21 May 2005
Toodling around
So - the last day of April. Of my goodness! Already?!?!?
Saturday, we were feeling a little bit blah, so we opened up our map book and went for a drive. We went to a herb farm, (which was mostly just a herb nursery), we found an exhibition of Rolf Harris artwork (he can actually paint really well, no cartoons to be seen) and then headed off to Dorchester to see the local Abbey. It was really awesome. Very old, very beautiful, with a really friendly volunteer curator who liked to answer our questions with her eyes closed. Perhaps she could think better if she wasn't looking at us.
On Sunday we took the day off and decided to do some more exploring. We headed to Farnham Castle (which has nothing to do with Johnny). It is (like a lot of the hisoric things we go to see) largely in ruins, but still very interesting. In particular the design and evolution of the castle is different. Where as many castles are built on the top of a hill for obvious strategic reasons, the people who built Farnham Castle decided to build where there was no hill. So they built the hill too. It was originally kind of the shape of a christmas pudding, (the hill, not the castle) and what is even more interesting, half the castle, which started off as essentially just a 'tower' about 20 metres by 20 metres, is actually underground - inside the hill. Later on someone else decided to build a wall around the hill to expand the castle. They built the walls straight up around the base of the hill and for some hundred years or so no one filled in the gap between the top of the 'christmas pudding' hill and the straight walls. Weird. Maybe they were tired after all the wall building.... It was mostly used as a residence by the church, but was also visited by various members of the royal family and it is interesting to think about what important decisions were made within its walls.
From there we headed south to a little place called Petersfield, mostly we went there because we have a couple of friends at home called Peter, and because it was near by. There was a lovely little lake in the middle of town where we stopped to have a cup of tea and watch the local boys throw sticks at the swans. Lovely. I was very close to standing up and tossing in one of the little boys.... Where were the parents? Ah, yes, they were abusing an old man (who was walking his dog), for looking at them wrong and complaining that the poodle was getting scared.
The following day we packed up camp and headed off. We decided that there was no reason for us to stay in Reading, we can get on the internet from anywhere in the country and we have our mobile phones - so what the heck... we decided to head towards Birmingham. Why? Just beacause. But on the way north we stopped in a place called Abingdon, just south of Oxford, to catch up with Jess and Jeff who had hired a car for the weekend. When we got there they had also hired a little motor boat and were toodling up and down the river. They were kind enough to pull in and pick us up so we could all toodle together! It was very pleasant!
That night we checked in to a campground just outside Birmingham, as we lay there in bed we realised that we were much closer to the motorway than we had previously thought. We could hear almost individual trucks and cars racing past as we drifted off to sleep.
Tuesday morning we drove south a little way to visit Coventry. We stopped in at the markets and bought Elke a jumper/cardigan thingy. Yay. It has a hood. Then we went back up and right into Birmingham. The shopping area here is quite extensive - but many of the same chain stores as other cities in England. We felt like we needed a little culture after all this conusmerism so we found the tourist information office and then went off in search of the BMAG - Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The walk was a nice one. BMAG is in a really old Victorian building with a wonderful set of sweeping stairs to get to the upper floor.
The first piece of artwork we saw on walking upstairs was really tricky to look at. At first glance it appeared to be a beautifully done perspective painting of three corridors leading away from the viewer, the walls of each were lined with various paintings. However, as soon as you took a step the corridors shifted and followed you around the room. And not just like the eyes on a portrait painting. It was hard to look at and move at the same time. It wasn't until you got up to within a metre or so of the piece and somewhat side-on, that you could see that the three 'corridors' were infact built out of the painting towards the viewer. So in fact the flat canvas was not flat but a series of three flat-topped pyramids pointing outwards. It is difficult to explain but was very interesting to look at. Apparently the artworks that appeared on the ways of the 'corridors' were a selection of the painter's favorites from within BMAG itself! Neat.
We also went to see an openair photographic exhibition. The photographs on show were from the 'Earth from the Air' series (which was also published in the West Australian newspaper some time ago). It was fabulous to see these big prints out in the sun decorating this particular walkway.
That night we visited the biggest grocery shop that either of us has ever been into. It must have been the size of a Bunnings warehouse (a big one)!! It took ages to find the milk and cola we were looking for.
