Behold, a reasonably unadorned chronology that will be updated from
time to time for the benefit of those who for some reason enjoy this
kind of thing.
Sat 29 Aug: Bus from Canberra to Sydney; Flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi.
Bored yet?
Sun
30 Aug: Flight from Abu Dhabi to London; Train from Heathrow to Green
Square and thence to West Hampstead. Bus with Ange and Kieren down to
Trafalgar Square to wander around through Covent Garden, Soho, etc.
Meet Kez and Fred near Oxford Cross before returning to West Hampstead.
Walk up through Hampstead and to Hampstead Heath's Parliament Hill and
back.
Mon 1 Sep: Decide not to take map and just wing it. Walk
through part of Hampstead's West Heath to the Hill Garden at the back
of Inverforth House. Come back past Jack Straw's Castle and into the
East Heath. Walk up to Kenwood House. Have brunch while waiting for it
to open. See lots of old artwork, much of it Dutch. Walk from there to
Highgate to wander the eastern cemetery. Walk down to Highgate Gate,
one of the exits of the Heath, and bus to Regent's Park. Spend 3 hours
at the London Zoo before taking the watercab from there up Regent's
Canal to Little Venice. Walk from there back to West Hampstead.
Tue
2 Sep: Bus to Baker St. Meet Kathrine and go to the Sherlock Holmes
Museum. Tube down to Waterloo and walk up Southbank to Westminster
Bridge then back down to the Tate Modern. View modern art - no major
installation in the main space at the moment, and the gallery with
Ernst and Duchamp was closed. Meet up with Kathrine's Peter - now no
longer alleged - and later Kerry and Kieren.
Wed 3 Sep: Bus to
Baker St. Walk Regent's Park including Queen Mary's Gardens, then down
to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, including Albert Memorial and
(unentered) Kensington Palace. Back to Speaker's Corner to see Marble
Arch (which I'd somehow missed the first time) then down Park Lane and
across Mayfair to Regent St to bus back to West Hampstead. Train to
Waterloo and thence to Lambeth North to meet Kerry.
Thu 4 Sep: The all-day whistlestop tour of the British Museum. Will need to go back.
Fri 5 Sep: Tower of London with Kathrine. Meet up with Peter and later with Kerry and Farrah for curry.
No, really, are you bored yet?
Sat
6 Sep: Portobello Road Markets with Kerry (shopping for food, window
shopping for antiques). Pie and Pint in Pub. Visit Peter and Kathrine's
narrow boat and cruise down from Greenford to Kensal Green.
Sun 7 Sep: Imperial War Museum, in what used to be Bedlam (a fine sense of irony?). Dinner with Ange and Keiren.
Mon
8 Sep: Buckingham Palace for Changing of the Guard; walk from there
through Whitehall to see Westminster Abbey and Palace; visit the
Banqueting House; continue through Chinatown and Covent Garden to St
Pauls. Explore St Paul's (spectacular) before listening to Evensong.
Tue
9 Sep: Boat from Embankment to St Katharine's Dock then to Greenwich.
Walk through Greenwich Village then up the hill to the Observatory.
Down to Maritime Museum for an hour and a bit before closing, missing
the Queen's House.
Wed 10 Sep: City walk -
including through Barbican. Stand up comedy night in a pub in Islington
- 2/6ths of the comics were Australians, all comics reasonably funny.
Thu 11 Sep: Cambridge for the day. Walk through the West End at night after getting back to London
Fri 12 Sep: Shop for dinner in Elephant and Castle (it was a rest day). Dinner wildly successful.
Sat 13 Sep: Train to High Wycombe before drive to High Basildon for lunch followed by visit to Basildon Park.
Sun
14 Sep: Yumcha with Kerry and Kieren before going down to Southbank to
meet Kathrine and Peter to see the Thames Festival. Meet up with Kerry
and later Claire, Paddy and Jess to see the fireworks over the Thames.
Walk home through Graffiti Alley; most of the original stencil art has
been sprayed over.
Mon 15 Sep: Train to Oxford. Wander the town in the afternoon including seeing Christ Church.
Tue 16 Sep: Oxford Castle in the morning; city tour in the afternoon.
Wed 17 Sep: Blenheim Palace.
