This was our hotel last night, it consisted of 4 layers of containers stacked on top of each other, very noisy air conditioning, otherwise very comfortable and very close to the city.
Popped back into London for a couple of hours and a full English Breakfast.
Big Ben at the Houses of Parliament is completely enclosed by scaffolding.
We caught the train to Heathrow, needed to change three times. But overall it was easy and cheap. We caught a Taxi to the airport some years ago, it cost us about $100 and took 40 minutes. The train took 50 minutes and cost $7 each. The trick is to make sure you change stations at the ones showing wheelchair access to avoid lugging large cases up and down stairways.
We got to Heathrow with plenty of time for 3 pints of beer.
Then off we went to Brunei, We love their planes, lots of leg space and we were able to book the 2 individual seats at the back with the extra space next to them and 2 port holes
A very comfortable 14 hour trip. With the in flight movies the time went quite quickly, although no sleep. The airport was a bit busy on Sunday at 3.30 pm.
Three hours stop over and then off we went to Melbourne on a 6.5 hour flight, it went in no time.
Melbourne airport was a bit busy on Monday at 3.10 am. Don't do the maths there are time differences. We breezed through customs and so forth, had to do all the checks because there were more staff than passengers. By 5.30 am we were onto our second pint of FatYak beer.
The flight to Devonport was delayed by an hour, so we didn't leave until 9.00 am.
More beer. The plane didn't leave until 9.30 am.
Eventually we made it back to Devonport at 10.30 am.
Tyson and Hunter were there to meet us off the plane, what a great surprise.
Steven's Dad and Chris picked us up and took us home.
Some stats
Flying - 38,192 klms (23,732 miles)
Walking - 336 klms (200 miles)
Trains - 900 klms (560 miles)
Driving - 3,218 klms 2,000 miles)
Holiday enjoyment 100%
That's the end of this holiday and the end of this Blog.
Packed all the bags ready for the big trip home.
Drove off to Peterborough where we are saying goodbye to our gorgeous campervan.
We caught the train to Kings Cross Station in London, Our friend Angela appears to be on the same train.
Stevens luggage person looks very happy.
A couple of tube trips to our amazing shipping container apartment.
We had to walk through the Leake Street Arches to get there, we almost passed out from the spray can fumes, amazing graffiti.
If we remember we will take a photo of the apartments tomorrow.
We dumped our stuff and raced back into London, we love London. It was busy and we got in too late for the shows, a little disappointing.
We had a wander around and took lots of photos.
We found a brilliant Thai restaurant and had a great last supper, Steven had two.
Went to the store and bought some beer.
It is a very warm night, in the mid 20's, we guess Tasmanian weather will not be quite as warm.
Our container, level 4 on the container stack has the most amazing views.
Tammy repacked the bags, Steven drank beer and took photos.
This is taken from our shipping container.
Went on a bit of a search around Steven's home town.
Steven's mum has given him some homework, he may have ignored it and pretended he didn't get the email, but a pub was mentioned, she knows him well.
So we set off looking for the Swan Hotel in Astwood.
The ceilings were too low for Steven but the beer was good. Better than corn flakes.
Next we went to the 12th century Church of St Peters to look for the gravestone of Steven's Grandfathers best friend. He was killed in WW2 at the age of 25. His grave is one of only two war graves in the cemetery. Joe Bacon, he died over 70 years ago and was sadly missed by his parents and brother. His headstone is neglected now, no-one living would have any memory of him. But someone came looking for him. The family of his best friend 70 years later.
The Church has been closed and has fallen into disrepair. It has been sold and is going to be turned into a residence. We couldn't get inside so we had to make do with looking through the windows.
We went into Bedford for a look around, like our last visit and Steven's visit 50 years ago, we had a 99 ice cream on the banks of the Ouse.
We found a Gregg's for a coffee.
The city symbol is the Swan, it is the Queen's bird and she is the only one that is allowed to eat them, the Queen says they taste like chicken.
We went back to Clapham (pronounced Clap Ham, not Clafam as the satnav insisted) where Steven spent his first 10 years.
These are the old concrete pipes that Steven and Tim played in at Twin Woods when they were children.
It's all sealed off now with warning signs to keep out.
After all of our homework we went to a pub for tea and ale. It was not a good meal and we left a bit disappointed.
