Wales, August 2013

Ticked another thing off my bucket list.  Visiting Wales.  It would be fabulous to live close to this area and make full use of the walking and riding trails, however our little rental did a great job and kept us from complete exhaustion! We stayed in a small place out of the way frequented by bike enthusiasts, in the hills near Llandovery (pronounced Clandovery). Fabulous views over a beautiful valley that we were pleased to be able to see.  No rain or fog that is often prevalent. Our first place to visit was the Botanic Gardens.  They were wonderful, especially the building that looked like a flying saucer.  Then drove on to Llaugharne (Cloffarne), Dylan Thomas' town.  Next day, we drove to Tenby.  Almost at the end of the world!! But really worth a visit.  At high summer time it was hard to visualise it covered in snow in mid winter as pictures showed us, in a coffee shop run by .... Australians!!!  The coffee shop owner had just returned from a holiday in Melbourne. He claimed Melbourne is the coffee capital of the world, he had been inspired by a trip or two to the Auction Rooms in North Melbourne. 

Then followed the coast taking in some breathe taking views, to return to Wiltshire before flying to New York.

    "Home". Our accommodation in Wales. And below, the view from the patio.  Not bad!

The botanical gardens. No it's not a huge space ship in the distance, only the largest hothouse in the world.

 Llaugharne Castle in the town Dylan Thomas adopted and lived with his family and penned many of his now famous writings.

    Dylan Thomas' family home.  Remote, cold and probably very bleak in winter.

 This is his writing studio.  Situated on the wall above the house.  It overlooked the inlet and would have been a pretty inspirational place to write.

Tenby was our next stop. A view of the harbour at low tide.  There's a twelve metre tide here.

For all those who watch Kevin McLeod's "Grand Designs" you may have seen the episode where a couple bought the old boat clubhouse and did it up as a private residence.  All the support work below required replacing or reinforcing.  Large cranes & building supplies had to be brought across the sand when the tide was out. Contractors were often unaware of the short window they had to unload stuff and consequently got bogged in the soggy wet sand.  It was amazing to see the place unfold, even more amazing for us to come across it.  We didn't know it was here beforehand.

These are the buildings at the right hand end of the bay.  How great would it be going to church in that little building right on the shore.  Hard to concentrate with gulls squawking & waves lapping.

Along the drive to the coast we came across a loch with a very old wall, with water cascading over it.  We parked the car and walked along part of the walk that walkers can traverse in this area. Very beautiful.

       The view of the loch wall near the top.

Driving past the loch we passed through this country.  Picturesque in summer, imagine winter!

Lunch had us stop in a small village on the coast.  After a pub meal we wandered the pretty town.  The colours of the buildings were echoed like this throughout Wales. Quite stunning.

This ends our stay in Wiltshire & Wales and many thanks to our wonderful hosts, Ffion & Les.

On to New York!

Bye 'til next blog 

Robyn & Robert,

The Tourin'Travellers 

Wiltshire, August 2013

Hiring a car was going to assist us with the next part of our travels.  Visiting friends from Thailand in Wiltshire. Satnavs (GPS, Tom Tom, Garmin whatever you are used to calling them) are fantastic.  It was our first time using one.  After a late nights catch up accompanied by several wines, we ticked a huge thing off our "bucket" list.  Stonehenge is very close to Ffion & Les's home.  It's always somewhat amazing to see something you've read about, in real life.  Apparently everyone says this, "It wasn't as big as I thought"!  However it was pretty awe inspiring being close to something with so much history & mystery.  How did they move and shape those enormous stones?   And why?  Quite incredible.  A trip to Salisbury Cathedral was special and rounded off day one very nicely.  The camera suffered though !!  The following day saw us on the road to take in more history.  Bath is a great city.  After taking the tour bus around the city and establishing where Jane Austin (a personal favourite author of mine) lived and wrote her novels, "Northanger Abbey" & "Persuasion", we visited the Roman Baths and lost ourselves in Roman history for several hours. A wonderful experience. The following day Les & Robert took on the golf course while Ffion & I visited Avesbury.  For those who saw the program, it's the show Penelope Keith hosted where a group of local historians did up the manor and the process was filmed.  Each room was done in a different period.   Visitors are encouraged to sit on, touch and use the displays.  It's the best historical house I've ever visited.  Next day after lunch at Carol & Richard Smith's (friends we also knew in Thailand) beautiful home & garden we drove to Wales. But that's another chapter.  Here is a visual tour of our time in Wiltshire, made very special for us by the wonderful friends who hosted our stay. Thank you Ffion & Les. 

And of course Buddy. 

Stonehenge.  It really was fabulous.  How on earth did they actually move these great monoliths when we have trouble doing it today with all our technology?!

