After a rest for a week or so at our favourite campsite in
Glastonbury (including a visit from Bill and Amanda and an epic walk through
neighbouring Somerset countryside one day), we headed down to Dorset for the
Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival. The weather was superb, the cheese sublime
and the ale, as always, delicious. They also have a fantastic shop in
Sturminster Newton that has what has to be the largest range of quilt fabrics
I’ve ever seen!
The following day we had a nice trip through the Dorset
countryside to the coast at Eype. We set ourselves up at a great campsite
there, overlooking the cliffs of the Jurassic coast. Fossils abound there and
on our third morning there we took ourselves fossil hunting. We found all sorts
of fossilised bits of sea creatures and convinced ourselves we’d found a
dinosaur bone!
We also did traditional fish and chips on the beach for
lunch and soaked up the English sunshine that can present itself at opportune
moments! The weather that day was great and a couple of people were parapenting
at the cliff face, swooping right over us and Vinnie.
When we finally convinced ourselves to leave that lovely
spot we headed towards Exeter via A La Ronde, a crazy 16 sided house built by
two spinsters after their 10 year grand tour of Europe. Unfortunately it was
closed but I can jump ahead a few days and tell you we made it back there later
and had a look around. They even have a shell gallery where they constructed
massive murals from shells and feathers in the ceiling mezzanine.
As we headed southward we detoured into a village called
Ashburton, (I have to say it’s a bit nicer than our Ashburton) to find a picnic
spot. A winding trail led us to a picnic spot that turned out to be a great
campsite, so that was us sorted for the night. Right on the river Dart, the
site had amazing adventure playgrounds, flying foxes and the like. Nick went
nuts while I observed – my toe was playing up again so I had to be nice to it.
They also had a great hydro scheme to generate power for the site, a pirate
ship, sandy beach and a load of other things. Being term time and more or less
the end of summer it was really quiet too. We met a lovely lady, Ruth, who does
fantastic stained glass work in High Wycombe and has a super cool van she has
‘girlied’ up.
Exeter excluded us from their Park and Ride facilities
(Vinnie to too high for their barrier) so we excluded Exeter from our
sightseeing itinerary this time!
We dropped into Totnes to have a look around (nice place)
and start trying to get airfares sorted for the next leg of the journey – to
Asia. Not too far from Totnes we found a campsite down numerous narrow lanes
and it turned out to be so cheap and quiet that we had two nights there, giving
us a bit of time to start planning our itinerary for Asia.
The Lizard is the most southern point of mainland Britain
and a gorgeous, wild spot. The National Trust guy there was super friendly and
we learned a few things J
We went to Land’s End a few days later, which by comparision is nasty! The
National Trust leave things all nice and natural but unfortunately they were
outbid by some guy for Land’s End and he built a big commercial complex there
to extract money from tourists.
At The Lizard we stayed at one of those big campsite
complexes with evening entertainment, pools, 10 bin bowling, bingo etc. It was
quite a hoot although we didn’t really participate in any of it. That night was
COLD, and we knew this part of the trip was drawing to an end.
The next day we visited St Michael’s Mount – a great castle
on an island near Penzance. We took the boat across, but the tide was low
enough on the way back to take the causeway. It’s an amazing spot.
After the previously mentioned visit to Land’s End we went
into Penzance and actually had a bit of a nightmare trying to book some
airfares with Emirates. It turns out (after a week or two of frustration) that
there’s now a process called Verified by Visa near the end of the transaction
and of the three Visa cards we have, none can be registered for it. Grrrr…. It
means that we can’t use our Visa’s for online purchases with any company that
uses Verified by Visa. And both airlines we’ve been trying to book with, use
it! We got around the problem with Emirates by arranging to go to Birmingham to
pick up manual tickets.
Before heading northward we had a couple of nights at a
campsite overlooking St Ives Bay. For only 7 quid a night it was an incredible
spot. We had a great view of the dunes, beach, sea, light house and there
always seemed to be people out surfing or windsurfing, despite the cold. The
beach is enormous and just beautiful and it now has to be one of my favourite
places.
We’ve also been doing the rounds of a few National Trust
places and Killerton House was one of the highlights. It’s an enormous
Victorian house with lots of Arts and Crafts type décor. And being rebuilt
after a fire in the late 1800’s it’s a contemporary of many of New Zealand’s
oldest homes so there was a certain nice familiarity about it. One of its
features is that it clearly shows the behind the scenes aspect of running the
house – servants quarters, kitchen, dairy etc. We really enjoyed our time
there.
