Expeditious Visits

June is nearly at an end and it has been a busy month, what with me being off work and everything..... the life of a loafer ain't all it's cracked up to be :)

As you might all know I've been off work recently and I'm counting down the months until I get back to the mighty NZ! Although there are many travels to accomplish before that - Italy, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, France, Egypt, Singapore and then Australia.

At the end of June, Danielle who is Melissa's cousin stayed for a couple of nights, she's not new to travelling and this was her completely independent mission, well that's what we were told :) So being in our a new apartment we were more than happy to put Danielle up and we showed her around three separate markets and a park in one day - Camden, Angel flower and Brick Lane markets as well as Regents park.

That night we rounded up ingredients for a fabulous mango daiquiri and it was scrumptious and a little alcoholic. Danielle was worn out that night and fell asleep during a Top Gear episode that was playing at a record number of decibels!

Although Danielle was a seasoned traveller she still had a little trouble with her monetary funds and called upon Melissa for assistance. That was after a discussion with her mother and I happened to hear the words 'things should just be simpler and easier'. Apparently banks these days don't accommodate for travellers that forget their pin.... shocking!

Well Melissa was all to happy to help however the story did the family rounds as Danielle's parents had to get in touch with Melissa's parents to get Melissa's bank details. Money was exchanged from Australia to Australia and from the UK to the UK.... now that was simple..... hmmm confused... I am :)

So Danielle has her London legs now and a bit of spare change in her pocket. There were a couple of close calls with the train and one missed however as Auntie Bev found out this is all to common a story in the UK.....

Which brings us to Harrods, I don't know how I get roped into all these shopping adventures but everyone tells me you must go here and there and do this and that.... Really... well... you know. Harrods was huge, Auntie Beverly and Bronwyn came along with us. The girls were really chuffed with Harrods and they only tortured me for a couple of hours all and all it wasn't too bad.

So Melissa and I showed the Southern girls how the tube worked and around Regents park. They were really impressed with the park and I think they were really impressed with Melissa too! After a load of sight seeing and eating Auntie Bev and Bronwyn had to catch a train up north late in the evening however as they found out, the trains aren't really all that reliable.

The train they were meant to go was delayed and at about 10:30pm they decided it wasn't leaving the platform so they came up to the King's Cross Palace and crashed out on the exclusive air bed and couch. Our flatmate Dan has been pulling out all the bedding for the folks, good stuff Dan.

In other news family members have been breaking their collar bones, sinking their boats, loosing rapid amounts of weight, cooking up storms and getting new jobs! For more information please contact the Director.

Wine Tasting and Brighton

For Jamie's birthday I took him for a vineyard tour and wine tasting day in Haywards Heath, Sussex. We took the train and were lucky enough to find tickets for only £10/day after searching different fare prices on the net. Upon arriving at the train station we found that finding the correct platform and train was a bit harder than we bargained for, and we were really lucky we left a few hours early. Otherwise we may have missed the wine tasting, and that would have been really sad...

British wine, is well to put it bluntly weak, this is due to the lack of sunshine in Britain, however there are a few wealthy Brits who have decided to squander their money on creating vineyards around the countryside. The vineyard we were at had a lovely man, that guided us around the vineyard and explained how vines grew and all the finer details of creating wine up to putting the labels on the bottles. It all looked very expensive and he suggested it wasn't a viable investment. After our tour we tasted three wines, which were o.k., Melissa and I liked the sparkling and the rose wine. Then they served dinner as well, which was very British it reminded me of eating at a British friends house. Cold cut ham and salad, but doesn't the chutney make the meal :)

After we had finished our wine tasting we packed up and headed off on the train to Brighton. Brighton is a really crazy place and it would definitely pay to book your accommodation much further in advance if you want to find a good deal. It was really quite pricey £100 / night - no breakfast , but I guess we were paying more for the location than a nice room. The photo below is the view from our room.

The 'Brighton Best Western Hotel' was just horrid, upon entering our room there was a foul aroma, which we soon discovered was due to the wet carpet. Which was being dried by a small fan heater, all the windows were closed and I though they were trying to gas us!!!! It was either stay there or go home and we decided to tough it out and stay. On checkout there was a line of people all complaining about their rooms. The shower was dirty and the view was dismal, they could have put in a little more effort, it should be called the Worst Western. Not something I'd recommed this 'Brighton Best Western Hotel' has put us off all Best / Worst Western hotels.

The beach there is quite weird to us antipodeans, no sand all rocks and pebbles. It made for a nice but very loud walk along the water. Brighton just felt like a town that was a constant funfair. The pier had all sorts of carnival attractions (rides and games) that were open all year round.

