Ireland and Northern Ireland

Despite being such a small country in comparison to Australia it still takes a surprising amount of time to get anywhere. I had intended to catch a leisurely train from Edinburgh to Holyhead via Lyme Park in Manchester but it became rapidly apparent that doing so would take nearly 11 hours so we gave up and took the mere 7 hour journey direct. Despite some bright summer days on our trip apparenlty Ireland wasn't interested and conjured up a rough sea voyage for us with no sea sickness cures on board. I spent the entire journey using Tom as a pillow trying to outsleep any nausea.

Dublin is a big city and as big cities go it's a bit much of a muchness. We did enjoy the live music in most of the pubs we went to, and some even had some irish dancing. Irish dancing is loud which automatically makes it fun to watch. We went to see Riverdance, as you do and both the informal and formal dance settings were greatly enjoyable. Unfortunately during our stay in Dublin i became sick again, so we tended to head out for short bursts and then return to our accommodation to rest. This also meant that alcoholic tours of any kind were out of the question (criminal, I know), but we did get to see a herd of wild deer in Phoenix park.

Summer poked it's head out as we traveled north to Belfast, a city you probably could not have visited 15 years ago. Today it's a pretty spot with different quarters of the city spread out a bit. We stayed in Queens quarter which is near the university and has most of the cafes. Then there is the titanic qurteer which has an enormous exhibiton about the building and subsequent sinking of the titanic. The last quarter (only three, but there you go) is near Shankill and Falls Roads. These are the two most significant districts in Belfast and the centre of The Troubles, as the 30 year Catholic/Protestant conflict is known. The old courthouse remains a bombed wreck and there are plenty of carnparks that used to be buildings. Murals are a massive part of the culture too, with the peace walls covered in tributes for both sides of the conflict. Loyalists are super patriotic about being British and Union Jack flags and bunting cover Shankill road. They have a wall dedicated to the Queen.

Belfast is pretty relaxed though and certainly feels safer than Dublin. Because we missed seeing the countryside in Ireland we made a concerted effort in Northern Ireland. We went north to the Giant's causeway following the beautiful coast road and the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge which is 90 metres high and was used one handed by salmon fisherman in the 19th century. We also visited the Mourne Mountains to the south, a ring of 12 mountains by the sea.

The ferries are much easier to catch from Dublin so we had to rearrange our schedule to arrive in time for our return ferry. On the way Summer launched from her hiding place, blasting locals and tourists with 22C, which here is hot enough for the locals to strip to a bikini and bake on the lawn (the humidity is pretty high so it does feel pretty hot).

The ferry was as easy ride this time and currently we're on the train back to London.

Edinburgh

It's great to visit a city you have been to before! We knew our way around and have already seen some principal sites like Edinburgh castle.

Our stay this time was fairly relaxed. We visited the zoo, went past the palace (closed due to the Queen being home for her annual Garden Party) climbed part of Arthur's seat and generally faffed about on buses. We visited HMY Brittania which is an interesting experience. It makes sense that a family plagued by publicity like the British Royal family would enjoy an open sea voyage where no one can find them. Bizarrely the Queen doesn't share anything with anybody, including her bed. Probably the closest i've eve been to feeling sorry for The Duke of Edinburgh... A spot of afternoon tea on the boat before running into some ex students from school on their holidys. It seems a travel requirement that you bump into at least one child from school each time you head overseas.

On our last night i forced Tom to come with me to a dinner an show at Prestonfield, a very luxurious bed and breakfast just outside Edinburgh. The show was in the stables (sounds odd i know) but we had an excellent dinner, sharing our table with some Americans and Canadians. Whiile Tom agreed to come tot he show he still fused to dance the Gay Gorden with me so I danced with a 15 year old male pereformaer who was too young to know how to lead. Lucky i already knew the dance. I don't have any photos because Tom forgot to take some while i was on the dance floor.

Edinburgh is also home to my favourite clothing retailer so my bag is pretty heavy now.

The scottish highlands.

If I've learned anything this trip, it's to wary of cheap accommodation. Especially cheap accommodation that says it's near the city centre. Advertising accommodation seems awfully similar to advertising real estate. Garden view might just mean "window at back of property". 2 person room probably doesn't mean a double bed.  We arrived in Inverness in the afternoon and began our half mile journey to the guesthouse. After interpreting the directions on our booking confirmation which included vague statements and misspelled street names we eventually found where we were going. Tom, cursing generally for not relieving himself before we set out kept the walking pace at a speedy walk and eventually we found our accommodation in a suburban street in a suburban house. Which was locked. The notice suggested that we ring their very busy owner who was in the city running another hostel in the city. We rang and after negotiating Door 1 and being questioned about the supposed staff member who had in fact not answered the doorbell when we rang, we levelled up to Door 2.