Back to the caravan park, we need to sort out our luggage, we have to give the campervan back tomorrow.
Steven has done an amazing job of driving, not even been hooted at once, I wonder what will happen tomorrow now that that has been said......
Tammy has driven too, and not crashed.
Made it to Canterbury today.
The city is beautiful with lots of gorgeous old buildings and narrow, winding streets.
The only thing wrong is that 2,500 French school children have followed us here.
We had to queue to get in the Cathedral, I mean actually stand in a line and wait for hours and hours (10 minutes).
Steven complained, The man on the gate agreed and suggested he should go home.
Once inside the Cathedral we discovered it was undergoing some major restoration so there were bits we couldn't see. Steven, moan, moan, moan....
The Cathedral was founded in 597, but was rebuilt in in 1070.
It is a world heritage site. It was extensively rebuilt in 1174 after a fire.
In the 1500's it was subjected to Henry VIII's dissolution of monastries program.
It's got the most amazing stained glass windows.
We looked at the scaffolding and then saw the fire brigade coming out, Steven, known for his subtlety, asked the guide if we were too late. Referring to recent events at Notre Dame, some people, as Steven put's it, have no sense of humour.
We chose a bit to research to find out more about, yes, death and murder in the Cathedral.
Thomas Becket was made Archbishop of the Cathedral in 1162 by King Henry II, no-one at the Cathedral was happy about this and they complained. Even Thomas didn't really want to be made Archbishop, but if you defied Henry II bad things generally happened to you.
He took the job, but took it rather seriously and made the King angry. Thomas fled England and lived in exile in France for 8 years. He was still Archbishop during this time.
Toward the end of his exile the King needed a ruling from the church. In the absence of Becket, the King asked 3 other Vicars to sign the documents, Becket heard about this and sent notice to the Vicars, instructing them that under no circumstances, should they sign.
But they did. Becket sent notice to the Pope and had them excommunicated. The Vicars had been with the Cathedral most of their lives and complained to the King about their treatment. The King was heard to say 'will no-one rid me of this turbulent Priest?'
So, Becket returns and is chased through the Cathedral by the Knights of Henry II, he is caught and rather nastily dispatched by one of these Knights, who takes to Becket with his sword, misses his neck but cuts the top off of his head.
They all leave, a servant woman who was nearly blind found the body laying on the floor and knelt down beside him, realising who it was and what had happened, she wept and dipped her fingers in the blood and smeared it under her eyes (the reason she did this is a bit unclear) Her sight was restored. News of this reached the Pope and there you have it, a new saint.
Well it went something like that anyway.
The book 'Murder in the Cathedral' by T. S. Elliott tells the whole story.
Thomas Becket's body was put into a tomb in the Cathedral and remained there until Henry VIII had it destroyed, now a candle marks the spot.
We found the spot where Saint Thomas Becket was executed, they'd done a good job of cleaning it all up.
Back out in the lovely streets for a coffee and then off to Bedford.
We found a campsite and then went to pick up our Auntie Catherine to take out to tea, same pub as four years ago. The food was fabulous and it was a great night, we caught up with Auntie Catherine's son Jonathon after tea.
Lots of showers later, we headed off to the white cliffs.
We drove past the biggest castle in England to get there. It really is a big castle.
We had our usual egg and bacon buttie from our favourite coffee shop 'Greggs'.
The White cliffs of Dover are white, we thought they'd be grey or maybe a bland yellow, but they really are white. We embarked on walk that said 50 minutes, apparently that was one way and didn't include all the side tracks. So we set off at 10.00am and got back to the car at 1.00pm.
Here we are at the cliffs, Steven's trying out a new hairstyle he saw in a pub somewhere.
There is a walk down to the beach that not many people do, no idea why.
Near the bottom is a walking tunnel that runs for about 50 metres and ends up at a spot where they built one of the searchlights during WW2.
We stole a chalk pebble off of the beach.
On the way back up, in the blazing sun, it was very hot. We wondered how many people had passed through the tunnel over the centuries. We later discovered that the tunnel is two months old and was put in by the local council because the last part of the track had been washed away.
Back at the car park we decided we might just pop into the castle on the way past for an hour.
Dover castle was founded in 1070 or there abouts. It is a significant castle because it is the point in England that is closest to Europe. It has served as defense since then and had an important role in WW2.
