Our Olympic Journey

Our Olympic Journey.

London 2012 well we have been part of the spectacle, we have attended 5 football matches, 3 days of canoe sprinting and 1 session of archery.  Much more than we anticipated given at one stage we had thought getting tickets would be impossible.

Saving the actual Olympics story for later I’ll pick up with the fact I last posted just before our visit to Flag Fen Bronze age centre near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire on the weekend they we have a Viking & Saxon Event.  The event contained various demonstrations including archery, hand to hand combat, board games, and we went on the free tour of the site which includes replica roundhouses and the main feature some remains of a Bronze Age Causeway built 3,300 years ago that stretches hundreds of metres through the fen.

We stopped in to see my brother as it was his birthday the next day, so gave him his present and went to dinner with them and spent the night parked up at the end of his street (Nicky’s allergy to cats prevents us from staying inside).

Nicky’s friend from her old job Krystle helped us out by accepting delivery of our Olympic tickets and after leaving Northampton we drove across London to pick them up before picnicking in Battersea Park with another of Nicky’s work friends Rachael.  Before heading off for the next day’s destination Swindon, where we unfortunately found it difficult to find a place to stop and after once deciding a spot was to in your face (residential) for us and once being moved on we ended up stopping with the trucks in a layby on a rather busy road for a less than restful sleep.

Swindon, our friend Emily’s hometown, unfortunately didn’t work out so great we found little of interesting when planning our visit and after some successful outlet shopping we tried to walk into town, which as we hadn’t been aware that the train tracks can only be passed in a couple of points created havoc both there and back, meaning a lot of walking under blazing sun (yes it happened a hot sunny day) and as the highlight of our visit to the city centre was stopping to watch them demolishing the old college suffice to say it was not worth the walk (one bright spot was seeing the older housing in the inner city originally built for the railways I think).  We left for Cardiff rather worn out but a little more planning this time meant we stopped with the Trucks again but this time just outside Cardiff and less than 10mins from the Park and Ride we were going to use in the morning.

So our Olympic journey begins in Cardiff, we were there at the opening whistle for GB vs NZ in the womens football the first action of the Olympics 2 days before the opening ceremony.  We met Matty, Amy, Sarah (Matt’s sister) and Matt (Sarah’s boyfriend) off the Train from London and, as we had already checked out the central city and wandered into the stands of Cardiff Arms Park, headed out to Cardiff Bay where we walked along the shorefront and had lunch in a lightship converted into a traditional basic tearoom.  Unfortunately our girls our undone by a free kick in their match going down 1-0 to GB.  We watched half of the Brazil vs Cameroon game before going as the last park and ride bus was 8.30.  It ended up 5-0 to Brazil.

Our Mascot that our friend Rachael lent us.

We had a few days until the Mens football in Manchester, so made our way up through Wales, we had been thinking of going around the coast but had a change of heart and headed into the Brecon Beacons visiting Blaenavon a world heritage site, due to its coal mining heritage.  Our campsite for the night was in just outside Talgarth in the North of the Brecon Beacons and we were given a hardstanding pitch which I thought might be for 2 units but the owner said no just one and it had the most magnificent view.

Next stop was Hay-on-Wye, on the England-Wales Border and supposed to be famous for second-hand books.  A good rummage ensued and we came away with half a dozen books for next to nothing.  Unfortunately we had rather used up our time in the South of Wales so the rest of the day was spent driving up the middle through Newton to Wrexham.  Then the next morning we continued into an area called the Wirral, which is on the other side of the Mersey from Liverpool.  We spent much of our time on the west side which looks across the Dee to Wales.  The tide was out so huge expanses of mud flats were exposed. 

Also checked out a place called New Brighton, thought it couldn’t hurt as it is also beachfront like in CHCH.  It afforded excellent views of Liverpool and that side of the Mersey generally and was nice enough in its own right.  During the day we came across advertising for the National exhibition of wildlife art so on our way back out of the Wirral we stopped to check it out for a half hour.  Predominately paintings, some very good indeed, a lot of which were birds but perhaps slightly surprising several of African wild dogs (various artists).

Next we our second stint of Olympics football and although impressive Manchester United’s ground Old Trafford must win the award for cramming the most seats into a stadium because although all 6 of us (as above from Cardiff) are fairly small we were cramped to say the least and after 2 matches we were very thankful to finally extract ourselves.  As before New Zealand were first vs Egypt and although we were fairly poor and were thoroughly outplayed we got the first goal and came away with a 1-1 draw.  This made our 1-0 loss to Belarus 2 days prior all the more disappointing.  In the second match Belarus threatened to upset the Brazil apple cart as they scored first totally against the run of play and they held on for some time, Brazil were generally in control and eventually drew level but it took some time for them to take the lead 2-1 and were not safe until deep in injury time when they made it 3-1.

