Leah & Julian in The World

I got the job to write about Dublin, as Leah is going by the principle “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

We’re not sure if it’s the cold weather, the city being so grey, the beggars on the street or the fact it is so expensive (for an Aussie anyway) that turned us off Dublin.

Crowd for the parade on O'Connell St, Dublin

St Patrick’s Day redeemed it somewhat.  The parade started at 12pm (Irish adjusted time) through the city.  There were grand floats and marching bands and hundreds of thousands of people.  Many of the floats were space-themed, as 2009 is, apparently, International Year of Astronomy.  Then on to Gallagher’s Boxty House for some great lamb ‘burgers’ (no buns?).  And finally to an Irish pub in Temple Bar for a drink with the locals and other tourists.  Great Guinness, ought to be since it’s made about 2km (yes, back to metric) from here.

Figures in the parade

Guinness!

mmm...

Our trip map is starting to look a bit better now!  The ferry crossing to Dublin took 3.5 hours and was quite pleasant.  Our final morning in Wales we had a walk on the beach at Trearddur Bay – if you ever need to campsite here, go for Bagnol.

Yesterday we spent the morning exploring a few more of the Cotswold villages, including Bourton-on-the-Water and Chipping Camden.  Bourton has a canal that runs through the middle of the village, with lots of arched bridges and ducks – it’s very picturesque!  Chipping Camden was most notable for the thatched roofs, but can’t say we really understood what all the hype is about.  Overall, we liked Stow-on-the-Wold the most.

Bourton-on-the-Water

After a quick look at Ironbridge Gorge we headed northwards to Wales!  I didn’t really have any big expectations for Wales but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.  We spent the night at a campsite in Betws-y-Coed and from the little we saw of the village it was very quaint.  Then we headed west to Llanberis, passing lots of crazy trampers on the way.  I’m certainly not opposed to hiking, but it was far too cold and windy for my liking!

Ironbridge Gorge

We stopped in  a park-and-pay area, but were unwilling to pay the 2.50 minimum.  So we tag-teamed it up to Dolbadarn Castle, a ruined keep that overlooks the hydro power station (Craig, Julian took a photo just for you!).  I loved this part of the day.  There were almost no people around, you had the keep to yourself.  No cover charge, no guides, nothing but a small sign telling you that the round keep part of the castle was built in the 13th century.  You could walk around the keep and up the winding stairs to the different levels.  The building is a ruin, so you have to use your imagination to picture it as it once was, but that’s exactly what I enjoyed doing!

Dolbadarn Castle

From Llanberis we headed off to Caernarfon, which has a wonderful castle, originally built by Edward I in the 13th century.  The castle is huge, and again, you can walk right up and along the walls, and up into the towers.  The castle had fallen into ruin over the years, but a restoration program was begun in the 19th century and you get a real sense of what the castle was once like.  Prince Charles was invested here as the Prince of Wales in 1969.

Caernarfon Castle

It was a wonderful day, filled with history. And we were interested to learn from a brochure that Wales has the most castles per square foot of probably any country.  Glad to know they did their research.

Brakes are handy devices. I didn’t realise how bad ours actually were until they were replaced this morning. After which, we headed for Avebury to see the henge there. It is a large circle of stones surrounding the original Avebury village. Not quite as impressive as Stonehenge to me, especially considering the highway runs through the circle nowadays.

From here, we headed to the Cotswolds. First stop, Stow-on-the-Wold. A quaint little village with elegant yellow limestone buildings. There are no actual attractions here, just many little shops to wander amidst. It is pleasing to see the new developments in the area are doing their best to maintain the aesthetics by continuing to build in the original style.

From here we headed to Moreton-in-Marsh to camp, then to Bourton -on-the-Water and Chipping Campden tomorrow. Tonight we dined

Stow-on-the-Wold

at Eagle & Child pub (another Michelin moment), the oldest (947AD) inn in England. They have a fine Cotswold Lager. For dinner, I had the confit duck leg (was a big duck) with garlic potatoes, green beans and apricots. All the size of a pub meal but with that extra gastro-pub flair and flavour.

