Not Before Time

England again

Back in England, we headed for the Lakes District.  I know this is probably starting to sound boring to you all, but the scenery here is really stunning as well.  This time it’s craggy hills, meadows dotted with sheep, dry stone walls everywhere, and of course, lakes. We spent the night at Lake Windemere and the following morning exploring Windemere and Ullswater lakes.

After the Lakes District it was over to the east to have a quick look at Yorkshire.  We took a minor road which wound it’s way through the Yorkshire Dales and I’m sure David must have been cursing me for picking this road as it was really twisty and narrow with drystone walls on both sides, making it very hard to see what was coming, but we made it across in one piece.

Once out of the dales the country flattened out a bit into rolling hills and dales.  We were heading for Ripon as we wanted to see Fountains Abbey, an old cisterian monastry – and it was well worth the drive.  We spent 3 hours wandering around the abbey and grounds, but it would have been easy to have spent the whole day there.

From Ripon we drove to York which we both fell in love with.  York is a town of layers – it’s a medieval city build over a roman town, which was then taken over by the vikings.  Dominating the town is York Minster, a huge gothic cathedral, and the town centre is made up of tudor style houses in narrow cobblestoned lanes, most of which dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries.  The centre of town is a pedestrian zone and this makes it much nicer to wander around.  The following day we walked into town and spent 5 hours walking around and seeing the sights.  We had such a great time and would have liked to have spent much longer there, however, we had to get back to London as we are flying to Paris on the weekend.

That afternoon we headed further south to Malvern Link where the Morgan Motor Company is located, and David was really keen to visit them for a tour.  He had called ahead and the tour was organised for the following morning.

Morgan hand build cars which have a vintage sporty look to them.  I was going on the tour with David and initially was just going along for the ride.  However the tour was great and watching the process from just about start to finish was really interesting.  Working at Ford, I’ve seen the build process there numerous times, and I really like watching the cars going down the line.  However, Morgans are totally hand built and there are no conveyor belts or robots in sight.  Everything is done by skilled carpenters, metal workers and machinists, by hand.  We saw the wood components being shaped, planed and sanded by the carpenters.  Sheets of steel were laid out on tables and templates were used to draw the shapes on to the steel which was then cut out using a guillotine then finished by hand.  Each body panel is hand sized and fitted to the car.  All the leather work for seats, soft tops, gear stick covers etc, were done in a similar fashion as the steel parts.  The leather was laid out and templates were used to draw the pieces required  which were then cut out using a scalpel and passed to machinists who sewed the pieces together. These were again hand fitted to the car.  (I only saw 3 sewing machines, 2 of which were being used). In these days of high technology it was facinating to watch.  There were were some areas where visitors were not allowed to enter – the wood mill, the sheet metal shop and the paint shop – mainly due to OH&S rules I believe. The end product is a stunning motor car which sells for a very high price.  We spoke to some of the workers, and it takes from 2-3 months to build each car but the wait would be worth it.  I enjoyed the tour as much as David and the only thing missing was having a drive in one at the end!

We are now back in London at Naomi’s place, and we leave tomorrow for the next phase of our trip – Paris!

Photos will be posted next time we update.

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.