Their engineering expertise was amazing.  They shaped 

a point on the top of the vertical pillars, plus a hollow in 

the horizontal stones so they sat on top without falling.   

But WHY????    No one seems to know.  It is truly incredible.  

Salisbury cathedral

   A really beautiful gothic cathedral.  Made special for 

   us because the choir came in to rehearse while we 

   were there. 

This is the baptismal font.  Amazing eh?  The reflections were stunning from every angle. The blue dots are coins. 

       Some of the decorations on the arches within the cathedral. 

The Cathedral is home to a renowned children's choir.  This is the Bumping stone. The depression on the right has been made over the centuries by the initiation of new boys who have auditioned and been accepted into the choir.  When a young boy is added to the choir, they have to come onto the church and bump their head  on this stone.  Girls are now included into the choir but they have a different initiation ceremony.

      On our way to Bath, we stopped in the small historical town of Bradford on Avon.

Walking the narrow windy streets we came across houses like this.  I think you could stand in the middle of the room and touch the walls on either side!!  Quaint and beautiful.

                   This church dates back to the Saxons.  It was incredible.

 After taking the photo, we turned to walk along the footpath and saw a strange creature, about the size of a squirrel running away from two adults at the other end of the street, and running straight towards us!  As it came within a couple of metres, it stopped, went whoops more humans, scampered across the road and disappeared into the church grounds.  Apparently it was a stoat, and it's very rare to see one.  Lucky us.

So this is Loch Master Burns.  It was interesting to see a loch gate, unfortunately we just missed seeing it in action, but as we didn't have time to wait while it filled up, it was just as well!

We're now in Bath.  I am standing looking over the Roman 

bath, with the Bath cathedral in the distance.  We spent hours 

reading and taking in Roman history.  It was fascinating.

        Avesbury.  The Sitting Room, my favourite room, done in Art Deco period.  Fabulous eh!

           Ffion and I enjoying the Tudor room.

I am now in the dining room.  the wall paper was all hand painted to depict the life and travels of Lord Avesbury.  I'm sitting in the exercise chair.  Apparently you did't go outside and walk around the beautiful gardens to get exercise.  You sat on this chair and bounced up and down.  

The leather seat housed a padded cushion under which were strong springs. Incredible!!

I am now in the bedroom done in Queen Anne style.  Very opulent.  The walls were panelled wood that had been painted to look as if the walls were marble. Red marble in this case. Apparently this was the vogue during this period of history, to make the room look more expensive.  The decor in this room was done up to show what it was like during Queen Anne's time.  She was supposed to stay here on her way to Bath, so a room was made ready for the Royal visit.  In the end she didn't stay.  The bed was very soft and a small room beyond would have housed the ladies in waiting and the travel trunks. Not nearly as opulently decorated.

           A stroll through the gardens, revealed these enormous onions.

       Dame Edna would be very proud of these beauties.  The were gorgeous, Darlings.

        So Avesbury has a ring of stones too.  

No one knows, why or what for, but as you see they were huge.  Remember one third of their size was buried in the ground!!

       One of the beautiful cottages still left in the village.

         Lunch at Carol & Richard Smith's.  Friends we met while living in Thailand.

 Note their fabulous back yard.  A stream runs along the back.  They do all the work maintaining their little oasis.  It was so peaceful and beautiful.

After lunch with these fine folk, we drove to Llandovery to stay for a couple of nights and explore some of Wales.  I'll leave that for the next blog.

Cheers

The Tourin'Travellers 

Edinburgh, August 2013

Edinburgh during Fringe Festival is a sensation worth having.  People everywhere. Artists in your face  promoting their  "must see" show.  Buskers.  Plus the Military Tattoo and A Book Festival!! Too much to take in.  The Fringe had over 300 venues dotted throughout the city.  Six of them were in our hotel.  These included a yurt & double decker bus!  Add to this mayhem many very inebriated revellers, and you have an idea of the city during this month of celebration.  We travelled with Anne & Norrie Matsanaga. Robert's friend and work mate, from Bluescope steel.  They had been before and were familiar with how it all worked.  

We saw some great jazz, a burlesque show performed on a postage stamp stage in a pub. A Japanese folk tale. A very beautiful performance despite the spoken word being in Japanese. A circus style show that included the most amazing acrobatics. And Rich Hall in a Speigeltent. Some of you who watch Q & I will remember him.  He was so funny and was able to ad lib songs about audience members seamlessly.  Most of these acts we paid to see, but there were many that were free entry.  These were hit and miss as to their worthiness, so we saw some good and some awful performances.  Added to all this were the constant street theatre acts.  It was all fabulous. We had a ball, and tasted some great whisky!

