Ireland

So we crammed our van full of all our things and saw to final jobs like, going to DVLA at Borehamwood to pay for tax disc, filling tyres to fully loaded pressure, and filling the van with water.

Our first stop was a filming of the tv show QI in London.  We had planned to go to Virginia Water and catch the train to Waterloo however we couldn't get a park anywhere (station or town) so we went to Egham, again no parks at the station but we found one on the street.  We queued for 1.75 hrs to get in.  It was very enjoyable if a little hot.  Steven Fry brought in the wrong cue cards which was funny and held up things for a bit.  The shows theme was 'the silent K'.

After the show we made a start on the drive to the ferry terminal at Pembroke.  We had an unusual annoying encounter when I tried to turn in the street in Egham.  The street was narrow so I thought I would nose into a nearby driveway to get round.  No sooner had I crossed the threshold than a middleaged white lady came flying out the door yelling 'what the hell do you think your doing on my driveway'.  You'd think i'd just shat on her doorstep.  This left me trying to turn without the aid of the space of her drive.  All the time being stared down by the the housewife from hell and despite Nicky giving directions I couldn't get turned and had to admit defeat.  It is an interesting illustration of the psyche of Londoners.

The next day we made it to our ferry to Ireland, all went smoothly and the sea was very flat.  We made some progress towards Dublin that evening and we finished off the drive into Dublin the next morning and managed to find a good free park.  Walked alongside the River Liffey which unfortunately is a blight on the city. It is very messy lots of rubbish, the water ran clear but this only served to display that the riverbed was full trash and debris.  The central city was vibrant and bustling and we visited the National Museum, the highlight being the bronze age gold artefacts in particular the collars.  After closing we watched a bit of cricket at Trinity College Dublin before going to our prebooked Food, Folklore and Fairies evening.  This was enjoyable, the food was basic but done okay and the stories and music generally held your attention.  We were with some Lithuanians and Americans, got some good tips about Lithuania.

Gold Collars in National Museum

Next morning we visited Knowth and Newgrange (Neolithic passage tombs the biggest remaining in Ireland), they were very impressive and interesting structures. You get a brief guided tour at each one and there is an exhibition, well worth it and something not seen in the UK.  After this we headed to Vantastival, unfortunately the weather had turned and this day was a little unpleasant and we didn't get around as much as we would have liked but we did enjoy a bit of music.  Day 2 at the festival went smoothly, after some initial trouble with the boiler Nicky and I managed to get the water heated and showered so it was good to get that sorted.  Unfortunately our fridge has not been working, so we'll have to get that checked out ASAP.

Passage tombs at Knowth

 Passage tomb at Newgrange

We were a little tired on Day 3 so didn't see quite as much music but we did see Altan whom sung all their songs in Gaelic.  We have both enjoyed our time at the festival.  However although everyone we've dealt with has been thoroughly pleasant the festival lead us to some concerning conclusions.  1. The Irish national pastimes appear to be drinking and smoking, 2. Natural selection may be acting on the Irish to make one hand better for holding a  drink and the other a cigarette, 3. There seems to be a distinct lack of physical athleticism and they may be held back by the fact most sports can't be undertaken while holding a drink and cigarette.

After the festival we visited the towns of Monaghan and Armagh, then the 3rd largest lake in Europe Lough Neagh.  Of particular note in Monaghan werethe towns info boards and community spaces had a recent revamp and presented a good impression.  However as it was Bank Holiday most things were closed.  Armagh has a very grand Roman Catholic Cathedral completed in 1904 and a much older church or Ireland cathedral located on the site were St Patrick is suppose to have had a church built in 445AD.

Roman Catholic

Church of Ireland

Made a brief stop in Antrim on our way to Belfast where after a tour of the town hall it was all things Titanic. A walking tour and the new titanic exhibition.  I highly recommend the walking tour and the exhibition is okay (very new hi-tech but lacking in actual artefacts relating to white star line or titanic).  While doing the walking tour we also saw Titanic Studios where they film Game of Thrones (GofT) YAY. Anyway this inspired visits to a few set locations throughout County Antrim the next day.

Dry Dock used by Titanic

So after Belfast we had the first experience of filling the new LPG tank, all went well.  Then we used our first aire de service for disposing of toilet waste and power connection.  It appears Northern Ireland is the one place in the British Isles to embrace this concept.

We drove a route called the Causeway Coastal Route. Unfortunately the weather was atrocious.

• We tried to see Glenarm (one of the County Antrim Glens) but we ended up in the clouds and couldn't see anything until we got back to the coast.  
• We went to Cushendun where there were coastal caves that they used in GofT (YAY, the scene when Melisandre gives birth to the shadow baby).  
  
