Cornwall

Its been ages since Easter and I just realised I hadn't written about our trip to Cornwall and the south-west of England. It started with a train trip to Bristol where we went to pick up a hire car for our four days in Cornwall. We took the new packs we bought for our backpacking trip in June to test them out.

Friday began grey and with the threat of rain. For the first few hours of our drive it rained quite hard as we made our way to Barnstaple via some obscure B roads courtesy of the GPS lady. We giggled at her instructions but soon realised she was leading us a bit astray when we configured the GPS to avoid the motorways. We decide to switch to the motorway to get there quicker. The rain stopped along the way and the sun started to shine much to our joy.

Barnstaple is the oldest borough in England with the oldest high street in England. It was quite a small town close to the sea and bustling with people. We stayed at the hotel attached to the biggest pub in town. After some burgers at the pub we checked in and decided to head out to check out some of coast line. The drive lead us through some narrow roads lined with hedges and speckled with spring flowers such as daffodils, dandelions, magnolias and tulips. This was to be a common sight throughout the weekend much to my delight. The gorgeous flowers growing wild and free really took my breath away. I never got any good pictures of them as Pramo was driving quite fast past them (to avoid getting stuck in places we couldn't pass oncoming traffic). After a while I gave up trying to capture them on camera and just enjoyed the view with the sun in my face.

We drove along beautiful cliffs with heart stopping drops to white sandy beaches below. The beaches were full of people swimming, surfing and enjoying the sun although the temperature was about 11 degrees ..brrrrr! We went to cute little seaside villages so different to the seaside towns in Australia. I could understand why these places got so busy in summer, the beaches were nice and the towns themselves were small, old and full of character.

We returned to Barnstaple and relaxed in the hotel room till dinner time. As the sun was going down the high street was getting quite empty as people gathered in pubs and restaurants. We went to get some pizza and while waiting realised that the 'pizza express' was in the oldest building in the town. It had a very low ceiling and a little inner enclosure where in the olden days people put shoes for good luck.

The next day we checked out from the hotel and headed directly south to Plymouth via the Dartmoor national park. Lunch was at Princetown in the heart of Dartmoor after which we set about on a hike along a disused railway line. Dartmoor national park is full on flat wide planes.. 'deep wooded gorges, beautiful lake-like reservoirs and tumbling rocky rivers.'. .. We went up a steep hill to the BBC radio tower for long reaching views across the valley all the way to beach. On the way down to join the walking track we met some friendly Dartmoor ponies looking for food from us. The walk was relaxing but tiring and we were happy to get back to the car to resume our drive to Plymouth.

Plymouth was a big city but only 6 miles from the centre we were in beautiful farm country. After the GPS lady led us astray(again!) we finally found the farm house/B&B we were staying at. The farm was set in large grounds, beautifully kept with a large pond as its centre piece. The house was cute & cosy. The couple who owned it were lovely. We were led upstairs to our room with great views of the garden which we enjoyed with a relaxing cup of tea.

After a hot shower we drove back into Plymouth for dinner at the Barbican waterfront. Barbican is the old harbour area which managed to escape destruction during the Blitz in WWII that flattened most of Plymouth. The area was bustling with people & full of seafood restaurants along the water. We ended up having a relaxing 3 hour long dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant.

That night we got a good nights sleep and woke up to a hot breakfast with the owners and another couple who were also staying there. Over breakfast we found out that the other couple had been coming to this farmhouse for about 10-15 years and were now great friends with the owners. They were all such lovely people and it was so nice to talk to them.. our day was off to a great start.

We decided to drive down to Penzance and the west most tip of England. The drive was relaxing and we enjoyed the spring flowers, green fields and the long windy road there. Penzance is a big harbour town on the water which provided a nice backdrop for lunch in the sun. Then we headed to Land's end the west most point in England and to the beautiful cliff side Minack theatre over looking turquoise waters and sandy beaches glistening in the sun full of people enjoying the clear bright day. Minack theatre carved on the side of a cliff was an amazing sight, I would recommend going here if you are ever in this part of England.

Next we headed to St Michael's Mount , a tidal island in Penzance, the Cornish counterpart to Mount Saint Michael in Normandy, France. The path to St Michael's is walkable in low tide but gets completely covered in high tide and you have to resort to taking a boat over. We got there in low tide but as it was coming in quite quickly. All the sightseeing was quite tiring and so we decided to take a break with some Cornish cream tea - scones, clotted cream & jam with a pot of tea. Cream tea is something that the English do really well and I have to say I'm a complete convert although its not great for the waistline to say the least. The drive back to Plymouth was pleasant in the afternoon sunshine and we explored the Plymouth citadel and maritime war memorial as the sun was setting. For dinner we ended up at a great Thai place with a great array of local seafood on the menu. We asked for a spicy red fish curry and was given the hottest thing we had eaten in about 2 years.. it was unbelievably so over the top hot by UK standards but made beautifully. My stomach burns just thinking about it!...