   Anne & Norrie enjoying the ambience, and wine, in 

   Candlemakers Row.

   The Royal Mile.  It was compulsory to cruise this avenue that went from the Castle to 

   Holyrood Palace.  One large area of it was blocked to vehicle traffic, and was used by 

   various acts to advertise their shows.  It was so busy.

This was our hotel!!!!  Due to the fact that there was a courtyard that had a large screen TV, plus it housed 6 of the free entry venues, whenever we wanted to go "home" we had to fight our way through crowds.

    Little alleyways came off The Royal Mile, in several places. 

    Investigation of one, lead us to see through one of the old 

    buildings that was in stages of being restored.  It held a really 

    beautiful exhibition of art work & quilts.  Very interesting. 

                Just to prove that Robert has been here before!!

           A compulsory visit whilst in town was "The Whisky Experience".  

           Wallets stayed safely in pockets and we dreamed of purchasing!!

           They were giving samples of whisky, though it's hard to drink whisky 

           in the morning. 

             The architecture in Edinburgh is beautiful, but hard to capture in a photo.

      A free entry performance in a beautiful church on "The Mile".  

      An Australian guitarist, John McNamara. We didn't seek him out, 

      just came across the venue and decided to look in.  A free entry one. 

      The sound in here was gorgeous.

    The burlesque act. The place was so snug we 

    were virtually sitting on the keyboard players knee!

    It was great fun despite it being 11.00am. Surely the 

    wrong time for burlesque. 

    At the Jazz bar.  Norrie & Robert spent some time here!  John Hunt was fantastic.  He played two guitars, both of which he made himself.  He played Blues and sang in a gravelly Tom Waits type voice. Note his percussion backing. His feet thumped on the low table. So much fun. His repartee was great too. 

     This was his other guitar made out of an old Bakelite radio, that still worked. Classic.

      A close up of 'the shelf'.   He used this for most of his performance, amazing!

   To the street performers. 

    These guys, named The Horndogs, were a very good New Orleans style brass band.

    I wish you could hear the sound these guys made.  It was fantastic unaccompanied three

    part harmony, and all in African.  They were amazing.  The guy with the aqua hoody had 

    the deepest base voice that resonated through the street, holding it all together.  Add to 

    the beautiful sounds, the fact that they were really having a good time during their street 

    performance.  It was a fabulous show and only a street act.

I know this is not an act, but of the odd things you saw throughout this great city, this was one of the best.  A cow's rear end!  I don't think the name of the pub resembled anything to do with it either! Perhaps it was art trying to be part of the festival. Either way, it was fun.

  So we were in a great restaurant eating, when we 

  looked out the window to see the castle all lit up.  It 

  changed colours.  Tacky!  I know but we tourists love 

  that sort of thing !!!

 So ends the Edinburgh chapter, unfortunately.  We had a wonderful time. Thoroughly recommend the Edinburgh festival to anyone.  On to Wiltshire.

Cheers

The Tourin'Travellers 

London, August 2013

London.  It sounds so exciting to say you're "in London".  We stayed behind the Tate Modern, near where the Bluescope Steel office used to be.  Views over the Thames to St Paul's and the London skyline.  Easy access to the Tate Modern.  The Globe Theatre nearby, unfortunately no tickets available for shows while we were there.  We walked the Tate Modern, it took hours but was worth it.  Walked across the Millennium bridge to St. Paul's, then wandered down Fleet st. to Trafalgar Square, all the time thinking I was playing Monopoly!  

Our "home" was near the London Bridge, Southwark Market.  This was the local.  Flowering baskets like these were all through Britain and were spectacular.

This barber shop in the market did a fine job cutting Robert's hair, although that's a misnomer, he doesn't have hair!! However it regularly needs a shave and they did a fine job here.

A short walk along the river we found The Globe Theatre.  "The Tempest" was on but unfortunately we were unable to get tickets. It's an interesting place.

So we crossed the river looked in at St Paul"s then continued up Fleet st. towards Trafalgar Square. It had been taken over by Scots men.  Very merry, and in town for the "friendly" soccer match to be played the following night.  On the way towards Australia house and just by the Law Courts, we snapped this double decker.  It made London feel right to have one in the photo gallery!!

        The crowded & noisy Trafalgar Square

To escape the noise we entered St Martins in the Field church.  The ensemble due to play that evening were rehearsing.  We had a special time listening to gorgeous music, that seemed to float in this beautiful space.  Much more preferable to the rabble rousing outside.  The window is amazingly simple ans stunning. 

A little further on our wander to find the tube station, we came across this.   Across the river was the London eye.   So we had a tour of all London's sites in a short walk!!!

Here ends our very short stay in London.  We are moving onto Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival.

Cheers for now,

The Tourin'Travellers