"so your details and key should be there on the wall."
"what?"
"on the wall. A key with your details should be stuck to the wall"
"uh, no. There's no keys here"

After further grumbling it was determined that this staff member was not to be trusted. We were seen through Door 2 and magically a staff member appeared who gave us a key and wandered off. As the key was labelled "2" we extrapolated that this was our room number and went searching. At the top of a shabby staircase we found the room. Which had small single beds on either wall. Ooookay.
As i sat on one bed i was promptly tipped off as the ancient spring mattress buckled under my weight. Hmmm. 

Needless to say our stay with these guys was inconveniently cut short as we had to change our travel plans.  We found a much more suitable bed and breakfast near the river and spent the next three nights there instead. 

Inverness is a funny town, it's a lot like Geelong. Not very big but cosmopolitan in its own way. We mainly used Inverness as a base to travel around the highlands, including a tour up to Orkney. Orkney has nearly no trees, which is either attributed to the wind stopping the trees, or vikings, apparently. It is home to one of the oldest neolithic settlements, in which partially underground stone huts were built over water channels, giving them flushing toilets. Nothing like modern conveniences!

Inverness is home to Loch Ness of coursee, and no Loch Ness tour would be complete without the thousands of Ness myths surrounding a loch that is so big that it's only been explored fully in the last twenty to thirty years. Theere are some fascinating stroies about what monsters may or may not live there as well as the science of how the water changes and affects sonar in weird ways. 

We also travelled to the western highlands for yet another steam train, and although Tom was reluctant initially, we managed to hire a car for the day to get down there. I particularly wanted to go on this train because of one of the viaducts that it travels over. And I'm sure you can work out why. :) 

**sorry folks, blogspot is onthe blink, can't upload photos. Google "glenfinnan viaduct" to see what the fuss is**

The Lake District

We shall call this part of the tour the holiday Elizabeth Bennett never had. According to the story, Mr Gardiner's company would not allow him enoug time off to explore the Lake country, and they had to content themselves with Derbyshire. While Derbyshire is ceertainly a very pretty county, I think Miss Bennett missed out a bit by not going to the Lake District (although she married Colin Firth, so you know, swings and roundabouts). Sweeping mountains, still clear lakes and enough sheep to invade Australia, The lake country is stunning. Even in the completely miserable weather that we had, you can see why this is just about the tourist capital of the UK.

The buses are nuts though. Cheap, but nuts. We bought some bus passes that would allow us to travel on any bus in the lake district for three days, which was pretty handy. They travelled fairly regularly and the lake district is huge, not something that you could walk through without a tent and a week's rations anyway.

We stayed in Winderemere, near the closest rail station, but most of the lake country is further north. Travelling by bus we usually were in a double-decker bus travelling down tiny laneways, playing chicken with locals and tourists in their cars. Quie often the car had to reverse up the road until it found a turnout spot and the enormous bus somehow breathed in as it squeezed past. We were regularly reminded of the Knight Bus in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  The views are worth it though, if you can stomach the journey. I wouldn't try it in a car though, unless I was armed with the bus timetable to avoid them on these tiny roads. 

Our last day Tom wanted to spend at Hadrian's wall, the ancient Roman wall that once spanned the border of England and Scotland to keep the Picts out of Roman territory. (cue the Peter Combe song) so we caught several buses to Carlisle, the northern most part of the Lake district. Carlisle is a pretty rough city, and the weather was still pretty average. We searched around for ages for the wall untill it became clear that just about none of it remains. After speaking to some guides at carlisle castle we discovered that nearly all of the wall has been destroyed, much of it to build carlisle castle. To view the last remaining parts of the wall we would have needed a car. Grumpy that we had travelled for three hours to a horrible town with no wall, we caught the bus back, then realising that each connection we caught was the last one for the evening. Lucky to say the least! 

We would have loved to have stayed longer and gone hiking, but with the weather it was rather nice to stay warm and dry.

Yorkshire

York is either the biggest nightclub in the west or has a vastly bigger red light district than we thought. Despite the bedazzling (but hopefully not vajazzling) local young women, York is just about the prettiest town we've seen. More like dickensian London than industrial hub, York is full of quaint cobbled laneways with kooky shops and pubs named things like "the slug and lettuce". 

Our hostel is also definitely different. It's clearly been recently refurbished with bold painted street art on the walls. Apparently connected to the bar and restaurant downstairs it seems to be run entirely by hipsters. There's a blacklight on the wall in our room. It makes the fluoro stencil art in our bedroom glow. 

I'm still sick at this point having almost completely lost my voice (the perfect wife, some might say) so we've slowed down a bit in hope that i may recover. 

Yorkshire is home to one of my favourite authors, James Herriot, who wrote stories about his life as a vet in the yorkshire dales in the 1930s. The town he lived and worked in is Thirsk, about an hour north of York. The house from the stories is still there as a museum to James, his work and the BBC series that I think was made in the 80s. After a quick lunch we thought we would head across to a "Folly" garden made a bit like Alice in wonderland before shooting across to Scarborough for the afternoon. Neither of these things happened because Yorkshire buses suck. Even though the garden wasn't that far away there was no bus that went near it and the tourist office couldn't believe that we didn't have a car. They even admitted that they lived in a public transport black hole. So we gave up and caught the bus back to York. 

