We’ve been internet for a while, so this post is going to be a pretty quick run down of the last week or so.

We’ve gone from London to Calne (stone circles, etc.) then onto Manchester for a stop over, through to Newcastle to catch up with Leah’s family, up to Edinburgh for a look around, off to the Isles of Mull and Skye for some outdoorsy stuff and landed last night in Belfast.

We didn’t know this manor was here, but apparently it was on some BBC show about restoring a manor. It was pretty cool, the garden were great and every room represented a different era. They also had top notch tea and scones. (The most amazing cream I have ever eaten in my entire life – Leah)

On our way to Manchester we drove through Wales which was pretty cool (Breathtakingly beautiful, green and in bloom, a bit Swiss-ish). We stopped at this really old tea house called something like Tu Huw I’r Bont (the Welsh language is crazy). The house is a few hundred years old, and has been a tea house since the 50’s or something. Leah fell in love with a scone.

Manchester was just a convenient place to stop, and we basically had dinner, went to bed and then had a quick walk in the morning before heading off. Pretty cool city, made almost entirely of brick. Lots of geese and the police just wander around chatting to people. The city was all but deserted on Saturday morning. Apparently Fridays are pretty big in Manchester.

We drove through Cumbria (Lakes District, predominately National Parks) on our way to Newcastle, which was pretty spectacular. It gave us a taste of the Scottish highlands to come, with huge mountains covered in stone walls everywhere, massive lakes and lots of slow drivers and campervans.

In Newcastle we stayed with a couple that ran their own bakery (She did, he is actually a Postman) and also a health food store, they were super friendly and made us amazing brekkies and even invited us to have  a sit down dinner with them and their dog, who was pretty rude and just watched TV the whole time. We also spent a full day with Leah’s great uncle John who didn’t take a breath all day, but instead spoke to us (literally non-stop) about the history of Newcastle and the UK in general, he also told us about how he doesn’t know much about these things, despite knowing everything about them. He and his wife took us out for a lunch to a restaurant in a 14^th century monastery which was great, and we went to their place for tea and to meet their dog who also watched TV. He also took us around and showed us all of the places of significance to my family - Leah

Newcastle is known for two things – bridges and trashbags. We went for a walk through the city (which is probably the best looking city both of us have seen) on Saturday night and it was just a sea of fake tan, tight dresses and loose bodies. We counted about 12 different hens nights – it was great.

On our way to Edinburgh we stopped at Alnwick castle, which we didn’t know much about. Turns out it’s one of the best castles in the UK. It’s been lived in by the same family for around 700 years (the Duke of Normandy, he and his family still live there during winter) and has been maintained and updated constantly (The also filmed parts of Harry Potter there, mostly quidich scenes). The inside was like a palace with enormous marble fireplaces, stuffed dogs, oversized cupboards and high ornate ceilings and lots of gold things. Unfortunately we weren’t able to take any photos while inside. The outside was amazing, there were towers and walls all over the place. The extravagance of the place is perfectly illustrated by the fact that the family had a whole river moved and entire fields landscaped so they would have a nice view from one side of the keep.

We also stopped at Holy Island, which you can only access when the tide is out. There is a great old sea fort here that we walked through but other than that it’s a pretty tiny town. It did seem to have a weird effect on old people though, we saw one old shirtless guy being arrested for god knows what, another in shorts and knee high socks behaving like a paparazzi and another dressed like Richard Branson wheeling a suitcase across the tidal flats seemingly from nowhere.

Last on the list is Edinburgh which has a pretty violent and awful history. Lots of torture and public executions, and a whole underground section that was forgotten for 130 years. We did a ghost tour of this underground section, which was basically made in the 15 or so giant archways of an old bridge, which ended up being entirely built in. Something like 30,000 people would have lived down here in almost complete darkness – the life expectancy was around 5 - 18 months for inhabitants. The tour was genuinely scary, and had Leah fumbling for her valium after the guide’s torch broke in a cavern that (according to the guide, but not supported by anything we saw) was the site of a lot of ‘encounters’. (And I swear I had encounter when the ghosts hid my valium!)