Today there are 2,500 french school children at the castle, the French were locked up here in the 1700's during the seven year war. Doesn't seem to have put them off at all. Today all the little frog children are being taught arrogance.
The graffiti in the castle was interesting, one piece was dated 1710, by a French person who was imprisoned there.
All English graffiti started in the mid 1800's, that is when compulsory education came to England, that is when we learnt to write. It is also the time when gravestones started appearing, prior to this time no-one could read so they didn't bother. With the exception of a few famous people. Anyway, graffiti is nothing new. This graffiti from 1710 mentions the fact that he is a prisoner.
The 300 year old graffiti is not covered up or protected.
There are many tunnels under Dover castle, some date back to the medieval times, others are more recent.
We had a look at the medieval tunnels and then went down to the war tunnels. This was our second trip to the war tunnels as Steven refused to queue for 30 minutes with 50 other people (some of them French) the first time, fair point seeing as the second time it was a five minute wait and there were only 10 other people.
In these tunnels that were used in WW2 there are large communications rooms, war rooms, bunk houses. It's quite amazing. Under these tunnels are the nuclear shelters put in in the 1960's. Sadly, because they are still being used, we weren't allowed to take photos.
Also within the site is the Roman lighthouse, this was constructed in the year AD 43, now this is a seriously old building, nearly 2000 years and still standing.
The lighthouse is the tower on the left.
The building on the right is an Anglo Saxon Church dating from around AD 600. So it was built 550 years after the lighthouse but it's still nearly 1500 years old.
We found our way back to what was a very crowded car park at 1.30 when we arrived.
Too late to go to the Abbey now, so we went to the pub instead.
Left our crowded field and headed ten minutes up the road to the Weald open air museum.
No more castles!
The museum covers 40 acres with over 50 historic buildings.
It was launched in 1967 and it's aim is to preserve buildings of historical significance in the UK. There are also a couple of recreated buildings from earlier times. The oldest building on the site is 950 years old.
Along with this they have also recreated the gardens and outbuildings that would have been associated with the houses.
There is very little steel used in any of the buildings, Most of their joints are mortise and tenon with dowels, or 'pegs' as they refer to them here.
Even the clay roof tiles have timber pegs to attach them to the roofs.
Also there is also a 'gridshell' building here, one of only two in the UK. it is a light weight timber frame structure that gets it's support by curving in two directions. the timbers are only 50 x 35 and most of them are in lengths of 36 metres, there are some joints along the way.
Back to the heritage buildings. They have filled the them with furniture to match the time, also there are some displays such as the plumbers workshop.
We spent the entire day wandering around the place.
We intend going to Canterbury Cathedral tomorrow so we headed that way, the closest caravan park we could find was in Dover, We are now sleeping with the campervan windows open, we need a park with a shower.
We arrived in Dover and the first thing we noticed was the big castle on the hill.
Also the docks from where we had left some weeks earlier for Europe on our bus trip.
We think we may have a wander on the cliffs tomorrow before going to the Cathedral.
But no more castles, we've done enough.
Dover has the largest castle in England, just saying...
Guess what we are going to visit this morning?
Yes it's another castle, this one is a big one.
Caerphilly castle was built in 1268 by the Normans.
In 1270 it was destroyed by a Welsh prince who didn't particularly like the Normans.
1271 it was rebuilt bigger and stronger and became Wales biggest castle.
1326 the castle was a hideout for the doomed English King, Edward II, before he met a nasty end by a red hot poker on the order of Queen Isabella of France, who was Edwards wife, however Edward had run off with another man. His lover was also captured and hung, drawn and quartered.
17th century the famous leaning tower starts to lean, must have been the same engineer that saved all that cash on the foundations of the tower in Pisa.
We watched the impressive archery display.
Then we explored the castle, much has been restored but it is easy to tell between the old and the new. It is good to see parts of a castle that we have seen as ruins on previous ones as a whole part, particularly the great hall.
Steven did his usual frantic running up and down towers and along corridors.
Then we watched the battle equipment display with swords, axes and spears, also very good.
There was a display of full sized castle seige machines that were terrific. Steven wasn't allowed to play with them.
After the castle we headed back to England on the highways. Once again we had trouble finding a caravan park and ended up in a field with portable toilets and nothing else, what would you expect for only $30 per night?
