Visiting the relatives

We decided we would finally make the trip to Alton to visit the cuzzie-bros down there - Rod and Sarah are our second cousins (I think?) on Susanna's Dad's side and we stayed with their folks, Roy and Barbara, when we
were first in UK.

Alton is a small market town in Hampshire. Biggest claim to fame? Being 1 mile from Chawton, where none other than Jane Austen lived for a while before she died. Susanna was enraptured! We visited Jane Austen's house and wondered around the village of Chawton.

The rest of the time was spent catching up with Family - Sarah's brother, Hugh (another second cousin) was there with his wife Yvie on the Friday night so it was great to see them too. Sunday was a lot of fun as there was a reenactment event, "War on the Line," and the the steam train on the old Watercress line that ran during WWII opened up and there was military paraphernalia etc. It was a great time had by all. Have a look at the pics.

Windsor Castle

Well, sorry we could not think of a more original title for this post but, there it is.

We have got ourselves a network rail card, which means we get about 1/3 off normal ticket prices when travelling off peak so we have taken to making the occassional foray in to some of the smaller places around London.

First up, Windsor and Eton. The castle really is amazing. It dominates the whole town and is huge. As the Queen resides there on the weekends, only part of the castle was open but we enjoyed what we did see - in particular the lovely moat gardens. After our visit there, we went for a walk along the Thames path, got lost, found the track, and got lost again. But we saw some lovely little lanes and fields on the way. On our way back toward Windsor, we came through the grounds of Eton college. As it happened, their private gardens were open to the public so we strolled around and took tea there (oh how posh)! There is this little island in the stream that you can access from the side of the college and it has been landscaped into beautiful gardens.

Definitely a worthwhile visit. Next stop? Hmm, probably either Oxford or Cambridge. Watch this space! In the mean time, here are some photos.

Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond

Well the Bank Holiday weekend in at the end of May, took us up to Scotland. As it was just before Dan's birthday, Susanna did most of the planning so some bits were a surprise! We went up to Glasgow overnight on Friday where we picked up the hire car.

We drove up in to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National park. Loch Lomond is one of the southern most lochs and it is also the largest inland waterway in Scotland (and we think the UK). We actually stayed in a small town, Rhu, just north of Helensburgh, on the Firth of Clyde, to the west of Loch Lomond.

During the weekend, we drove around the pretty loch side village of Luss, around the little coastal hamlets on the Cowal Peninsula and on the peninsula across Gare Loch from Rhu, and visited the small town of Dunoon, which reminded us of Devonport in good ol' Auckland, New Zealand.

The highlight of the trip though was cruising on Loch Lomond from Tarbet on the Eastern side to Rowardennan on the Western side, where we walked north for 9 miles on the West Highland Way, to Inversnaid. We then cruised back to Tarbert. We had lovely weather and there was a lovely variety of landscape and terrain from thick forest, to light woodland and beaches.

On our last day, we drove back to Glasgow via Aberfoyle and Callander, which is in the Trossachs, north of Sterling. We hired bicycles and rode a few miles around the national cycle network. Very pretty. Here are some of the pics.

London Town

In one of our last posts, we mentioned the "dazzling" spring flowers. Here are just a couple more pics from life in general. In the space of a month we saw London changing from being covered in snow to covered in flowers. Last weekend we went to Kew gardens and saw some more.... enjoy.

Ram - Baaaa - Ling in North Wales

May Day Bank Holiday weekend saw us visiting North Wales with a friend that we made on the Rally, Mabon. He hails from Denbigh and he showed us the sites around mid-Wales and the Snowdonia National Park. On Saturday we visited the old slate mines and went to the coastal town of Harlech, which is dominated by an impressive old castle. We went down to the beach and couldn't believe our eyes - beautiful long golden sand beach. Just like those on the east coast of good ol' NZ.

We found that one of the main contrasts between North and South Wales was that the North had a LOT more sheep. The Welsh language was also a lot more predominant and we felt a little left out although Susanna made valiant attempts at learning bits of the language. She can now order a pint of beer and tell people that she is only learning Welsh. This came in handy when we got to experience one of the Bank Holiday traditions....

.... On the Sunday we met up with another of our friends from the Rally, Guto, who lives near Bangor, on the Menai strait, which separates mainland Wales from the Isle of Anglesey. Guto showed us all round Anglesey and we visited the old Brick works and the copper mines, which had a very other-worldy landscape. In the evening, he introduced us to Canerfron. The village, famous for its castle, where every bank holiday, the local pubs all spill on to the street and EVERYONE (or so it seems) comes out for a good time.

Monday brought better weather so we climbed Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales and the second highest in the UK. Great times although a little stiff the next day! Check out some of the pics....