mlr : selected travels

finally: a uk index

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:56:17 +1200

It's almost been two months (!) since I got back from the UK and Ireland, and I've only just got around to finishing my traveblogue! To pull everything together, this here is an index of my posts over the last few months:

"finally: an irish index": the index of our time in Ireland.
"around birmingham": as the title says. My photos of birmingham's surrounds are here.
"wales": a weekend in Wales with Felicity, Nathan, Geoff and Kerryn. My photos from this trip are here.
"londinium - part 1": the final section of my trip to this part of the world was a week in London. I had so much stuff to do there, I had to write three (long) posts to cover it. And even then I missed off the pigeon that did a number two on Andy's shirt in the grounds of Southwark Cathedral (next to Borough Market). There's a photo somewhere: I think René might have it. Suffice to say that we kept our distance from Andy for the rest of the day. It's good luck sign, Andy. Really! Photos from my London excursions can be found here (these cover all three of my "londinium" post series).
"londinium - part 2": more from London.
"londinium - part 3": the final bit from London (and the rest of the UK and Ireland). After this, that's it. The end. Time to come back home.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

londinium: part 3

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:23:46 +1200

Almost there. Only two days to go, and the last day wasn't up to much, so hopefully this will be a little bit shorter than my previous posts. Although it's hard to keep them short when you're in a place that has so much going on.

Sunday 29 April. The big plan for the day was to take a Thames river cruise downstream past Greenwich and out to the Thames Barrier. We were a little bit late in getting up, but thanks to the tube managed to get to Westminster in reasonable time to catch one of the many river cruises available.

I'd been on a river cruise on my last trip to London, but hadn't got as far east as the Thames Barrier. As the Thames Barrier is a wonder of the technological world, I was quite looking forward to it. We chugged under the Tower Bridge, stopped briefly at Greenwich to let off/let on passengers and then headed out past the Millennium Dome.

The Millennium Dome is a strange beast. It certainly looks…unfinished. And yet, at the same time, it looks impressive. It's a shame it hasn't lived up to its promise. And now, apparently, it's going to become a casino and amusement park. A folly, then. But still a spectacular folly.

On past the Millennium Dome we swum, and came across the barrier. It is actually a lot closer to the centre of London than I thought it would be. Consisting of a number of concrete pontoons strung across the width of the Thames at that point (about half a kilometre), it takes a while to work out what is going on—even if you know how the system work. Between each pontoon is a gate. Under normal conditions (i.e. not flooding), the gate sits on the bottom of the Thames. When a particularly high tide threatens London, the gate swings up off the bottom and presents a wall to the rising water.

If you look along the line of the pontoons, you can see that the concrete bank of the Thames has been made about 2 metres higher on the downstream side of the barrier than on the upstream side. And it's worth noting that the Thames Barrier has nothing to do with prevention of floods coming from upstream (e.g. from too much rain). Rather it's to prevent high tides from rushing up the Thames into London, which is obviously the more likely scenario (given that they built the barrier here rather than upstream of London!). Indeed, they have to use the barrier on average four times a year to stop flooding.

And it's not as if the barrier is only functional. Oh no. Of course, by its very size it would be impressive, but the architects and engineers have managed to give it quite a distinctive look. I imagine there aren't too many tide barriers like this one around the world (it is the second largest after the Oosterscheldekering in the Netherlands); but of those that are, not many would look as good as the Thames Barrier.

After crossing the barrier, we quickly turned around and headed back through the barrier again and on to Greenwich. We stopped off here as neither René nor Biggi had seen the Greenwich Meridian. I came here on my last trip, on a Friday, and it was somewhat less crowded. Being a Sunday, the Greenwich Observatory was packed. And we were a little too late to actually get into the Observatory grounds and straddle the meridian line - we got there about 4:35 and the Observatory had closed it's gates to new visitors at 4:30. Bugger. We had to content ourselves with looking through the iron gate. Of course, the meridian stretches all the way around the world, and we could have just moved a few metres around the outside of the Observatory perimeter to straddle it, but it's just not the same as standing across the special line they've marked inside the grounds.

Having had our fill of the Observatory, we headed back past the Queen's House and through the University of Greenwich, past the shrouded Cutty Sark (which was under renovation; only days later it was vandalised and torched) and then under the Thames by way of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel to the, I think, slightly misnamed Isle of Dogs (it's neither an isle, nor are there any more dogs there than elsewhere). The tunnel under the Thames was well lit, and well used, but it was cold and damp. Not surprising, I guess.

It was now getting on past six in the evening, and we had arranged with Bryce to meet him in Tooting for a curry. It was to be our second curry of the weekend, and as it turned out, the best by far. Again, stay away from Brick Lane, you'll only be disappointed.