Wednesday (4th May) we headed south towards Hertfordshire (which is just North of London). Elke had an interview in a place called Finchley (North London) the following day, so we figured staying just outside London would be a nice idea. On the way down, we decided to check out a few more places that looked like they may be of interest. The first place we stopped off at was Northampton. We had no real reason for stopping there, other than it has the same name as a town a little ways North of Geraldton, Western Australia. We have a few close friends from Northampton in Western Australia (which is largely a farming community), and so we wanted to get a postcard while we were there. An exceptionally funny thing that we found when we were there was that in the toilet of a local pub, there was a vending machine. That is not so unusual, as I am quite aware of such vending machines selling things such as condoms, shaving razors or mints. However, we were quite amused to find that the one in this pub sold 'naughty' inflatable sheep! We guess the local men of Northampton must be hard pressed to find affection in the town.
On our next stop, we came across one of the strangest towns either of us had ever been to. Milton Keynes is essentially one network of roads layed out in a grid. We tried to head to the "City Centre" by following the signs and drove straight through it without even noticing. It is not like any other town we had ever been to. The city centre consists of what appears to be a series of massive shopping centres. We didn't come across much in the way of historic looking buildings, and suspect that the town is possibly not as old as others in England. It has a feeling of being something like a "manufactured" type town. At least it looks as though it was designed, and quite possibly looked great, on paper. However, it doesn't have the same warm feel we have found with so many other towns. Maybe if we had stayed longer it would have felt that way, but, we needed to head on to Hertford.
Hertford (pronounced Hartford), is a really nice little town. It is not that far out of London, and on Thursday, we headed into the "big smoke" to get Elke signed up with a teaching agency. We drove into Finchley, had some lunch and Elke got ready for her interview. The interview was at 2pm, so Elke arrived a little early (to make a good impression and appear organised etc). However, the person who she was to meet (the same person who arranged the 2pm interview), was out at lunch and didn't return until closer to 3pm! In the meantime Elke was left in the foyer to fill out forms by herself. When the woman eventually came in, there was no apology for being late or anything. This was not a good first impression. Certainly not the level of professionalism or organisational skills you would expect from someone who is supposed to be finding work for you. As of now, we still haven't heard back from them regarding reference and police checks. Hmmmm. Hence, Elke is registering with another agency who is hopefully a little better :) More info on them later though ;)
The next couple of days we decided to stay around Hertford and use that as a base to apply for work, check out some other lovely local towns like Hatfield and St Albians and for Elke to do a "Secondary to Primary Conversion Course" in London. This is one of the few useful things that Elke did get out of her teaching agent friend. The company that she registered with has some free courses every now and then and on Saturday, they were running this course that taught you the basics of what it is like to teach in a primary school. After doing this course, Elke is now able to do some supply work in a primary school. This could be good as the kids might be a little easier to deal with that the bigger ones. Time will tell though.
After quite an enjoyable few days in Hertfordshire, we decided to head back towards the Reading area. This is where we had told Elke's teaching agent that we were likely to be based, and so we wanted to rush down there to make sure that we were in a position where Elke could get to a teaching job whenever her agent called. As I mentioned a little earlier though, we still haven't heard from this woman. Elke has been back in touch to find out where they are at with her reference and police checks. Elke's teaching agent was going to find out and get straight back to her. We still haven't heard :(
Rather than heading back to Reading and Wellington Country Park, we decided to head for Henley on Thames. It is a beautiful little place where we had spent some time a few weeks back.
We were lucky and had some awesome weather while we were there. We ran into a really helpful and chatty groundsman named Eric who we chatted to often and who answered quite a few questions we had about the local area and a few other things about England (such as confirmation of which bush was a stinging nettle...ouch). Eric was also a keen fisherman and so much of this advice was received while sitting beside the "fishing lake" which is regularly re-stocked with fish for campers and recreational fishermen.
We didn't do much while at Henley other than take off each morning to a nearby town called Marlow, where Chris would apply for jobs. Marlow is similar to Henely in that it is situated right on the river, is quite small and quite beautiful. We had a good look around the town while not hunting for jobs though. One time while at the library, Elke found they had a book sale on where you could fill a bag for a pound. It is quite surprising what Elke can squeeze into a bag. Our car now resembles a travelling library.
You can see and comment on all of our photos here.
On Friday morning while getting ready to head up towards Marlow for another day of the same....Chris got a phone call. It was from one of the recruitment agents he had dealt with on his very first job application serveral weeks ago. This time the agent had good news...the company had finally reviewed his CV and was interested in talking to him further about the position. This would be an interview done in person down on the clients site in Exeter in Devon. Whoooooooo Hooooooooo! Road trip to Devon and hopefully that would lead to a job! So we set off with a smile each and our fingers crossed. I think we laughed properly for the first time in a few weeks this day.