Thu
19 Sep: Oxford to Nottingham. See Nottingham Caves in the afternoon
(good, but accessed from inside ugly Broadmarsh Shopping Centre). Poker
in the evening (Apparently Europe's largest dedicated poker room)
Fri 20 Sep: Visit what's left of Sherwood Forest.
Sat 21 Sep: Walks up peaks around Matlock in the Peak District.
Sun 22 Sep: Nottingham to York. Walk on the walls of old York followed by taking The Original Ghost Tour.
Mon
23 Sep: Visit Thirsk -- "Darrowby" in All Creatures Great and Small --
on a damp Market Day to see the rather good Herriot Veterinary museum.
Tue
24 Sep: Visit Goathland -- Aidensfield in Heartbeat -- to trip over the
Yorkshire Moors and neighbouring farmland. One thing's for sure: with
rivulets to cross, and sheep pats to avoid, and tussocks of heather to
leap between, and everywhere mud mud mud, anyone who's ever thought
that doing all that in white crinoline as "romantic" is right daft.
Wed 25 Sep: Up to Edinburgh.
Thu 26 Sep: Visit Stirling, walk up to the William Wallace Memorial and back followed by Stirling Castle.
Fri 26 Sep: Stroll up to King Arthur's Seat and back, then see the Castle. Yes, I do see, to have done quite a lot of walking.
Sat
27 Sep: Fly to Dublin, staying with Peter's Aunt Betty. Go down to
central Dublin's Orange Light District in the evening for a couple of
hours.
Sun 28 Sep: Betty takes me through via some Irish bogland
to walk a short stretch of the Wicklow Way. The Irish bog is somewhat
similar in appearance to the Yorkshire Moors being heavily heathered,
but is different in that swathes of peat blocks have been extracted.
After my first real Irish Coffee -- caffeine, sugar, alcohol, cream:
it's delicious evil in a glass -- I bus to Galway.
Mon 29 Sep: Wander round Galway.
Tue
30 Sep: Ferry to Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands -- Father
Ted's "Craggy Island" -- it's wet, windswept, and very very stony. I'd
intended to get a ferry to Doolin in the afternoon, but it was too wet
and windswept in Doolin for the ferry to be leaving for several days,
so I unexpectedly had to spend the night
Wed 1 Oct: Ferry back to
Galway in time to make the late bus to do the short tour down to the
Cliffs of Moher (huge, verdant, stony, wet, so very very windswept)
getting off at nearby village of Doolin. Stayed at the Aille River
Hostel (highly recommended!) and spent the night at the pub with a
couple of Swiss travellers, who'd made several trips back to Doolin
owing to its excellent live music scene.
Thu 2 Oct: bus down
to Cork City, and thence to Fountainstown to meet up with bride and
groom and the Canberra contingent of wedding guests -- Kerry, Minh,
Naomi, Nell.
Fri 3 Oct: Turkish Shave in the morning, and a
fine wedding, weather remaining great for the photos, in the afternoon.
There is allegedly dancing at the reception. There's also possibly the
most embarassing attempt ever by a group of Australians at failing to
sing Men at Work's "Land Down Under", but fortunately the Irish Band
knew lyrics and music.
Sat 4 Oct: A lazy morning and another party in the evening.
Sun
5 Oct: Road Trip with Nell and Naomi, heading up to the Ring of Kerry.
We were originally going to go for Killarney, but reached the
thoroughly charming Kenmare, and stopped for the night.
Mon 6
Oct: The Ring of Kerry is one of the most beautiful areas in Ireland...
allegedly. We had mist, fog, cloud, rain -- near horizontal at times --
with a few patches of sun by the time we got in site of the beginning
of the Dingle Peninsula. The day wasn't unmemorable, however, with a
bumpy ride down a foggy track through the centre of the peninsula.
Reached Killarney, smelled the dank bunkroom that the unfriendly
manager of the unfriendly hostel there showed us to, and went and
stayed at the 5 star hotel nearby for basically the same price once the
included breakfast was taken into account
Tue 7 Oct: Said goodbye
to the girls, who found the 5 star breakfast so good that they stayed
another night, and bussed down to Cork City and thence to the airport.
Thu 9 Oct: After 35+ hours of travel, wherein I lost a day, I arrived back in Canberra. A couple of weeks later I unjetlagged.
