road trip: England (Part 1) - Heart of England

Hi Folks! After that comical yet rather scary (cos it's true) last post about the Virgin Mary tree stump in Limerick...We are back to our camping trip in Emgland..

So, first up in our England Camping holiday: The Heart of England (The Cotswolds and Bath)

After getting off the ferry in Wales (and driving a long long way) we set up camp in a very small (and remarkeably empty) campsite near Northleach (southern end of Cotswolds for those with a map (or see map below)). A simple campsite with our very own smokery on site with delicious smoked trout and chicken...yum.. This is proper camping after all..

There we stayed put for 5 days while exploring the countryside and the villages of Chipping Campden, Bourton on the Water, Stow on the Wold, Upper and Lower Slaughter and Bibury and sampling some of the cream teas.
So cute, so English and so like the BBC dramas everyone is familiar with... It was the England I really wanted to see (but wasn't sure if really existed) and it was the England we actually saw with our very own eyes.
We did this great little walk from Bourton on the Water, through Upper and Lower Slaughter via bits the 'Heart of England way', the 'Glouscestshire Way' and along those fantastic Public Footpaths. Doesn't it just make you want to go right now?
L-R The Walk: Bourton on the Water, Lower Slaughter, Ivan on Public Footpath, and walking through some yellow fields... We don't know what this yellow stuff is, but it sure is pretty.
This here is the old Market Hall in Chipping Campden , which is a lovely town with awesome tea and scones... the problem is you just can't seem to capture it properly in a photo.. damn! The market hall, built in 1627, is nice though.

While in that part of the world, another compulsory stop was Bath, and how rewarding! It is beyond beautiful... One of the highlights of the holiday for sure. The Roman Baths themselves were amazing, far better and bigger than anything I had imagined and the streetscapes, straight out of Jane Austen.... A stunning city, without a doubt.
L-R Check it out: The Circus, The River Avon, The Roman Baths and The Parade

Also, very nearby Bath is Monkton Combe, a small town where Ivan spend a few years when he was little... and though he was only 3-5 years old, he remembered little bits from his childhood and what family had told him about the place and eventually, by driving around the town very slowly and stopping often, we finally found the house he lived in, the primary school he attended and the local park.

An excellent success rate! considering the lack of actual information.
L-R: Snaps for the Williams Family: Ivan's old school in Monkton Combe (Schoolhouse and playing fields (ha ha ha)) and Priory Close, Ivan's actual house..!!

and hopefully this will work too...the map. Cos it's nice to see where these places are.

View England Part 1: Cotswolds in a larger map

Late Breaking News: the Virgin Mary tree stump

Um, yes...
this is too good...

Several workmen tending the grounds of a church in Limerick a few days ago, discovered the shape of the Virgin Mary in a tree stump. After chopping down the said tree, "One of the lads said look, our Blessed Lady in the tree,' Mr White said. 'One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock.' 'It was the perfect shape of the figure of Our Lady holding the baby,' he said.

Despite great skepticism from the Church, hundreds of people have flocked to the site to pray and light candles and thousands have signed a petition to prevent the removal of the tree stump from the Church grounds.
Local parish priest Fr Willie Russell said on radio station Limerick Live 95FM yesterday that people should not worship the tree. “There’s nothing there . . . it’s just a tree . . . you can’t worship a tree.” Um, yes you can.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0709/1224250319175.html

Road Trip England : step 1

So peeps and peepettes, one of the trips we have been waiting to do since we arrived here was a driving holiday through England, camping among the greenery and visiting all those lovely little villages. The land of Shakespeare, Darwin, Nelson, Tea n Scones and the motorway roundabout. So we did. There is a certain magic to walking into a small old village with a market hall which was built in the 1600's or has a monument to the local lord who dug a well, thereby ensuring the village's water supply, 300+ years ago.
Anyways, how great and how simple it was to pack one's car, hop on a ferry and a couple of hours later, drive off in another country! No airports, no planes, no (ever-horrid) Ryan Air inspired delays.

Here we say goodbye to Dublin port from the ferry




and that's just a taster!
There's heaps more photos to come...

Quick Blogs 3: Visitors from OZ

Last of the Quick Blogs...
Ivan's parents are travelling around the uk, and dropped in to stay with us for a week.
It had been over a year since we saw them last (except skype-wise) and it was really great to see them again.
Nick and Mike wandered around Dublin town checking out Museums and churches.. including the wonderful Marsh's library, and the Chester Beatty Library, the Archeological museum with its preserved bodies from the bog (a genuine Irish experience and a real must for all Irish visitors), and popped into St Pats and ChristChurch Cathedral... The last two we haven't seen ourselves, so they are ahead of us in some Dublin sights.... But we have plenty of time to see all.