Next day we drove back to Bristol at a leisurely pace and arrived back in London via the train. Cornwall won me over completely and it was one of the most relaxing and pleasant holidays I'd had in a while. That part of England is so beautiful and serene.. I'm so glad we got to see it before leaving the UK.

See photos here.

Midsummer Night's Dream @ The Globe

It was a hot summers day in London. After a long hard day at work we were in for a treat. We headed down to the Globe theatre by the Thames to watch a Midsummer Night's Dream.

The theatre is in the shape of a cylinder with an open top. Seating is in three levels; ground, middle and upper sections on the side of the cylinder. On the ground the area around the stage is where the groundlings stand; with ramps leading to the stage in amongst them. The whole structure is made out of wood and everything about it feels unpretentious, suited to the common people as it would have been when the original theatre was in use. The seating is also modest, hard wooden benches with no real back support which you feel a bit at the end of a 3 hour performance. Nevertheless I dont think there is a bad seat in the house. We had great seats in the middle gallery straight infront of the stage.

The performance in itself was fantastic. The actors were versatile and comic. The duke and queen of Athens doubled as Oberon and Titania, their scottish accents somehow suiting both the fairyland and the court. The noteworthy actors were Bottom, Puck, Helena and Oberon. Helena was a great comic actress, passionate and held the audience captive everytime she was on stage. Puck was like a naughty school boy and quite funny. Oberon was magestic and fatherlike. However, Bottom stole the show. He was hilarious! He had the audience in the palm of his hand, so confident and versatile. The actors/labourers were also very well picked and played a pivotal role in the performance. Their play 'Pyramus and Thisbe' had the audience in tears.

The costumes were well suited and comic when they needed to be. The actors involved the audience well, the goundlings enjoying much of that interaction. The song and dance elements were used well to boost the performance. The set and props were minimal but well used. Overall I loved this play. Everything about the theatre and production contributed to the play being in essence what it needed to be; hilarious! I've seen a few productions of this play in the past and I think this one will hold a special place in my heart in years to come. I am already planning what I'm going to see next at the Globe :) Cant wait!!

The Lakes District

The ferry at Lake Windemere.

The last weekend in May was a long weekend here in the UK. So a group of friends decided to go to the Lakes District for the weekend, home of the famous Lakes poets notably William Wordsworth. There were 12 of us in 3 cars for a 6 hour trip up into the north-west of England.

The plan was to get our cars first thing Saturday and head up to the Lakes. The car leaving from Bayswater had Minh, Jem, Pramod and myself in it. We turned up at 8am at our car collection point to find that they didnt have a car for us. We booked through EasyCar which has other local car companies service their bookings. Its one of UK's biggest car hire companies. The problem was that EasyCar hadn't sent our booking through to Alamo which was handling our booking. We weren't the only people stranded; as the minutes ticked by more and more people turned up looking for cars they had booked through EasyCar only to find their booking missing. We were told to wait till 9am until EasyCar opened to figure out what had gone wrong. Finally after much to and fro we finally had a car from Alamo at 10am thanks to the persistence of the girl at Alamo front desk. Many thanks to that girl for her professionalism, it really made a big difference.

So we were off to a late start. The drive was not very eventful and we made it to Shap(a small town south of Penrith) on the outer edge of the Lakes district by 6:30pm. We met with the rest of the gang in Shap and headed down to the pub called Bull's Head for dinner after dumping our luggage at the hostel we were staying at. Good food and a few glasses of wine and lager mellowed us out and we slowly began to relax and ease into the weekend. Then we returned to our hostel to shower and get ready for bed. The hostel was clean and warm. The girls bathroom was pretty good (except for whenever a guy had a shower we didn't get any hot water) and we all had a good night's sleep on our bunk beds. Seven of us had a dorm room to ourselves while the rest headed to their hotel in Keswick.