Saturday, we were feeling a little bit blah, so we opened up our map book and went for a drive. We went to a herb farm, (which was mostly just a herb nursery), we found an exhibition of Rolf Harris artwork (he can actually paint really well, no cartoons to be seen) and then headed off to Dorchester to see the local Abbey. It was really awesome. Very old, very beautiful, with a really friendly volunteer curator who liked to answer our questions with her eyes closed. Perhaps she could think better if she wasn't looking at us. On Sunday we took the day off and decided to do some more exploring. We headed to Farnham Castle (which has nothing to do with Johnny). It is (like a lot of the hisoric things we go to see) largely in ruins, but still very interesting. In particular the design and evolution of the castle is different. Where as many castles are built on the top of a hill for obvious strategic reasons, the people who built Farnham Castle decided to build where there was no hill. So they built the hill too. It was originally kind of the shape of a christmas pudding, (the hill, not the castle) and what is even more interesting, half the castle, which started off as essentially just a 'tower' about 20 metres by 20 metres, is actually underground - inside the hill. Later on someone else decided to build a wall around the hill to expand the castle. They built the walls straight up around the base of the hill and for some hundred years or so no one filled in the gap between the top of the 'christmas pudding' hill and the straight walls. Weird. Maybe they were tired after all the wall building.... It was mostly used as a residence by the church, but was also visited by various members of the royal family and it is interesting to think about what important decisions were made within its walls.
From there we headed south to a little place called Petersfield, mostly we went there because we have a couple of friends at home called Peter, and because it was near by. There was a lovely little lake in the middle of town where we stopped to have a cup of tea and watch the local boys throw sticks at the swans. Lovely. I was very close to standing up and tossing in one of the little boys.... Where were the parents? Ah, yes, they were abusing an old man (who was walking his dog), for looking at them wrong and complaining that the poodle was getting scared.
The following day we packed up camp and headed off. We decided that there was no reason for us to stay in Reading, we can get on the internet from anywhere in the country and we have our mobile phones - so what the heck... we decided to head towards Birmingham. Why? Just beacause. But on the way north we stopped in a place called Abingdon, just south of Oxford, to catch up with Jess and Jeff who had hired a car for the weekend. When we got there they had also hired a little motor boat and were toodling up and down the river. They were kind enough to pull in and pick us up so we could all toodle together! It was very pleasant!That night we checked in to a campground just outside Birmingham, as we lay there in bed we realised that we were much closer to the motorway than we had previously thought. We could hear almost individual trucks and cars racing past as we drifted off to sleep.
Tuesday morning we drove south a little way to visit Coventry. We stopped in at the markets and bought Elke a jumper/cardigan thingy. Yay. It has a hood. Then we went back up and right into Birmingham. The shopping area here is quite extensive - but many of the same chain stores as other cities in England. We felt like we needed a little culture after all this conusmerism so we found the tourist information office and then went off in search of the BMAG - Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The walk was a nice one. BMAG is in a really old Victorian building with a wonderful set of sweeping stairs to get to the upper floor.
The first piece of artwork we saw on walking upstairs was really tricky to look at. At first glance it appeared to be a beautifully done perspective painting of three corridors leading away from the viewer, the walls of each were lined with various paintings. However, as soon as you took a step the corridors shifted and followed you around the room. And not just like the eyes on a portrait painting. It was hard to look at and move at the same time. It wasn't until you got up to within a metre or so of the piece and somewhat side-on, that you could see that the three 'corridors' were infact built out of the painting towards the viewer. So in fact the flat canvas was not flat but a series of three flat-topped pyramids pointing outwards. It is difficult to explain but was very interesting to look at. Apparently the artworks that appeared on the ways of the 'corridors' were a selection of the painter's favorites from within BMAG itself! Neat.
We also went to see an openair photographic exhibition. The photographs on show were from the 'Earth from the Air' series (which was also published in the West Australian newspaper some time ago). It was fabulous to see these big prints out in the sun decorating this particular walkway.That night we visited the biggest grocery shop that either of us has ever been into. It must have been the size of a Bunnings warehouse (a big one)!! It took ages to find the milk and cola we were looking for.
Wednesday (4th May) we headed south towards Hertfordshire (which is just North of London). Elke had an interview in a place called Finchley (North London) the following day, so we figured staying just outside London would be a nice idea. On the way down, we decided to check out a few more places that looked like they may be of interest. The first place we stopped off at was Northampton. We had no real reason for stopping there, other than it has the same name as a town a little ways North of Geraldton, Western Australia. We have a few close friends from Northampton in Western Australia (which is largely a farming community), and so we wanted to get a postcard while we were there. An exceptionally funny thing that we found when we were there was that in the toilet of a local pub, there was a vending machine. That is not so unusual, as I am quite aware of such vending machines selling things such as condoms, shaving razors or mints. However, we were quite amused to find that the one in this pub sold 'naughty' inflatable sheep! We guess the local men of Northampton must be hard pressed to find affection in the town.