Then on the saturday we had lunch at the Queens Pub in Dalkey, quickly checked out the harbour and hurried back home to hide away from the appalling weather (the one odd day out in a whole week of beautiful sunshine). Snug back at home with a cup of tea we watched "The Return of the King", part 3 of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the only one not yet seen by Nick and Mike... and who could deny Ivan the opportunity of watching it yet again. not us.

Sunday brightened up again and we set off to Co.Meath to see one of the main sites of Loughcrew Cairns (a series of neolithic burial tombs).. We had previously been up there ourselves but at the time weren't able to step inside the chamber... This time we had a guided tour of the chamber, with its fantastic carvings.











We returned home late that afternoon after dropping to the site of the Battle of the Boyne.
...thus ended a great week catching up with family.

We are off tomorrow to england camping and will actually coincide with Nick and Mike again (on their travels) and with Ivan's uncle, aunt and cousin, who last saw him when he was only 5ft tall (about 4 years old)...so that should be fun too. A big family dinner and get-together..

oops, nearly forgot... Nick's haircut on the balcony, much to the amusement of our neighbour (and possibly myself)

Well, my quick blogs have been a success, so i will try this fast pace from now on, which may mean I write and post more often, as it is less of a drag to do so... All the best, have a great weekend... Ivan and Elena

Quick Blogs 2: Co.Clare (the Coastal side)

Quick Blog 2: this is good, I'm getting them posted quickly...

Only 2 weeks ago, the long weekend in June, we took our new green tent, and all our camping supplies (except the all-important camping stove fuel, oops) to Doolin, a small lively coastal village on the coast in Co. Clare... Drop off point for the Cliffs of Moher, the Aran Islands and at the edge of the amazing rocky "Burren"..

Found a nice campsite, by a river, crawling with mosquitos and midges and set up tent beside a gang of bikies who were on a road trip/stag's weekend. (needless to say we set up our tent first, then they arrived later)... But they weren't too bad, the mossies were far worse, and the freezing air straight off the Atlantic sea, worse again.


But during the day it was very warm and sunny (and I mean very warm - perhaps 22-24 'C, not sure how we are going to cope back in Oz actually).. and we explored the gorgeous coast, the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. We avoided the Aran islands completely as, judging from the hundreds of cars left at the ferry point on the mainland (in Doolin), it looked as though the Islands would be just a tad overcrowded.. It was a long weekend after all and we were well into tourist season.


The Cliffs of Moher: A sneak preview for Karen who will be visiting them soon
and a lovely castle on the coast (wonky drive by shot)



Lunch on the Clare coast, where the Burren meets the sea... simply amazing.. you may be able to just make out one of the Aran islands in the first pic.

Exploring the Burren inland... Home of many neolithic Dolmens, ring forts, standing stones etc.....and the odd cow and sheep..

Elsewhere in the Burren, some strange rock formations and for fans of the TV series, the very house of Father Ted (Father Ted Crilly, from Craggy Island)

Road signage in Ireland (at times, over the top but most of the time non-existent)

Quick Blogs 1 : The Mourne Mountains

Ok.... has been a while since the last blog entry and we have a small stockpile of photos to post of explorations and visitors... as the weather is lovely at moment (most of the time), it is also the time to explore and travel again and we have been busy doing just that recently..
Also we are off tomorrow to go camping with our brilliant and enormous new tent (pictured in next post) to England for 2 weeks... So the next few posts are quick catchups on what we have been up to.

1st Up:

The Mourne Mountains and Coast of Co. Down , Northern Ireland
(see map on RHS blog to see where this is)
A few weekends ago, this was our first journey across the border into Northern Ireland..
It was beautiful and very close to home so we will be doing some more exploring there this year.

We drove through Carlingford which is a cute little village in the Republic of Ireland and sits at the edge of Carlingford Lough... then we crossed the other side of the lough and there we were in Northern Ireland, in Co. Down, "Where the mountains O'Mourne sweep down to the sea" (Song by William Percy French, 1854–1920). And absolutely beautiful it is too.

A brief weekend only but we climbed a small mounain (don't know which) in the Mourne's, drove around and checked out the elusive but grand Legannany Dolmen.