We went for a walk around the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens, saw the Castle, overheard some 80 year old ladies talking about their grandkids breakdancing and walked around like total wierdos as my feet and Leah’s knee finally gave way from all the walking.

Sludge and underground tombs

Yesterday we went on a bit of an adventure to some amazingly old and awesome neolithic sites. The first was Silbury hill, which is a hill in Silbury. Unlike most hills, this one is man made. It apparently took 18 million man hours, which is... I don't know... ages. It looks like this from a distance:

And this from close up.

You can actually only really see the top half of it here, so it's hard to get the scale, but it's about 40 meters high - about the same as some of the newer pyramids in Egypt. The only thing higher than this in the area was the weird lady on the side of the highway trying to sketch the hill in her notepad. Pretty sure everyone knows what a hill looks like lady. Anyway, it would have been great to climb, but you're not allowed. Something about it being the biggest and oldest neolithic site in Europe.

Getting to the hill was easy, it was right next to the carpark. The West Kennet Long Barrow was a different story however. This would have been great to show on one of those old slide projectors, so just imagine yourself in a room with me clicking through this while you sip on a brandy or something.

The West Kennet Long Barrow is crazy old, these guys were into stone tombs before they were cool (in your face Egypt). It was made about 6000 years ago, and the National Heritage Trust were kind enough to put a gate on the side of the highway leading into a paddock/swamp a few kms away, as a kind of marker to help us find it. Beyond the gate I relied not on the map that we had, but on my instincts. Turns out I'm great at finding sludge.

This was my favorite bit of sludge.

With this a close second:

At one point I thought I was onto a shortcut, but it turned out to be a mire (I think that's the term for waist deep grass and almost knee deep mud?).

Nope

We crossed a few streams, this one was probably the best looking of them all (there was a duck with a team of ducklings in another stream, but they were really fast so I couldn't get a picture of them).

Some of the walking was just regular old paddock walking.

And some of it was like a tunnel of old trees and moss (and sludge).

And then we saw it (at the top of a hill, and we were like 'maybe that's it?').

So we walked up there. Up to this point we hadn't seen anyone else.

And this was it.

After seeing some stuff in London where it was all masses of people, tour guides, tickets booths and 2 hour long lines, it was pretty weird to get to this place and not see a single person. It was really cool on one hand, and really unsettling on the other. Was there a reason there were no people for miles around? Maybe Thursdays is zombie day? Or maybe it was just the non stop rain. So we went into the 6000 year old underground tomb. This is me saying 'No. Fucking. Way.' as I gazed into the entrance.

 The roof had been reinforced in some rooms to help with collapsing, and they had put in some glass bricks to let some light in, this is me in one of those rooms.

It was pretty amazing being in this place, even more so because we were alone. It was like a set from Indiana Jones, except that if it was an old movie set there probably would have been more people. There were 5 largish rooms that would have been filled with the bodies of the dead, only one room and the passage between rooms had light. It was completely silent, except for the water dripping from the rocks that formed the ceiling, and very musty. We hung around for a bit then headed on to other sites (which I might write about later).

All in all a good day, except that towards the end of it my waterproof pockets both filled with water and became unusable, so I just had to walk around awkwardly with my arms dangling by my side. I hate doing that.

London

London was very wet. And very cold. And super awesome.

We had a very busy day and night.

We visited The Tower of London, Stu tried to play it cool but we did need to use the spare pair of undies we packed, just in case…

We boarded the HMAS Belfast, a retired WWII and Korean War war ship. Stu donned his Admiral’s hat and gallantly took control of the ship with the other men aboard. There was much eye rolling from the female crew. Fortunately a mutiny was avoided due to a surplus of Admiral’s hats.

We met Pete David at the Thomas Cubitt for a dinner prepared by Head Sous Chef Andrew Tardasian. http://www.thethomascubitt.co.uk/ Delicious. (Sorry Andrew, that’s just how you have to spell it)

Pete is as charming and clever as ever. Andrew is a loud and talented as ever, if a little paler. 

Recommedations

Any and all recommendations and suggestions are welcome throughout our trip. 

On our way

Waiting at Melbourne airport. Fresh to death.

Emirates starry night.

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