On our next stop, we came across one of the strangest towns either of us had ever been to. Milton Keynes is essentially one network of roads layed out in a grid. We tried to head to the "City Centre" by following the signs and drove straight through it without even noticing. It is not like any other town we had ever been to. The city centre consists of what appears to be a series of massive shopping centres. We didn't come across much in the way of historic looking buildings, and suspect that the town is possibly not as old as others in England. It has a feeling of being something like a "manufactured" type town. At least it looks as though it was designed, and quite possibly looked great, on paper. However, it doesn't have the same warm feel we have found with so many other towns. Maybe if we had stayed longer it would have felt that way, but, we needed to head on to Hertford.
Hertford (pronounced Hartford), is a really nice little town. It is not that far out of London, and on Thursday, we headed into the "big smoke" to get Elke signed up with a teaching agency. We drove into Finchley, had some lunch and Elke got ready for her interview. The interview was at 2pm, so Elke arrived a little early (to make a good impression and appear organised etc). However, the person who she was to meet (the same person who arranged the 2pm interview), was out at lunch and didn't return until closer to 3pm! In the meantime Elke was left in the foyer to fill out forms by herself. When the woman eventually came in, there was no apology for being late or anything. This was not a good first impression. Certainly not the level of professionalism or organisational skills you would expect from someone who is supposed to be finding work for you. As of now, we still haven't heard back from them regarding reference and police checks. Hmmmm. Hence, Elke is registering with another agency who is hopefully a little better :) More info on them later though ;)
The next couple of days we decided to stay around Hertford and use that as a base to apply for work, check out some other lovely local towns like Hatfield and St Albians and for Elke to do a "Secondary to Primary Conversion Course" in London. This is one of the few useful things that Elke did get out of her teaching agent friend. The company that she registered with has some free courses every now and then and on Saturday, they were running this course that taught you the basics of what it is like to teach in a primary school. After doing this course, Elke is now able to do some supply work in a primary school. This could be good as the kids might be a little easier to deal with that the bigger ones. Time will tell though.
After quite an enjoyable few days in Hertfordshire, we decided to head back towards the Reading area. This is where we had told Elke's teaching agent that we were likely to be based, and so we wanted to rush down there to make sure that we were in a position where Elke could get to a teaching job whenever her agent called. As I mentioned a little earlier though, we still haven't heard from this woman. Elke has been back in touch to find out where they are at with her reference and police checks. Elke's teaching agent was going to find out and get straight back to her. We still haven't heard :(
Rather than heading back to Reading and Wellington Country Park, we decided to head for Henley on Thames. It is a beautiful little place where we had spent some time a few weeks back.
We were lucky and had some awesome weather while we were there. We ran into a really helpful and chatty groundsman named Eric who we chatted to often and who answered quite a few questions we had about the local area and a few other things about England (such as confirmation of which bush was a stinging nettle...ouch). Eric was also a keen fisherman and so much of this advice was received while sitting beside the "fishing lake" which is regularly re-stocked with fish for campers and recreational fishermen.We didn't do much while at Henley other than take off each morning to a nearby town called Marlow, where Chris would apply for jobs. Marlow is similar to Henely in that it is situated right on the river, is quite small and quite beautiful. We had a good look around the town while not hunting for jobs though. One time while at the library, Elke found they had a book sale on where you could fill a bag for a pound. It is quite surprising what Elke can squeeze into a bag. Our car now resembles a travelling library.
You can see and comment on all of our photos here.
On Friday morning while getting ready to head up towards Marlow for another day of the same....Chris got a phone call. It was from one of the recruitment agents he had dealt with on his very first job application serveral weeks ago. This time the agent had good news...the company had finally reviewed his CV and was interested in talking to him further about the position. This would be an interview done in person down on the clients site in Exeter in Devon. Whoooooooo Hooooooooo! Road trip to Devon and hopefully that would lead to a job! So we set off with a smile each and our fingers crossed. I think we laughed properly for the first time in a few weeks this day.
09 May 2005
Cheap wine and a three day growth
(Quick note to reader: we have added various links to maps in this entry so you can get a better idea of where all these places with strange names are. Once you get to the 'multimap' site you can zoom in and out on the maps and move around the country as well. Hope this is of some use to you.)