Sunday morning we woke up and got ready to head into Ambleside, a town by Lake Windermere. We basically spent 3 hours trying to figure out what to do; going into Windermere Tourist Information, then heading back to Ambleside, getting lost, getting stuck in traffic and finally with ferry tickets to the other side of Lake Windermere to start a 7km walk. The water in the Lake was almost black, and it was very windy. There were patches of sun which generally made for a pleasant day. We began our walk by visiting a imitation medieval castle called Wray. The views from the castle grounds were beautiful with lush green valleys, hills in the distance and blue skies all around. We then continued our walk on the edge of the lake. The path lead us in amongst tall magestic trees and views of the surrounding lake. The wind was constant and getting stronger as the day progressed. The first part of the walk varied a lot and we walked through people's properties opening and closing gates. After a while we were feeling hungry and our lack of fitness made us a little tired. But in no time at all we came to the end of the 7km walk. We ate our sandwiches by the water while waiting for the ferry to return to Ambleside. The ferry ride was gentle and after the long walk a few of us took the time to have a snooze :)

We arrived back in Ambleside via 2 ferries. Next we decided to head to Keswick to explore the town and have dinner. The drive to Keswick was gorgeous as the road hugged a few lakes and the setting sun in the distance made for beautiful views. We found parking in Keswick which proved difficult and then walked around town exploring shops and possible places to have dinner. We settled on a nice pub and ordered up a lot of nice food and drink. Many enjoyed the lamb shanks on the menu which was made from local lamb a lot of which we saw on the lush green fields during our walk. After some fairy floss and ice cream we decided to call it a night.

The next day Minh, Jem, Pramod and myself decided to do our own thing before we headed back home at lunch. The plan was to hire some bicycles and explore the lake closest to Shap. Pramod and I decided to get a tandom bike since I cant ride a bicycle. The thing we didnt realise was that tandom bikes are not meant for beginners because you still have to balance and pedal together. Everytime we got on the bike I felt like we were going to fall off and every time I padalled the bike started to swerve from left to right and we had to pull over and stop. After trying for a while we decided to give the bike ride a skip and instead drive on the track which was recommended to us by the guy working at the hostel who looked a lot like James Oliver. The drive went through some nice quiet towns and fields and ended up along a big lake finishing at one end of the lake surrounded by mountains all around. There was a walking track up all the way to one of the mountains and many people were getting ready to take the track up to the mountain. If we had more time I would've loved to have done that trek, although it was quite steep. We went down to the water, took some pictures and decided to head to a pub we passed on the way to the lake. The pub was really cute and was also recommended by the Jamey Oliver look alike for its good food. We ordered some food and Jem and I headed out to explore the town while we waited for the chef to arrive and make our food as it wasn't quite lunch time yet. The town was called Maryvale and it was surrounded by rolling hills where cows and lamb grazed lazily. It felt like a relaxing and sweet place to live in, closer to the authentic lakes district lifestyle as opposed to the very touristy towns like Ambleside and Windemere. The lunch was delicious and very down well with Magners(apple cider). By then it was time to head back into London. The drive was much shorter on the way back, and we arrived in a wet London to be stuck in traffic about 10 minutes from home on Edgware Rd. All in all the weekend was good and we were lucky to have sunny weather most of the time, however it was far too short and I would like to go back there to spend more time away from the touristy towns on treks and walks :)

See photos for the lakes here.

Planes, trains and automobiles

This is my first real post it seems. So much for the title of my blog.
But I guess its never too late.

So what are my first impressions of London?.. Well, not exactly first impressions since I've been here before on a short holiday, nevertheless this place looks much different when you look at it from a non-tourist point of view.

As we got off our flight at Heathrow and caught the tube to our Hotel in Paddington the first thing we noticed were the weird and wonderful names the British have given to some of the places here. Some you read and want to laugh out loud. I mean what poor person can say with a straight face that they live in a place called Cockfosters! Not only that imagine it being pronounced in a very British accent by the tube announcements lady... 'This is the Piccadilly line train to CockFosters." As a side note the tube announcements lady Emma Clarke has done some hilarious spoof announcements, which she ended up being fired for by British Rail. Check them out at her website http://www.emmaclarke.com/. Some people have no sense of humour.

Anyway, getting back to the unusual names thing. There is a tube station called Mudchute. I mean how unimaginative are these people. I want to call home and tell my mum I live in Mudchute. She's worried enough that I'm slumming it here in the UK.
Here's some more that caught my eye:
- Nunhead (poor nun)
- St John's Wood (oh dear)
- Tooting (excuse me)
- Elephant & Castle (umm..?)

Weird names aside the transport in London is top notch. At any tube station here there is a train every 4 minutes. Yes 4 minutes! People still run for trains.. I don't get it.
Apparently 1 billion people use the tube every year, more than 3 million a day. Seriously this is what Sydney needs to aim at if we are ever going to rely on public transport there. In central London, the bus services are also great. Bus stops have estimated time of arrival of the next bus. How good is that? And who doesn't love double deckers?

Trains and buses are all good but when it comes down to it Londoners walk a great deal. Not a lot of people have cars in central London, its not worth driving anyway because of the congestion tax. Coming from Sydney where every person and their dog has a car it takes a while to get used to walking everywhere. I don't mind at all especially if I have sensible shoes on. Speaking of shoes, I better sign off for now. That topic deserves a whole new entry :)