• We went to Carrick-a-rede to see a rope bridge out to an island previously used by fisherman.  It has been rebuilt and modified to include metal cables but the impression is maintained.  Unfortunately the winds were too high and you couldn't go on the bridge. 
  
• We popped across to the next bay which has Ballintoy Harbour which is used as the harbour of Lordsport (Iron Islands) on GofT.  
• We also poked our heads into White Park Bay before heading inland to see a place called the Dark Hedges, this was used in GofT as the setting for when Arya Stark was fleeing Kings Landing. 
  
• Then the Giants Causeway, a formation of basalt in vertical hexagonal blocks, pretty funky and a world heritage site since 1986.
  
• Then we visited Downhill beach which they used in GofT for the scene where the effigies of the seven were burnt.
  

 That has us all up to date we'll be visiting Derry and the Ulster-American Folk Park tomorrow weather permitting.

On the Eve of our Travels

Such a long time has passed since my last blog post because as you may have guessed or known Nicky and I have been settled working for the past 7 months in Bramfield Hertfordshire.  Nicky is sous chef and I work front of house at the Grandison http://www.thegrandisonbramfield.co.uk/.  So much has happened and we have been very busy but much is just day to day life which I won’t bore you with.  Nicky has been working very hard and very successfully.  We are live in at the pub with one other an Aussie from Perth called Oriano he is about 26 or so.  He is very easy to live with and has been at the pub since it was reopened about 3.5years ago.

So 2 years is up and our Visas expire in 1 week.  However where many would be on their way home Nicky and I have a plan to extend our OE for perhaps another 12 months.  I’m sure you all know about Poppy our 1988 Fiat Ducato Campervan well she’ll be taking us all over Europe.  In recent weeks she has undergone vital and cosmetic surgery – Vital = replace headlight, new tyre, new leisure battery and cosmetic = replacement door, new wing, new wheel arch, rust repairs.  She has just passed the MOT (WOF equivalent) which lasts for 12 months and she has been running well so all signs are good.  I also had a refillable gas system installed for £540 pounds in preparation for the trip.

We have a ferry booked to Ireland on the 1^st May and we are going to Vantastival www.vantastival.com/ and will go from Ireland to France then across to my brother Marks wedding in Dresden Germany.  From there we will head to Poland to get more work done on the van, then Prague, Bavaria, Switzerland, back to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, St Petersburg, Estonia, Latvia Lithuania, Poland, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, back to Spain, France.

We will endeavour to keep you updated on our travels.

Post Olympics work and travels

Hello All

So I left of last time saying it was time for us to look very seriously for work again and almost no sooner had I posted the blog when our old boss from the campsite at Hadrian’s Wall called us.  He’d been caught short again so we promptly headed north again.  Brief stops at Henley on Thames, Stafford and Little Morton Hall broke up our journey.  Then we promptly settled back into the caravan and campsite routine again.  Summer at Hadrian’s Wall proved to be just as wet as last year which was a shame.  While at Hadrian’s Wall we visited Aydon Castle, Belsay Hall and Cragside.  We stayed 6 weeks until 22^nd September.  We had to get south so Nicky could go to Paris with her sister Amy.

Hadrians Wall Campsite

Aydon Castle

 Belsay Hall

Cragside

On the way south we visited Alston, drove through some of working class Lancashire not usually on the tourist route, peak district, Sheffield (Kelham Island Museum) and visited Mark (my brother) and Dana in Northampton.  The next day we visited Stowe Landscape Gardens before meeting a prospective employer in Wickham near Newbury (where we were offered a job but to save a long story we are not there).

Stowe Landscape Gardens

Then Nicky caught up with Amy and got the train to Paris, while I visited the Tower of London, caught up with former work mates at Hireright and had a drink with Greg Spooner.  While Nicky was away I headed out into East Sussex and Kent and visited Bayham Old Abbey and Sissinghurst Castle before picking them up from Ashford Station where we went shopping at the adjacent outlet mall.  On the way to Bournemouth we took Amy to the Brighton waterfront, Boxgrove Priory, Portchester Castle and Christchurch.  We spent a couple of hours in central Bournemouth before going to Winchester and visiting the City Mill and Great Hall.  We followed this by going to Chawton where Nicky and Amy visited Jane Austen’s House.  Then we took Amy to the train at Virginia Water where she could get back to Clapham.  We had a bit of a scare on this drive when a pigeon flew out of the trees and slammed into our windscreen.

The next day we had an interview at The Grandison in Bramfield, Hertfordshire where we have now been working for almost 2 weeks.  We are live-in above the pub, Nicky has a really challenging position as the Sous Chef which is good and serve in the restaurant and bar.  We are hoping this will work well and see us through to the end of our Visa’s.

Sissinghurst Castle

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.