We then headed back to Bristol to visit The Boys – Harry had
been on the Trans Mongolian since we’d been there last and we wanted to chat to
him about Mongolia etc. Despite our intention to stay only one night, we ended
up there for three as Paul (former flatmate) was having a housewarming and then
a street party was held in his street the following day. The weather was
miserable for it but the few hardy souls that ventured out were pretty
interesting people. It’s a very multicultural street and we met Ali who’s a
Kurdish guy, Pearl from Jamaica (who’s lived in the street since 1957), another
lady from Botswana and of course a few English people! Unfortunately it was
Ramadan so many of the people on the street were fasting and couldn’t/didn’t join
in.
Next we headed across the Welsh border for a brief catch up
with Andy (see Wychwood blog). He took us to a cool pub that does excellent
food and we totally blew the budget that day!
We passed through Hay-on-Wye on the way, which is known for
having a disproportionate number of second hand bookshops. It was great! If
only the budget and the backpacks were a little bigger….
We totally blew the budget the next day when we went to
Birmingham for the air tickets! It was a bit of a hassle but we also had to
apply for travel visas for India and this can only really be done in Birmingham
or London, so we combined the two. That also turned out to be a hassle and we
ended up paying a travel agent a bit extra to do it for us (107 quid all up).
They were great too and gave us a much needed cup of tea, some books on India
to look at while we had it (to make it all seem worthwhile) and some top tips
for travelling in India (e.g. no water but plenty of tea for the first 2-3
days)! The guy that ran the place was so nice that we left feeling pretty great
and looking forward to India.
After a couple of nights hanging around in the
Stratford-upon-Avon area, not really doing the things we should have been
doing!) we headed across country to stop in on people in Tring (family of
friends of my family!) before heading to Cambridge again. Unfortunately it
didn’t quite work out that way, as Vinnie started to make horrible noises, the
steering became heavy and when we stopped at Morrison’s supermarket, we were
unable to get going again. Panic ensued as on a Saturday we found it really
hard to get someone to come and have a look at him. After much flapping and
phone calls to Guy (Cambridge) and Jules (Tring) we joined the RAC at the
roadside which costs exactly one arm and one leg! We did a lot of waiting but
the eventual outcome was an assessment by the RAC guy that the ball joint in
the front suspension/steering had worn through and was about to collapse
completely (which would have been a bit nasty) so Vinnie went to hospital on a
huge flat deck truck. It was all a bit traumatic and exciting (and expensive),
all at the same time. Fortunately we had calm words from Guy and Jules on the
other end of the phone and Jules and Nick (her husband is Nick also – don’t get
confused!) very kindly offered us a refuge with their family (including Ellie
and Matthew) while we waited for Monday and the mechanics to have a look at it.
Now we just wait to hear when they can look at it and get the part – fingers
crossed it’s soon! In the meantime the Wake Family keep extending our Tring
visa’s so we don’t have to camp in the van in the mechanic’s yard!
While here though we’ve been able to look around Tring a
bit. It’s a nice quiet town and has an interesting history. Once owned by the
Rothschild’s there’s obviously been wealth here, and where’s there’s wealth,
there’s often eccentricity! We like eccentricity! One of the Rothschilds like
to collect stuffed animals, which sounds rather low key – but he gathered the
greatest collection of animals species ever collected by one man and many of
them are in a small museum here. It was fascintating! Its not nice to think
that these were once living animals, but the damage is done now and it really
is an amazing and interesting collection. The first you see are lions, polar
bears, thousands of birds, followed by monkeys, gorillas, just about every
thing you can imagine. My favourite was the Tibetan Lynx, such a beautiful
creature – I want one! (So I’ll no longer be hassling for a pony!) And I’ve
also identified what I want to come back as – a Sportive Lemur (see photos!).
Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild also had a park here with Zebras and he trained
them to pull a cart! (google Tring National History Museum and you can see some
pics). There’s even a photo of him, in local books, on the back of a giant
tortoise here dangling lettuce in front of it from a stick, like the proverbial
carrot and donkey. Apparently when he went up to Cambridge he took 30 live
kiwis with him! It all seems a little cruel, but the whole thing was inspired
by a love for nature and a desire to set up resources for scientists to study
and understand animals and evolution better.
Well that’s it for now -
a rapid summary of a month of travel! I’m sure I haven’t done it justice
and there will be things I’ve missed – you’ll have to wait for the book to hear
about those!
Now we just sit with our fingers crossed that Vinnie gets
better quickly….
