overcrowded with scowling strangers, to go to a different train station. We walked above ground to the next station, only 200 or so metres away but which felt like a couple of miles with my backpack. Anyway, we caught another train from London to Northampton and, luckily, Ol's aunt Irene picked us up and saved us from a bus ride to his Nan's house in Whittlebury.

Whittlebury is a very English village with a church, a pub, a post office box, a golf course and not much else but houses. It is cute though, with its semi-terraced houses and gardens full of flowers especially ye olde English roses. His Nan's house has a big lawn and the few, very few, times it has been sunny it is great to sit out there. I saw a fox on the lawn - he was red, bigger than I expected and did a poo on the lawn.

We have been up to a bit more than just wildlife watching as four of Ol's cousins, all aged 18 or 22, and Ol's dad's friend from school years, Vic, are here and have been taking us out. The countryside is all stereotypically English with its narrow lanes, enough for one and a half cars, that everyone speeds around on doing 80km/h and lined by hedges, fields and blackberry brambles. If you have seen Hot Fuzz the villages and countryside are exactly the same just without the decapitation of the locals.

Ol's cousin, Damian, and his girlfriend, Kas, have taken us out a few times. We went to see hovercraft racing. The race was held in a field, with a lake, in front of a National Trust house, with everyone on their picnic blankets sitting in the rain - again all very English. We got our picnic from Tescos supermarket - not one of those closed by the bomb threats that were delivered four days late because the posties were on strike. Good one terrorists, or creepy former Tescos worker. Damian and Kas also took us into Oxford and we looked round the shops, went to the pub and saw some of the university buildings but, surprise, surprise, it was raining again so it was a quick tour of Oxford.

One of the best days we have had was a sunny day at Alton Towers. Alton Towers is a big theme park here like Dream World but bigger. Damian, Kas, Ollie and I decided to go on the Thursday before the schools broke up to try and avoid the crowds. It didn't work. We got there at 9.30am, half an hour before the rides opened, and it was already busy. We went to take the monorail from the car park to the park and just as we got there it broke. So we had to walk 15 minutes to the entrance. This was a bad omen. But we paid our £16, we had two for one vouchers or it would have cost £32 each. I won't even start on the cost of stuff here - everything you have heard about it being ridiculously expensive compared to NZ is true. Anyway, we started off on a rapids ride and got a little wet, which I got the blame for, having chosen the ride.

Then we went on a rollercoaster called Air. On Air you are harnessed into a lying down position facing the ground and are sent through corkscrews and loops in a horizontal position. Half the time your lying on your stomach, the rest on your back being sent upside down and everywhere - it was a weird feeling. We decided to take the gondolas to the otherside of the park (it is that big) but it broke. Only, this time, we were on it when it broke. We ended up spending 20 minutes high above the trees with little air listening to the speaker urging us 'not to be alarmed'. Finally we got going again and I joked how annoying it would be if we had stopped 3m from the end, 2 foot off the ground with the doors locked. Anyway, after opening my big mouth that’s what it did. Luckily, we only had to spend 5 minutes stuck there this time.

We followed the gondolas with a ride called Hex, where both the seats and the walls move so that you think your upside down when your not - it confuses you completely. By this time, lunchtime, all the queues had reached the point where the sign said 'If you are standing here the queue will take 60 minutes', so we joined a queue. 45 minutes into the queue they announced the ride was not working and they did not know when it would be working again. Luckily, we stayed
in the queue for another 10 minutes deciding whether to leave or not and the ride resumed. After waiting an hour and 15 minutes we got to ride our second rollercoaster, Nemesis. Kas and I were 'bricking it', as she says, but it was really fast and fun and makes you quite wobbly when you get off. I wussed out of the next rollercoaster though, Oblivion, which drops you at a 90 degree angle - actually vertical - into a hole in the ground with a nice 3 second pause at the top. But I did go on Rita which shoots you out at 100km/h, at 4.2gs. You can barely move your limbs its so fast. Another ride on 'Air' and we were finished for the day.

We have also been out and about around Whittlebury with Vic. He showed us the canal, an old 18th Century mansion, took us to the pub and on a general tour of the area. Whittlebury is near Silverstone which is a major race track in England where they hold the Grand Prix. We went up on their classic cars day and watched all the old cars like Jaguar E-types, Aston Martins, Triumphs and some 1970s Formula One cars racing. It was fun even for a non-car-loving person like me but I managed to get badly sunburnt on practically the only sunny day ever in England. We have been to the pub with Ol's other cousins, Clare and Laura and went shopping in Northampton's very 70s style mall.

The other main excitement has been the floods. On our way back from Alton Towers it began to rain and pretty much didn't stop for 24 hours. We did our quick tour of Oxford in the rain and left for Damian's parents place an hour away. On our drive back we couldn't go on the motorway as it was flooded and at a standstill so we took the backroads but a few of those were closed so it took awhile to arrive. The next day we went into Buckingham town centre and it was swimming. The carpark was a pool with a truck up to the top of its wheels in water and a car stuck up to its windows. The playground was submerged with only the top of the jungle gym showing, the BP was thigh deep in water. It is pretty terrible but quite interesting to see - I will upload the photos when I get a chance. Damian's friend's basement internet café was wrecked after he got up at 5am because he thought his girlfriend was in the shower and saw a fountain of not just water coming out of his toilet.

We left Whittlebury today and are now staying at my aunt's who lives in Royston, near Cambridge. Hopefully we will get to Europe sometime during the heat wave because it certainly isn't much of a summer in England. It just won't bloody stop raining.

From
Sophie and Ollie.