After leaving the Cathedral in Sailsbury (10th April), we went in search of a particular white horse which has been cut into the hillside just North towards Swindon. We had seen the photo in our guide book and thought it too interesting and unique to skip. We consulted our handy AA drivers atlas, and discovered that there is in fact an entire herd of white horses cut into hillsides all around that area! We were able to find 3 and would like to get back to that area to have a closer look at them at some point. After satisfying our equine curiousity, we headed west towards the town of Bath.
We spent a couple of days in the Bath area, and it is certainly a lovely looking town with a beautiful Abbey and Abbey Crypt. The history in this region is amazing with links all the way back to when Romans ruled the area. Unfortunately we were not feeling very touritsy at that point , so we didn't see as much as we could have... more left for another visit!
A couple of days later, we headed to Newbury. There is not too much to say about Newbury other than that we left it to go to Basingstoke to have dinner with Mel (a work colleague of Chris'). We stayed at a lovely little campsite called Bishop's Green Farm Campsite. The guy who was running the place was quite excited to be talking to someone from Australia. He had visited Australia a couple of times and loved the place.
Chris was keen to see a castle as he had never seen one in real life before. We consulted our English Heritage book and English map book to discover that not too far away there were in fact two castles. Fabulous! Chris had in mind the tall turreted towers and grand walls of movie castles and I was looking forward to the gorgeous gardens and decadent halls. We headed off to the first one only to find on arrival that it wasn't open to the public (despite many signs in town and along the road dircting keen tourists in its direction).
The second one was there, sort of. Donnington Castle is very old (like so many things in England) built in the 14C, and unfortunately for us it was mostly destroyed in 1645. So all that remained to satisfy our desire for romanticisim was one tower and a bit if crumbly wall. We could see where a couple of fireplaces used to be and a spiral stone staircase, we could see where horizontal beams used to meet the end wall to support upper floors and the main entrance gate was still standing. It is amazing actually how little it takes to conjure in your imagination all sorts of glorious images of the people who used to live there and the things that they might have done.
Henley-On-Thames is a lovely little town...believe it or not...on the Thames river. We arrived here on the 14th April. It's the setting for an enormous rowing regatta each summer. So big is this event, that workmen were busy constructing the large blue and white striped tents a full two and a half months in advance. That evening in the pub beside ourcampsite, we got speaking to a local. He wriggled his way into our conversation with some seemingly tame remark about soccer. From there, he sat down to tell us all about his life, his problems with his marriage, problems with his job and so on. He offered to get Chris a job as a security officer. He also assured us that he really is a good bloke and then in the same breath told us about he and a mate were "borrowing" fuel on regular basis from one of the places where he was working as a security officer! Nice. Honestly, he really was a friendly bloke and offered to let us come and cook in his caravan whenever we liked. We left the next day.
After Henley, we headed for Reading (pronounced Red-ing), as we decided that this was quite a good central location for us to be. This is especially true for finding Chris work as Reading is right in the technology corridor between the M3 and M4 that is commonly known here as the "Silicon Valley" of England. Our first trip into Reading was quite nice. The town has a little river that runs through it, and the main shopping area reminded us both of Perth and the Hay St Mall area.
We had in our possession a camping guide book which assured us that the campsite just outside Reading in Finchamstead was a lovely place to stay. We had to stop to ask directions three times and each time Chris came back to the car shaking his head and laughing. It seems that asking for directions in an English pub is not as simple a matter as one might expect. No, you might ask the bar maid for help but she will point you the direction of one of the grizzled looking locals who she tells you is "much better at giving directions". So you ask him, he sighs, holds his chin and says "I could tell you how to get there but that guy over there" indicating a pile of coat at the table in the corner "lives down that road so you should really ask him". Before long most of the pub will be involved in giving you directions (most of them indicating the same direction) and you will leave the establishment with enough information to get you a couple of miles down the road before having to stop at another pub and ask again.
Finally we found the place we were looking for, only to be turned away at the gate because we did not have a certified campervan. The woman justified their policy by saying they couldn't let in one comercial vehicle or they would have to let in more. With relief I explained that we were not in a commercial vehicle, simply a people mover, and that 'yes' infact the seats did fold down to make a bed. She looked suspicious and asked if it had curtains. It was very frustrating to have worked so hard to find he place and then not be allowed to stop for one night.
We decided that it was too late to try and find another campsite to we headed into Reading city to try and find a reasonably priced hotel room. Elke must have really looked tired and sad when she walked into the Comfort Inn reception because she came back out to the car to say that they were going to let us have a £59 room for £45. We had a nice warm room, with TV and a heated towel rack!!