We did visit Scarborough the next day which is equal parts scenic seaside village and skanky bogan town. The castle is at the pretty end, the station at the other. Apart from reading the bus timetable wrong and waiting for it in the wrong spot it all went rather smoothly. Scarborough castle accounts for nearly 3000 years of history between the Britons, the Romans, the Vikings and the Normans it's been quite a popular destination. Anne bronte is also buried there.
 Our final morning in York we stopped at York castle which is mainly just the Keep or tower on a huge "motte" (huge mound of earth) the motte is so steep, the have to use abseilers to mow the grass. There we also met some Canada geese which decided that the motte was a good place to bring their goslings to much on some turf. Canada geese have very atrractive markings and their young are vy sweet. We also met some more standard farm geese as they decided to halt traffic by standing the middle of the road. I feel i now should have a scout's badge or something for geese herding.

Cymru to you

Wales, or Cymru, was somewhere that we did not see at all last time we visited the UK. So we wanted to make sure that we visited this time. It's very hard to judge where to go when you visit somewhere you've never been, so armed with the sage wisdom of my father, (cities are the same everywhere, there's nothing welsh about Cardiff) we aimed for a small town near the Brecon Beacons national park. Abergavenny (Y fenni) is a small market town with perhaps 1,500 people. We stayed in a rundown pub that rebadged itself as a backpackers to avoid renovations, which was fine by us. About a mile out of town the walk took us around picture perfect views and victorian homes.

The ancient castle ruins stand at the height of the town, with bounding squirrels too fast for our camera. The balmy welsh summer maxed out at 14C with constant rain, so we're pretty glad we ignored most advice about needing shorts and packed the thermals instead. We hadn't expected to be pretty much conpletely devoid of internet service which has caused some rather panicked rain sodden walking through tiny bus-deprived towns hopelessly looking for a touristy steam railway. We found the railway eventually and as soon as we entered it stopped raining, until we went outside again. I'm beginning to think wales resents our presence.

Yesterday we took the sunday bus route which takes carless senior citizens out of their homes to see the countryside. It's a free service for them but for anyone with all their teeth it was £9 each. Not a bad rate for an all day trip around the Brecon Beacons. The weather put on a show for us (14C and rain) so we stayed on the bus with the guided tour. A bit awkward on a full size coach with six people including us, the guide and the bus driver. It was good to see the countryside though, with its rolling hills and sheep with tails.

Today we tried to get up early but with my cold wearing me down i'm getting a bit grumpy. So we got up early-ish to catch the train to oxford for lunch. Of course we would pick graduation day to visit oxford, so all the colleges are closed [grumpgrump]. It's still very pretty though and in parts we nearly saw the sunshine.

Currently we're on the train to York (yay for free wireless on first class carriages) and onward to the land of James Herriot.

The Honey's honeymoon

We've been married a whole week! That's very exciting, in a totally non-life-altering way.  Except that we're on our honeymoon. After slogging through a twenty-something hour flight we arrived in London. We'd been to London before, but in the middle of winter, so we we're looking forward to warmer weather and less ice on the footpath. Well, there's no ice but it's not exactly warmer! Generally speaking the weatheer has been just about identical to the current weather in Melbourne; 16C and cloudy on most days. We have been out and about a lot more though.

The british museum with it's stolen arefacts sacked from temples and tombs across the world, camden market, purveying artefacts supposedly from around the world, and as many bus rides as we could manage in a day.

Our theatre going included "we will rock you" at the west end and the sauciest version of "midsummer night's dream" i've ever seen at the globe theatre (not sure Oberon pashes Puck in many other versions).

It was looking pretty difficult to catch up with my cousins, Clare and Fiona until they suggested that we visit them on set for the short film they are currently producing. Just a small thing, with some locals involved, such as Stephen Marcus (Nick the Greek) and Paul McGann (the 8th doctor)...!!!

We had a great time watching how a film set works in the dark depths of a local cave network once used in the blitz; at one point housing 15,000 people.

We do have some photos but are yet to work out how to connect our ipad to our DSLR camera.

We also caught up with the two Natalies, since they came over here before the wedding. Talie is here to pursue her dream in archaeology, and Nat is here spending obscene amounts of money in Scandanavia with her beau Kris.

Our next plan was to go to the harry potter studio tour (I know, I know, geeks), but the system for entry is quite complicated and we couldn't book tickets for the time that we wanted. So we've slated that for our return to London at the end of the month. So we went to the zoo instead. The zoo was much what you would expect, although maybe i did expect something a bit more from the oldest zoo in the world.

Onward then to Wales!