With just one spare day before our morning at Lord’s Cricket Ground for the Olympic Archery we stopped in Northwich to visit the Weaver Hall Museum and Workhouse and Sandbach to see their ancient stone crosses (both towns in Cheshire).  Then made the long drive to London.

In the morning we took the tube into Lords from Watford (outer NW London) which worked out pretty well and we saw Mens and Womens individual knockout matches, they used a set play system.  Although it had rained earlier any rain during the session was light so we were comfortable.  Initially there were some areas of the stand that were a bit sparse since you could no longer get a ticket but it appeared some of the Asian fans came a little later as they were on a little later but still many seats were never occupied throughout the session.  Not sure what it has looked like to people on TV??  After the session finished we headed into Kings Cross to go to Kiwi House where the NZ Olympics people have set up a place/bar to go and watch the NZ Sky coverage, which was great, we saw equestrian, sailing, swimming and the womens football NZ beating Cameroon to qualify for the ¼ finals so that was good.  Also managed to get on Prime TV as crazy crowd people (the producer had to signal us when to go because we were seeing a Sky Channel so have no idea what we looked like) behind Steve McIvor unfortunately we think it was about 3-4am in NZ.

With a few days before our Canoe Sprint tickets at Eton Dorney we stayed close to London in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex.  We did the Natural History Museum at Tring which is connected to the Natural History Museum in London but is different because it is typically Victorian which means it is basically wall to wall stuffed animals.  We visited a National Trust site called Ascott House which is still a family home in the de Rothschild family, famous from the Rothschild Bank.  

The following days saw us visit Whipsnade Tree Cathedral which was planted in the 1930’s to resemble a Cathedral quite funky really and a nice change from the conventional Cathedrals we have been to.  Other visits included Wrest Park (French Chateux Style), Audley End (two huge stately homes and gardens).  

Tree Cathedral

Wrest Park

Audley End

Annoying our next stop Priors Hall Barn, a 14^th century aisled barn, with original interior was locked when it was supposed to be open which was annoying as the only point is to see the inside and we couldn’t see anything (the exterior is modern).  Then to compound frustration the Cecil Rhodes museum in Bishop’s Stortford was also closed when it has a sign saying open till 5pm only to find on the internet is closed at 4 on Saturday for some reason.  So we went to Waltham Abbey (Ruins) as this is in a park and they couldn’t close that.The next day we went to St Albans, where we checked out their town centre and local museum.  At the end of the day we headed to Slough to be ready for our 3 days of Canoe Sprinting at Eton Dorney.  On the Monday we had Canoe Sprinting in the morning and women’s football semi-final (France vs Japan) at Wembley in the evening.  Eton Dorney was well run and there was a lot of staff, the bag screening was being run by some of the Army that have been brought in to fill shortfall in security, they were the Irish Guards.  

Our view on Day 1 at Eton Dorney

  Ben Fouhy in his heat

Women's K4 500

Wembley before the match

Crowd really filled out in the cheap seats.  about 66,000 from memory

The two teams, France in white, Japan in blue

Annoying thing about Eton Dorney was that you can’t park at the venue, you have to go to one of the various shuttle bus points, like at Slough train station where we went.  So you get the shuttle which takes about 20mins but it doesn’t take you into Eton Dorney it takes you to Windsor Racecourse next door and you have to walk about 15 mins to security then about another 10 to the stands.  It was all fairly painless just time consuming really.  On the first day we saw Ben Fouhy, Steven Ferguson and Darryl Fitzgerald.  Unfortunately neither really set the world on fire, the pair made the A final just but Ben Fouhy unfortunately couldn’t make the A final.

On the Tuesday we saw our girls, Teneale Hatton in K1 500 and Lisa Carrington and Erin Taylor K2-500.  This time the K2 performed pretty well and got into the A final but unfortunately Teneale Hatton didn’t quite have enough and it was B final for her.

The Wednesday was the first finals day, which meant we saw much less racing only 7 races in fact.  We saw Ben Fouhy, Steven Ferguson and Darryl Fitzgerald.  Unfortunately the K2 although giving us a little to shout about during the race came in 7 of 8 in the A final and Ben was only in the B final and struggled.  The racing was more competitive but there were only really 4 significant races all morning.  One thing we didn’t like was that some of the Men that were (200m) sprint specialists were allowed to go in the 1000m events and they would burst off the line and sprint 100m or so to practice then just paddle slowly down the rest of the course.  They did this in the heats, semis and B finals, which was particularly disappointing to watch in the B final’s (they didn’t even bother taking their jackets off).  There was a Great Britain athlete that did this and he still got a big cheer from the crowd every time he paddled past.  I said to Nicky I wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to cheer for a Kiwi doing such a thing.

Well that brought our Olympic Journey to an end.

Finally, in a strange twist of fate we are now heading back up to Hadrian's Wall to work for about a month at the campsite where we were last year as they called today and have been caught short.

Once again thank you for making it to the end and i hope you are well and feel free to dro me a line on your goings on.