And so it was that the last night of my travels in the UK and Ireland finished. The next day, Monday, I was to board a 747 at Heathrow and spend about 27 hours heading for home. The flight wasn't leaving London until 10pm, so I had another whole day of checking out London. René and Biggi were also heading back to Amsterdam in the evening, so we decided to head out to Heathrow together after a day of wandering around the central city: mainly just checking out shops and sitting in St James's Park to have lunch. And what do you know? It was another fantastic day - sun and warm.

Well, that's it: the trip home was pretty uneventful, apart from the absolutely ridiculous security arrangements at Heathrow. They made everyone only take one bag through the x-ray machines: so if you had a handbag and another carry on piece of luggage, you somehow had to meld the two together and tough luck if you were carrying two or more awkward yet small articles that couldn't be put into the same bag. Although I never did find out what happened if you couldn't put things into one bag only.

I had a backpack and a small shopping bag with a couple of books and other small things that wouldn't fit into my backpack. Which only proved the ridiculousness of the situation when I gave René and Biggi a couple of things each to bung into their relatively empty carry-on bags (although Biggi had a handbag that she had to somehow work into the mix as well). What's the use of this "security" measure if other people can just take your stuff through? What is the point!? This was the most idiotic thing I have ever seen at an airport, and I've seen some pretty idiotic "security" measures (including putting liquids into clear plastic bags). And once through the x-ray scanner, you could split all your stuff out again: I never had any problems from that point on with my carry-on luggage.

A slightly annoying thing to end on, to be sure, but fortunately it didn't detract from the wonderful time I had over there (and thanks to the weather people for putting on such great weather). And there's still plenty of stuff I didn't get to see over there. Next stop: Scotland. Eventually.

londinium: part 2

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:08:03 +1200

Friday 27 April dawned fine. Um, I should really stop writing that, because it's totally unnecessary. Every day on my trip dawned fine. Every day. Anyway, from this fine morning I had decided to make this my Imperial War Museum day. This was never really on my radar until Andy suggested I go there. And it was a great suggestion: I think I spent more time at the war museum than I did at the British Museum.

Of course I'd rather have peace than war, but I have a fascination with war, especially World War II. And this museum is a treasure of fascination. The museum has a giant atrium within which are a number of tanks, planes, V-2 flying bombs, cannons, submarines, jeeps—you name it. It certainly gives you an impression of how big these things were (and are, I guess). The V-2 rocket in particular is a frightening marvel of technology. And the sheer weight and presence of tanks. You could make a lot of pots and pans out of one tank.

But the best bits of the museum are the specific exhibitions, especially the World War II exhibition, the Holocaust exhibition and the Secret War exhibition (which covers espionage). They have so much stuff there it's hard to take it all in. I spent the whole day there, and I didn't see the whole place. I did get to see a video on Gallipoli; this was a daily show obviously timed for Anzac Day. It was a reasonably old documentary—it interviewed relatively young-looking Gallipoli veterans, so must've been made in the late 70s, early 80s—but it did a great job explaining the Gallipoli campaign and where everything went wrong. Basically, decisions were made that in hindsight were the wrong ones; although in the heat of battle it could be argued that the difference between right and wrong decisions wasn't entirely obvious. The whole thing (both for the Allied and Turkish forces) was one big mess from start to finish.

So that was Friday. Well, most of it. The last bit was spent waiting for René and Biggi to arrive at Bethnal Green from Amsterdam. They had decided to come over for my last weekend to catch up with me, which was fantastic of them. It's only an hour by plane from Amsterdam to London, but having to get to the airport at least two hours before flying and then spending about three hours at Heathrow clearing customs, getting luggage, then sorting out travel across London to Bethnal Green makes the journey into at least a six-hour marathon. And we, silly us, thought that plane travel was supposed to make things much quicker. It's probably faster to take a train from Amsterdam to London via the Chunnel.

After their marathon effort, René and Biggi turned up at the Bethnal Green tube station just after 10pm. They grabbed a quick bite to eat (they got a biscuit on their plane journey: some compensation for all the crap you have to put up with when you fly) and then we all called it a night.

Saturday dawned fin…OK, gotta stop doing that. We didn't really have much of a plan for the day, apart from making a visit to see the new architecture of Canary Wharf, make a visit to the Borough Market and take Biggi to see Harrods (aaaaaagggggghhhhh!) and then take René and Biggi to see the New Zealand War Memorial. And then to have a curry in Brick Lane, a street in the East End known for its curry houses. And then stop off to sample the bar scene in East London. So, not much of a plan, but a big day.

