Not Before Time

We got to Dublin about 5:30pm – just in time for peak hour traffic leaving the city!  They have there what they call the M5 carpark.  We found out why – it can take up to 2 hours to get out of Dublin in peak hour.

We decided to head south and leave Dublin until the end of our stay in Ireland, so we ended up at Kilkenny the first night.

One thing we noticed when we hit Ireland – nearly every second doorway in nearly every town, will lead you into a pub!  There are so many pubs, if you were doing a pub crawl it would last all night and you would still only be half a km from home!

The next morning we headed south west going through Waterford (where the crystal factory is) and towards Cork.  However, the traffic and roadworks were so bad we decided to go around Cork and headed straight for Dingle.

Dingle

Dingle is a magic seaside village.  I read about it last year some time and decided when we got to Ireland we were coming here, and I’m glad we did.  We are staying for 2 nights at Murphy’s B&B right on the waterfront – it’s also a pub with great food.

Today we drove out to the western most point and the scenery is stunning.  Here’s the photo’s to prove it.

We spent the last 3 days in  Wales, following the coast road to Holyhead where we will catch the ferry to Ireland.  Wales is beautiful.  Along the south coast it is wild and rugged, similar to Cornwall in England, but further up it softens, with rolling hills dotted with sheep.  Lots of baby lambs around at the moment too.  We’ve had some great weather, cool, but sunny days and mostly dry.  The people here are very friendly and the one’s we’ve spoken to have been really bubbly.  The welsh accent is lovely.  We stopped to have lunch in Caernarvon where there is a great castle.  It was almost like being in a foreign country as nearly everyone there was speaking Welsh rather than English.  Interesting to listen to, even if you can’t understand a word.

From Swansea we kept to the coast road heading north and we drove through some beautiful countryside.  South Wales is similar to Cornwall – wild and rugged coastline but as we drove further north and the road went more inland the scenery became softer, with rolling hills and nice little towns.  We went to see St Davids – the smallest city in Great Britain, with St David’s Cathedral and the Bishops Palace.  The cathedral is still a working church and the Bishops Palace is in the process of being restored.  There is also a museum cataloguing the history of St David himself (the patron saint of Wales).  A lovely little city.

Later in the day we saw signs to an iron age fort and decided to go have a look.  This is a re-enactment of an iron age village made up of roundhouses with thatched roofs.  The  roundhouses of this village are actually recreated on the foundations excavated during an archeological dig.  There was a guided tour conducted by an archeology student and she did a great job explaining what the excavations had revealed about how the inhabitants lived at that time.  Very interesting.

That night we stayed at a guest house in Aberystwyth, a nice little seaside village (Welsh names are very hard to pronounce!)

Found a nice pub to have a couple of ales in!  (Surprised??)

Kept heading north the following morning with a stop at Caernarvon to have a look at the castle – you can hardly miss it – it dominates the town’s harbour.  This castle was built by Henry II and was deliberately imposing to remind the Welsh of his power and authority.  There are lots of shops and narrow winding streets inside the castle walls and it’s a lovely place to wander around for a few hours.

We had planned on staying the night in Holyhead (where you catch the ferry to Ireland) but we got there earlier than expected and since there was a ferry leaving in the next couple of hours we decided we may as well take that one and stay in Ireland the night.

Left London some 7 days ago and headed for Dover, hard to see the white cliffs in all this fog, moved down towards Southhampton, through some lovely country side. Stayed in some great hotels and B& B’s.  Headed for Lands End and spent two nights in Penzance (where the pirates come from??) We are currently in Bath ( the roman baths are fantastic) heading for Wales and Ireland.

This is my little update and Maggie will add more details later (she is in the Costume musuem in Bath at the moment) and hopefully we will get some photo’s loaded soon.

We are having a great time.

Here’s some more details about Southern England:

After a delay picking up the hire care, we finally got out of London.  The traffic was really bad and by the time we got to Canterbury we decided we’d had enough of driving and spent the night there.  We stayed at the Hop & Poles pub.  Very basic but ok accommodation, but great shower with plenty of hot water.  The host, Ricky, had only just taken over the hotel and was still sorting things out.  We both felt like lamb chops for dinner, which wasn’t on the menu, but Ricky went to the butcher and bought some chops for us so we could have what we wanted!  There was a football match on the television that night, so we joined some of the locals at the bar where we watched the game washed down with a few ales.  Even though there weren’t that many people in the bar, the noise when the popular side (Chelsea) scored was deafening.  The English love their football!

The next morning we went into town where there was a market so we wandered around for a while.  Leaving  Coventry we headed for Dover.  Unfortunately couldn’t see the white cliffs due to the fog!  At the information centre a very nice lady from the National Trust gave us advice on the best route to take so we would see some great scenery. She was right too.  Following her advice, we headed inland and drove through some lovely villages and towns..  The weather was drizzly but not cold, pretty good for driving.

Planned on staying at Royal Tunbridge Wells that night, but the place we wanted to stay at was closed.  After driving for a while we found Worthing, another lovely little town where we stayed the night at a beautiful place called Beechwood Hall, an 18^th century house converted to a pub with accommodation and some friendly locals to chat to.