The next day we enjoyed the cooked breakfast that came with the room and moved back to the kind of accommodation we were getting accustomed to, a campground. It was a lovely site with a large lake just nearby, home to all kinds of birds and other animals. Most of the following week was fairly unexciting. We spent a few hours a day on the internet in Reading's Coffee Republic, walked around the lake, made our way back and forth across a muddy road to get to the bathrooms. To keep our spirits up and to keep us warm, we were sampling several "cheap" wines from various different countries during the colder evenings.
The 19th April was Elke's birthday and it was a nice day where we broke from routine. We headed into the city after a little sleep-in, had lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking the river, went to a movie and to top it all off, got a parking ticket for £20. Bum. Otherwise it was a lovely day and Chris spoiled me with three great novels to read and a bar of Swiss chocolate. On the back of this bar sweet Chris had crossed out the fat and sugar content and made them both 0%.
A couple of days later, on Friday afternoon, we headed back into Thorton Heath. This was Rosie's first trip into the big smoke. It was not too bad at all actually except for trying to parallel park our tank on a crowded street :) We spent the night with our friend Leia, and decided to go on a bit of a road trip the following day which was the 23rd April.
Heading South from London we drove towards the coast. We visited Arundel which has a magnificent castle. Unfortunately, this magnificent castle is closed on Saturdays. Go figure. We stopped in Arundel for a bit of breakfast and checked out a couple of Cathedrals while we were there anyway. We then headed on to Chichester, which is a little bit further South West. One of the interesting things to see in Chichester is an old Church that has been converted into a pub/coffee shop. We decided we had to stop in and have some coffee. Chris wasn't so lucky on this occasion though. The first cup came with lumpy curdled milk, and when the waited brought the replacement milk, he promptly spilt it all over the table (and Chris and Leia). Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk. Ha ha. That'll teach us to complain about our food though.
South of Chitchester is an area called the Whitterings. We had been told that the Whitterings is a great example of a sandy beach and sand dunes in England. Going to the beach is certainly a different experience here than back in Australia. Firstly, we noticed that we were the only people not changing out of our shoes into Gum Boots. It seems a very strange custom. Chris tried out the water temprature by going in up to his ankles. By all accounts, it was very cold and there was no swimming to be done that day. The other funny thing is all the little beach houses that are lined up along the top of the sand dunes. Apparently, after having a dip in the water, people run back up the beach to their little beach house. All the beach houses were locked up and seem to be privately owned. We can't wait till summer when we can make our way to the beaches and see what it is like with all those little houses filled with people and their Gum Boots.
After leaving the Whitterings, we decided we had to visit the seaside town of Bognor Regis. We had no other reason for wanting to go there other than that it had quite a funny name. It turned out to be quite a nice town. However, we didn't stay long as we still had other places to see. We decided to head back towards London, but take a detour to the most famous of Englands seaside towns, Brighton.
Brighton seemed like a lovely place, although we didn't explore much other than the water front. There are two piers in Brighton. One has been devestated by a fire and is completely and utterly burnt to a crisp (but still standing in the water). The other has a mini fun fair/carnival type atmosphere with roller coasters, haunted houses, bumper cars etc. We decided to head to this pier. Initially we wondered why all this peripheral entertainment was here until we saw the beach. Nice and full of large pebbles and once again, not warm enough to swim in. We are wondering if it would actually ever be warm enough to swim in. I guess we will have to head back to the South coast once the weather warms up a little. After a quick beer overlooking a beautiful sunset, we decided to head back to London.
The next day, we left London and headed for a camp ground in Horsley where Elke decided that is was worthwhile for us to join the Caravan and Camping Club. Seeing we were doing quite a bit of camping already....and would like to do more when the weather is nice enough for normal people to want to camp...we joined up. Basically the club has many sites right across the UK. From our understanding, all of these sites are of a pretty high standard. Becoming a member entitles you to discounts at all club sites.
The next week, we went back to the same campsite we had been in previously (not a club site) outside Reading. However, in order for us to avoid causing offence we were advised to buy ourselves a tent before the bank holiday (a.k.a public holiday) the following weekend. Why don't people like it when we sleep in Rosie? Anyway, we therefore headed into Reading during the week and purchased ourselves a nice tent and airmattress. We are moving up in the world :) We also decided to get ourselves a wireless LAN card which means that we can get cheaper internet access and didn't have to pour our entire life savings into the hands of Coffee Republic. It has turned out to be quite a good move.
So we are not quite up to date but we will be soon. Hopefully, last week's adventures will be posted in the next few days. We'll 'talk' to you then.