Apart from the beach, Brighton is well known for 'The Laines', which is a series of small walkways with shops on either side and lots of stalls. Just before entering 'The Laines' we found a really nice cafe that made fabulous eggs benedict for breakie. It as so good we had the same both mornings we were there. We really just had a relaxing weekend walking around taking in the sites.

We headed out on the town on Saturday night for some Cocktails, they had a 2-4-1 deal on so we thought why not give them a go. Our order took awhile to be filled and even then they got it wrong, however eventually we were given the drinks we had asked and paid for. The first cocktail we tried was a Cosmopolitan, it was really nice. The second was a choc-mint and boy was it STRONG!! Jamie had to finish mine, as it tasted like straight vodka with a hint of mintiness.

On the Sunday the sun finally made an appearance (however the temperature still didn't get above 13degrees- so much for summer) and we sun-baked on the rocks, eating hot chips and ice-cream for lunch, yum yum!!!

By 2pm we had had enough and decided to head home to London. The train ride to Clapham Junction - London, took as long as the Bus to Earl's Court (the train we needed wasn't running that day.....) After finally making it home at 4pm, we decided to have a quick nap before dinner, however we didn't wake until 4am!! No point in making dinner now, so we just went back to sleep.

What a relaxing end to the weekend.

A Weekend Away InThe Cotswolds

Contiki craziness had passed away but Melissa and I still had the travel bug. We'd been working some land loving jobs and had put our pirate cutlasses away. The two other Captains, aka Cam and Leon have also travelled back to a far away place and are probably still out plundering!

The first major place on the agenda was Oxford, which was a student town with some neat cafes and a great Garden, J.R.R Tolkien even had a willow noted down as his favourite there which I was very impressed with. I thought it might have been on of the willows Bilbo Baggins ran into in Mirkwood forest on his way to sort out the mighty dragon 'Smaug'.

So Melissa choose a really lovely place to go within Britain 'The Cotswolds'. The Cotswolds are made up of a range of hills in Central-West England (aka 'The Heart of England'), it is quite a large area (40km across and 145km long) consisting of many small villages. Our method of travel was Thirfty car hire and I organised it to pickup from Heathrow (£86/3days hire). It was great to get into the country and drive a car again it's been 9 months or so since I've driven a car, Melissa was on google maps navigating me around yet again. Who says girls can't read maps she's an absolute legend.

Burton-on-the-Water a lovely little village with ducklings, a quaint bridge and a bed n breakfast (the old new inn £200 / 2 nights), garden room 2 rooms, breakfast included and a three course dinner which was absolutely divine. I thought we were going to be ripped off but it turned out to be an absolute treat. If you'd like to stay book it through this website http://www.theoldnewinn.co.uk/

While there we took a little drive around the surrounding villages (Cirencester and Burford) and ended up in a wild life park, for around £10 each we had a look around the place, it was a huge park and there were quite a few families around. Melissa is an animal lover and had a great time, I must say I was a little taken by all the animals and had a great stroll around the place followed up by an ice cream.

The following day we stayed at a bed n breakfast in Bristol (£50/night - no dinner), not much to say about Bristol we had a quick walk through Castle park and had lunch at a cafe along the water which took an hour to get our food, not that impressive. So we decided to high tail it to Bath and found the local Bath Spas, entry was £25/each. The baths had two pools, one a rooftop with the view of the city and one on the ground floor. Then in the middle there were 4 special steam suna's each with different aromatherapy scents and a waterfall shower in the middle. Also there were no kids, and that was great because we all know what kids do in pools.

At our shared bed and breakfast we met a group of students from Trinity College in Dublin they were cool and we shared a couple of drinks at the local. The following day we headed home and took some detours through small villages and roads which were like forest corridors, where your car is nearly touching the shrub on the sides and above. Before getting back into London we visited Stonehenge, Melissa loved it as she has always wanted to see Stonehenge and discover how it was put together and what it was used for. The audio guide helped to answer some of these questions, however it all seemed a bit mythical rather than realistic. I was mildly impressed.

All and all it was a great weekend away and we're hoping to do a few more, a certain person is forever telling us to go to York, so I guess that will be coming soon.

Contiki Craziness - Parts 12

Day 12 - Paris to London

After a massive Contiki around Europe it was time to head home, some of the people were dropped off at the airport in Paris. After that we went to a WW2 battle site, where the Canadians had fought for a strategic hill that had never been taken back from the Germans. Apparently they shelled the German positions for 7 days straight.

The survivors headed up to Calais for the ferry ride to Dover and then back to London via bus. Cards were signed address's were given out, all and all we were happy it was all over :) Once back Nat our tour guide tried to convince the pirates to come out drinking that night, but we'd had enough and were ready for a good nights rest.

Then End