Moose on the Move!

On the 14 June at a quarter past five in the morning Mum and Papa Dous arrived at Heathrow Airport in London. Despite having driven up the night before and staying in a hotel no more than a mile from Terminal 4, I still managed to be late picking them up. Not really a surprise for those who know me.

It was wonderful to see them after a year and a half (Christmas '04 was the last time) but because we had seen each other via webcam a few times over the year there was no shock at the way we looked to each other like there often is after a long absence.

We drove straight to Exeter that day and because of the early start we made it home, had a cup of tea and were in town before mid-day. We did a short walking tour of the city; Cathedral, Northernhay Gardens and the High Street. We had a pint of local ale in The Ship Inn (reputedly an old favorite of Sir Francis Drake) and then went home so that Mum and Papa could sit in our lounge room and pretend (between snores) that they weren't exhausted after their trip halfway aroud the world.

Over the next couple of days, while Chris finished off the week at work, the three of us explored Devon and Cornwall. We went to Branscome, where my English tan meant that I got badly burnt shoulders and neck after half an hour sitting in the beautiful sunshine, to Beer and to Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast where we looked for fossils on the beach.

On the way to Cornwall we drove through Dartmoor and took hundreds of photos of the ponies (absolutely no exaggeration there). Being spring a lot of them had foals and there is little cuter in the world than the tiny bouncy foal of a tiny pony. We climbed Bone Hill rocks and were rewarded with outstanding views. We also paid a quick visit to Dousland - just for the all important photo under the town sign.

We stayed in Port Isaac, in a slightly dodgy hotel room (with atrociously gaudy wallpaper) above a pub, and I got to sleep on the foldout couch! It was ok, and the view in the morning was brilliant. We took a walk down into the neighbouring bay before breakfast and watched rusted out tractors faithfully putting fishing boats into the water. We really thought they had been decommissioned and put in the bushes to rust slowly to nothing. Ah, life in a small fishing village.

Once in Cornwall we visited Tintagel; the ruined cliff-top castle reputed to have been King Arthur's. It looked quite different to when Chris and I visited in the beginning of the year. The whole top was covered in dozens of different kinds of wildflowers and the grass had been mown inside the ruins so you could quite clearly see where the buildings had been. The gulls swooped overhead and the sun shone, it was a really lovely day.

Back in Exeter, on Sunday, we took a bit of time to make sure we had everything, packed the car with much discussion and re-arranging. Locked the door, dropped the spare key with the neighbours and took off! First stop on our month long driving trip to various exotic places in Europe was the local city library to pick up a guide book that we had forgotten. Ridiculous. Second stop was home to pick up our pillows - we figured we might need those during the month.

Eventually we made it out of Exeter and the adventure had really begun. We headed north (those of you who are geographically minded might realise that north is pretty much the wrong direction to go for people who are aiming to get to Europe) towards Northhampton. Why? To visit friends before we left. The mother of a good friend of my sister's from university lives in a delightful little place called No Bottle Grange. We're not sure what happened to the Bottle.

We arrived a little earlier than planned in No Bottle, so pulled up the car in a nearby village, swivelled the front two seats 180 degrees (because we could) and listened to the first half of the Australia vs Brasil football/soccer game. Just to alay any fears the locals may have had about the suspiciously-loaded large white car with backwards-facing front seats, we hung our Australian flag out of the rear window, so that they would all know what we were up to. Australia weren't going well when we left and went back to visit Polly and her mother Val.

Val runs a really delightful B and B with a beautiful piece of land around it. We tried Pimms for the first time (yummy), had a BBQ in the garden that night and, after listening to the rambling colonial stories of neighbour Lance, retired for the night. The following morning Val took us on a stroll (read 'fast-paced walk') around the local area (read 'surrounding country-side'). Among other local places we walked by Althorp; the childhood home and final resting place of Princess Diana.

We left Val's after mid-day and headed south (I can hear the concerned geographers sighing with relief) towards Dover on Monday the 19th of June. We skirted around the east of London listening to the beginning of one of our audio books, and made our way to Folkestone on the south coast. After a little bit of a look around and a very late dinner we retired to our rooms, ready for the real adventure to begin it the morning with a ferry trip from Dover in England to Dunkirque in France!

Episode Two - "Stay right, stay right, stay RIGHT!!" - to follow.