After leaving the Cathedral in Sailsbury (10th April), we went in search of a particular white horse which has been cut into the hillside just North towards Swindon. We had seen the photo in our guide book and thought it too interesting and unique to skip. We consulted our handy AA drivers atlas, and discovered that there is in fact an entire herd of white horses cut into hillsides all around that area! We were able to find 3 and would like to get back to that area to have a closer look at them at some point. After satisfying our equine curiousity, we headed west towards the town of Bath.
We spent a couple of days in the Bath area, and it is certainly a lovely looking town with a beautiful Abbey and Abbey Crypt. The history in this region is amazing with links all the way back to when Romans ruled the area. Unfortunately we were not feeling very touritsy at that point , so we didn't see as much as we could have... more left for another visit!A couple of days later, we headed to Newbury. There is not too much to say about Newbury other than that we left it to go to Basingstoke to have dinner with Mel (a work colleague of Chris'). We stayed at a lovely little campsite called Bishop's Green Farm Campsite. The guy who was running the place was quite excited to be talking to someone from Australia. He had visited Australia a couple of times and loved the place.
Chris was keen to see a castle as he had never seen one in real life before. We consulted our English Heritage book and English map book to discover that not too far away there were in fact two castles. Fabulous! Chris had in mind the tall turreted towers and grand walls of movie castles and I was looking forward to the gorgeous gardens and decadent halls. We headed off to the first one only to find on arrival that it wasn't open to the public (despite many signs in town and along the road dircting keen tourists in its direction).
The second one was there, sort of. Donnington Castle is very old (like so many things in England) built in the 14C, and unfortunately for us it was mostly destroyed in 1645. So all that remained to satisfy our desire for romanticisim was one tower and a bit if crumbly wall. We could see where a couple of fireplaces used to be and a spiral stone staircase, we could see where horizontal beams used to meet the end wall to support upper floors and the main entrance gate was still standing. It is amazing actually how little it takes to conjure in your imagination all sorts of glorious images of the people who used to live there and the things that they might have done.Henley-On-Thames is a lovely little town...believe it or not...on the Thames river. We arrived here on the 14th April. It's the setting for an enormous rowing regatta each summer. So big is this event, that workmen were busy constructing the large blue and white striped tents a full two and a half months in advance. That evening in the pub beside ourcampsite, we got speaking to a local. He wriggled his way into our conversation with some seemingly tame remark about soccer. From there, he sat down to tell us all about his life, his problems with his marriage, problems with his job and so on. He offered to get Chris a job as a security officer. He also assured us that he really is a good bloke and then in the same breath told us about he and a mate were "borrowing" fuel on regular basis from one of the places where he was working as a security officer! Nice. Honestly, he really was a friendly bloke and offered to let us come and cook in his caravan whenever we liked. We left the next day.
After Henley, we headed for Reading (pronounced Red-ing), as we decided that this was quite a good central location for us to be. This is especially true for finding Chris work as Reading is right in the technology corridor between the M3 and M4 that is commonly known here as the "Silicon Valley" of England. Our first trip into Reading was quite nice. The town has a little river that runs through it, and the main shopping area reminded us both of Perth and the Hay St Mall area.
We had in our possession a camping guide book which assured us that the campsite just outside Reading in Finchamstead was a lovely place to stay. We had to stop to ask directions three times and each time Chris came back to the car shaking his head and laughing. It seems that asking for directions in an English pub is not as simple a matter as one might expect. No, you might ask the bar maid for help but she will point you the direction of one of the grizzled looking locals who she tells you is "much better at giving directions". So you ask him, he sighs, holds his chin and says "I could tell you how to get there but that guy over there" indicating a pile of coat at the table in the corner "lives down that road so you should really ask him". Before long most of the pub will be involved in giving you directions (most of them indicating the same direction) and you will leave the establishment with enough information to get you a couple of miles down the road before having to stop at another pub and ask again.
Finally we found the place we were looking for, only to be turned away at the gate because we did not have a certified campervan. The woman justified their policy by saying they couldn't let in one comercial vehicle or they would have to let in more. With relief I explained that we were not in a commercial vehicle, simply a people mover, and that 'yes' infact the seats did fold down to make a bed. She looked suspicious and asked if it had curtains. It was very frustrating to have worked so hard to find he place and then not be allowed to stop for one night.
We decided that it was too late to try and find another campsite to we headed into Reading city to try and find a reasonably priced hotel room. Elke must have really looked tired and sad when she walked into the Comfort Inn reception because she came back out to the car to say that they were going to let us have a £59 room for £45. We had a nice warm room, with TV and a heated towel rack!!