Portsmouth

We headed for Portsmouth this morning, to see the Mary Rose – a tudor ship built for Henry VIII which sank in the harbour as it set sail to fight the French.  Also at the dockyards is the HMS Victory, the ship that Admiral Nelson was killed on during the battle of Trafalgar.

The docks are huge, and are still used by the Royal Navy today, mainly for training.  We boarded and looked over both the HMS Victory and the HMS Warrior, one of the first iron steamships which was built in 1860.

The Mary Rose was of particular interest to me, as I’ve wanted to see this ship ever since it was raised in 1982.  Over 19,000 artifacts have been salvaged from the ship and give an insight into life in Tudor England.  I really enjoyed the docks, and 4 hours flew past.

That afternoon we went to Dorchester, and By the time we got there it was time for a drink!  We were both a bit tired, so we had dinner then an early night.

Penzance

The next morning we drove towards Plymouth, passing through some beautiful seaside towns.  We stopped to have a look at Jamaica Inn, an 18^th century inn made famous by Daphne Du Maurier in her book of the same name.  There is now a museum attached to the inn, and it chronicles the history of smuggling on the Cornish Coast.  The history is interesting, but the museum exhibits are a bit kitschy!

From there we drove to Penzance where we stayed for a couple nights so we could catch up with washing, emails etc..  The scenery here is very rugged and wild, and it was also really cold.  By the next morning the weather had turned really nasty.  We drove to Lands End, the western most point of England.  It’s really interesting how the area has been set up for tourists.  Firstly they charge to enter the parking area, then you pay to enter just about every venue you might be interested in seeing, such as the sweet making shop, or anything that tells you about the history of the place.  The only places that didn’t charge for entry were the souvenir shops!  This is a real tourist trap. We went for a walk!

That night we decided on fish and chips for dinner.  Our first fish and chips in England.  Not bad, but I think there are better to be had.  I’ll have to work on finding the best in the UK.

The next morning we drove north up the coast.  It was really too cold and wet to get out of the car, so we had to be content with seeing as much as we could from inside where it was warm.  We spent most of the day driving instead and worked our way towards Bath.

Wells, Bath and Stonehenge

We arrived in Wells late that afternoon and booked in at The Crown – a 13^th Century hotel which is located right on the market place and close to the Cathedral.  We booked for 2 nights, and slept in a 4 poster bed!

Wells is a beautiful town – the smallest city in England, and has a huge and very pretty cathedral.   

The following day we drove to Stonehenge where we spent most of the morning, arriving back at Wells mid afternoon.  David decided it was time for an ale, so I went and had a look at the cathedral.  It’s just as beautiful inside as it is on the outside.  I preferred this cathedral to St Paul’s in London, mainly I think because St Paul’s is more touristy, while Wells is still a working church, and the vicars wander around talking to visitors and passing on some of the history of the cathedral.  A really beautiful cathedral and well worth the visit.

The next morning we headed for Bath to see the Roman Baths, and I also wanted to check out the costume museum.  Bath is another lovely town, full of elegant and graceful Georgian buildings.  This was probably the busiest place we had been to – there were so many tourists.  I think I could have spent quite a few days there just wandering around, however unfortunately we had to be in Ireland by a certain date (when you take a car from England to Ireland, you have to specify an arrival and departure date) which meant we had to keep going so we could see some of Wales before we went to Ireland.

We are now sitting in an internet shop in Canterbury after 4 great days spent with Naomi in London.  I don’t think we have been to so many pubs in so short a time in our life!  There are pubs everywhere.  And people think the Aussies drink a lot!

The first day we did the hop on-hop off bus tour which was well worth doing (with the exception of the sleet and snow we encountered!). 

Over the 4 days we visited Westminster, Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, London Bridge, the War Cabinet Rooms (fantastic – worth the £10 entry price, spent over 2 hours there), Harrods, Hyde Park, and some other places which we will add later.  All in all, we had a great time.  We’ve now picked up our car and are driving south and will head around the coast to Plymouth over the next couple of days.

Well, just a quick update as we’ve had a few problems accessing the internet.  Hopefully will be able to do a more detailed update with photos later on.

We had 9 great days in Egypt.  Saw so many temples, tombs and statues which were just breathtaking, but must admit we got a bit templed out by the end of our time there.  We had a 4 night cruise down the Nile which was really good – it’s as if time has stood still, there are so many scenes that could have come straight from biblical (and earlier!) times.  Cairo was a huge contrast to the cruise – loud, busy and quite polluted, but the people were really welcoming and very nice.  The only painful part is the hassle you get from vendors – and vendors are everywhere.  If they are not selling something they are begging, but generally they will try to do something for you in return for money, even if this is just them offering to take a photo of you or showing you where something is, but they do expect payment.  Everyone will ask you where you are from and when you say Australia, they all ask Melbourne or Sydney?  I think these are the only 2 places they know of in Australia (either that or it’s only people from Melbourne or Sydney that visit Egypt).

The food was really good and we seemed to be eating all the time, must have been all the walking we did that gave us an appetite.  However, as seems to happen to the majority of visitors to Egypt, the Mummie’s Curse visited us! 

The rest of the tour group members were really nice, a mix of Canadian, American and Australian, and we were a small group of 14 which was great when visiting the temples etc.  Our tour guide was great and full of really good stories.  He is an Egyptologist and expremely passionate about his country and its history.

Photos now added.