Newton Mill Campground, Bath

So we have had our campervan for 3 days now.  It is  a Toyota Lucida (Tarago) that has been converted.  It is diesel and has 150,000 on the clock (miles, that is!)  I think we’ll get about 400 miles to a tank, and at ₤50 a tank, that’s not too bad.  The bad is it uses a pint of water a day for the radiator :/ and we’re currently in Bath waiting for a mechanic to change the brake pads and discs.  They had been making some noise since we picked the car up.  We didn’t expect  too much from the vehicle, as it  was fairly cheap to hire, but I think it should be mechanically sound and safe before being hired out.  Probably bad news for Wicked that they hired this campervan, the Monty Python, to a lawyer…

Bath Abbey

Well we made it to Bath and had a full day there yesterday.  We headed into town where we visited the Abbey and the Roman Baths.

The Roman Baths were only rediscovered in the 19th Century, below a leaking basement in a house!  They are about 6 metres below street level and it’s actually quite amazing how much was recovered.  One of the cool things about the baths is that part of the audio tour is narrated by Bill Bryson!  The Baths are incredible.  I’ve always been a bit skeptical of the Romans, it is difficult to reconcile their barbarity (gladitorial games) and dominating culture with their incredible advances in engineering and ability to develop innovative solutions to problems.

Roman baths in Bath

For instance, rooms are heated by a furnace and the steam is then conducted under the raised floor and up through vents in the walls.   You can get some idea of what the floor looked like in this photo.

Roman heating system

After the tour we headed to Sally Lunn’s, in Bath’s oldest house, for the famous Sally Lunn bun!  It was delicious, and mine was slathered with butter, jam and clotted cream!

Salisbury Cathedral

From Blackberry Wood, we drove to Salisbury and saw the Salisbury Cathedral. It was beautiful and we both thought Salisbury was a lovely city.  After a pasty, we headed to Stonehenge.  It was not as terribly presented as I had heard, they do have to contend with thousands of tourists every day.  Sure it was fenced off and relatively close to the freeway, but it is still impressive in it’s own right.

After a quick look at the White Horse, we continued our journey to Bath.  Here we are staying at another lovely camping ground, with excellent facilities.  (We booked ahead this time!)  The showers are great and free!

Read on for the other posts we couldn’t get to upload from earlier this week…

Stonehenge

A White Horse

Brighton Pier

Actually nothing personal against Brighton, we  just had a terrible day trying to get there.  We left London at 10am on a short tube ride to Kilburn Park and then a short walk to pick up our Wicked Camper.  So far, so good!

Then our day only went downhill, some of the things that went wrong include:

• Julian’s credit card rejected at the camper hire place.
• Trying to find a petrol station, the famous Abbey Road crossing and getting the GPS to work all at the same time.  We finally found a petrol station (no thanks to the GPS)
• Trying to get out of London.  The GPS helpfully told us to take a u-turn to get onto the right road.  Unfortunately, there were no u-turns permitted (London has every traffic offence monitored by Big Brother) for the next 3 km and we ended up almost (we think?) in the Congestion Zone.
• Finally headed for Brighton, paid for parking at a shopping centre where we picked up some bedding.   Unfortunately no supermarket?!
• After a quick tour of Brighton, headed for the camping ground we planned to stay at.  No space available!  The nearest camping ground was 8 miles away and it was already 6pm and dark.
• Finally found a supermarket so at least we wouldn’t starve.
• After much debate, headed to Blackberry Wood campsite with the trusted GPS.  Found Streat Lane, longest lane ever,  and followed it up and back for several miles without success (it was pitch black by this point).
• Some keen spotting by Leah meant we finally found Blackberry Wood and we were welcomed by a lovely owner who directed us in.  After a few false starts, we finally found the right driveway.
• We went to make dinner and discovered all the kitchen utensils were disgusting and needed a clean.  Had cheese on bread for dinner.
• Leah went to have a shower,  was enjoying the warm water, all soaped up when the water ran out.  After some inspection, she realised it was actually 20p to have a shower and of course had no money.  I learned from Leah’s mistake.

Went to bed hoping for a better day tomorrow!