The next day we enjoyed the cooked breakfast that came with the room and moved back to the kind of accommodation we were getting accustomed to, a campground. It was a lovely site with a large lake just nearby, home to all kinds of birds and other animals. Most of the following week was fairly unexciting. We spent a few hours a day on the internet in Reading's Coffee Republic, walked around the lake, made our way back and forth across a muddy road to get to the bathrooms. To keep our spirits up and to keep us warm, we were sampling several "cheap" wines from various different countries during the colder evenings.
The 19th April was Elke's birthday and it was a nice day where we broke from routine. We headed into the city after a little sleep-in, had lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking the river, went to a movie and to top it all off, got a parking ticket for £20. Bum. Otherwise it was a lovely day and Chris spoiled me with three great novels to read and a bar of Swiss chocolate. On the back of this bar sweet Chris had crossed out the fat and sugar content and made them both 0%.
A couple of days later, on Friday afternoon, we headed back into Thorton Heath. This was Rosie's first trip into the big smoke. It was not too bad at all actually except for trying to parallel park our tank on a crowded street :) We spent the night with our friend Leia, and decided to go on a bit of a road trip the following day which was the 23rd April.
Heading South from London we drove towards the coast. We visited Arundel which has a magnificent castle. Unfortunately, this magnificent castle is closed on Saturdays. Go figure. We stopped in Arundel for a bit of breakfast and checked out a couple of Cathedrals while we were there anyway. We then headed on to Chichester, which is a little bit further South West. One of the interesting things to see in Chichester is an old Church that has been converted into a pub/coffee shop. We decided we had to stop in and have some coffee. Chris wasn't so lucky on this occasion though. The first cup came with lumpy curdled milk, and when the waited brought the replacement milk, he promptly spilt it all over the table (and Chris and Leia). Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk. Ha ha. That'll teach us to complain about our food though.
South of Chitchester is an area called the Whitterings. We had been told that the Whitterings is a great example of a sandy beach and sand dunes in England. Going to the beach is certainly a different experience here than back in Australia. Firstly, we noticed that we were the only people not changing out of our shoes into Gum Boots. It seems a very strange custom. Chris tried out the water temprature by going in up to his ankles. By all accounts, it was very cold and there was no swimming to be done that day. The other funny thing is all the little beach houses that are lined up along the top of the sand dunes. Apparently, after having a dip in the water, people run back up the beach to their little beach house. All the beach houses were locked up and seem to be privately owned. We can't wait till summer when we can make our way to the beaches and see what it is like with all those little houses filled with people and their Gum Boots.After leaving the Whitterings, we decided we had to visit the seaside town of Bognor Regis. We had no other reason for wanting to go there other than that it had quite a funny name. It turned out to be quite a nice town. However, we didn't stay long as we still had other places to see. We decided to head back towards London, but take a detour to the most famous of Englands seaside towns, Brighton.
Brighton seemed like a lovely place, although we didn't explore much other than the water front. There are two piers in Brighton. One has been devestated by a fire and is completely and utterly burnt to a crisp (but still standing in the water). The other has a mini fun fair/carnival type atmosphere with roller coasters, haunted houses, bumper cars etc. We decided to head to this pier. Initially we wondered why all this peripheral entertainment was here until we saw the beach. Nice and full of large pebbles and once again, not warm enough to swim in. We are wondering if it would actually ever be warm enough to swim in. I guess we will have to head back to the South coast once the weather warms up a little. After a quick beer overlooking a beautiful sunset, we decided to head back to London.
The next day, we left London and headed for a camp ground in Horsley where Elke decided that is was worthwhile for us to join the Caravan and Camping Club. Seeing we were doing quite a bit of camping already....and would like to do more when the weather is nice enough for normal people to want to camp...we joined up. Basically the club has many sites right across the UK. From our understanding, all of these sites are of a pretty high standard. Becoming a member entitles you to discounts at all club sites.
The next week, we went back to the same campsite we had been in previously (not a club site) outside Reading. However, in order for us to avoid causing offence we were advised to buy ourselves a tent before the bank holiday (a.k.a public holiday) the following weekend. Why don't people like it when we sleep in Rosie? Anyway, we therefore headed into Reading during the week and purchased ourselves a nice tent and airmattress. We are moving up in the world :) We also decided to get ourselves a wireless LAN card which means that we can get cheaper internet access and didn't have to pour our entire life savings into the hands of Coffee Republic. It has turned out to be quite a good move.So we are not quite up to date but we will be soon. Hopefully, last week's adventures will be posted in the next few days. We'll 'talk' to you then.