It did start off on a typically English note, however. As we walked to the tube station to make our first appointment for the day with Canary Wharf, we came across masses of policemen. In this day and age it's hard not to make your first thought “oh great, a terrorist threat”, but the police didn't look particularly concerned and weren't herding Muslims out into the street and treating them like tenth-class citizens. They were just standing around, making jokes and commenting “what about this weather, then?” So we had to ask them what was going on. Turns out a football game was on, and they were there to “protect the fans”. Oooooh—hooligans! Wow, we might get to see our first hooligan in the wild.

With some trepidation (as hooligans are rightfully acknowledge as brainless morons who would trample their own mother to satisfy their bloodlust), but safe in the knowledge that René is 6'4" and has a brown belt in Aikido, we continued on our way to the tube station. And sure enough, about 400 metres down the road we came across a mob of football supporters surrounded by an even greater mob of police. They looked hooliganish, but they weren't chanting, taunting or making any hooliganish actions whatsoever. In a way it was disappointing, but in a way it wasn't. We skirted around them, thought about making a comment along the lines of “football sucks, petanque rules”, decided against it and headed into the tube station to catch the train to Canary Wharf.

René is right into modern architecture (he lives in a city—Amsterdam—that has some of the best modern architecture going) and was very keen to see the new developments at Canary Wharf, especially the new tube station there. Canary Wharf is nothing if not modern, and although there are architectural highlights to be seen (parts of the new tube station are pretty cool) and René found a few things to marvel at, it's unfortunately mainly a mass of faceless high rise corporate hideaways. A big question we asked ourselves as we wandered the concrete forest was “why do so many people work here; what do they really do?” If anyone has any answers to the question about what do corporate people really do, please let me know.

After getting our fill of the new sterility of Canary Wharf, we headed west and south to the south bank of the Thames for the old grunge of the Borough Market, a vast food market where the produce is fortunately not as grungy as the impressively narrow-streeted and overhead-bridged surroundings.

Before we got there, however, as we walked along the riverside we happened across Dutch celebrations for their Queen's Birthday, which was on the coming Monday. René had just previously expressed his relief to be out of Amsterdam on that particular weekend: apparently everybody goes mad, drinks beer and covers everything in orange. So he was mildly put out to come across the same thing happening on the south bank of the Thames. But not for too long, as our noses led us to some stroopwafels. Mmmmmm…stroopwafel. And although it was a fair old gathering of many things Dutch (big orange tents, the man knocking out clogs and a giant Miffy), we quickly skirted it and arrived at Borough Market.

Borough Market has been around in one form or another for over 700 years, although I'm picking that the scope and variety of the food and drink on offer has never been as large as it is now. The place is huge and is probably one of those places where if you can imagine a food, you'll find it there.

With all that choice, I really had no choice. I had a chocolate brownie. It was nice.

Of course it wasn't only food to be had. Drink was also in plentiful supply. I found a beer stall with beers from all around the world. I looked to see what exotic brews they had from New Zealand: perhaps some Emersons 1812 (or maybe the Pilsner); perhaps some Mike's Mild Ale; what about Founders; Harringtons; Martinborough Ale; even some Macs or Monteiths? No. They had Steinlager and Speight's Gold as our representatives. Oh dear. To drown my disappointment, I headed to the next stall where there was no beer, only cider. And traditionally brewed cider at that. Which tastes a whole lot different from the stuff you get in the supermarket. Wow, you can really taste the apples in this traditionally brewed stuff. And as we (we all had to give it a go) found out after finishing it, it's also quite potent.

Probably that was why we all happily agreed to Biggi's request to head off to Harrods. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have been so agreeable if we'd had all of our faculties. So, we hopped on the magic underground, weaved through the various tunnels and popped back overground at Knightsbridge, where we met the usual crowd of middle-to-late-aged American tourists. Harrods was just as I remembered it from the other day. And leaving it was just as relieving as I remembered it, too.

After Harrods, we wandered back up to Hyde Park Corner: René wanted to check out the NZ War Memorial. I was going over repeat ground here, but managed to get a couple of photos that I think were better than my previous visit. The light was beginning to fade and its quality was pretty good.

It was the fading light that reminded us it was probably time to head back towards Andy's place, on the way stopping for some food and having an ale or two in a bar. Back through the underground it was, again.

For our dinner we decided to stop in on Brick Lane, famous for its proliferation of curry houses. I must say, however, that the reputation is not terribly well deserved. There are plenty of curry houses, for sure, but every single one has a hawker outside who will latch on to you and heckle you constantly. That made trying to read the menus outside each restaurant nigh on impossible—therefore you just have to take a punt on a restaurant and hope they have good food. We took a punt and ended up with a restaurant that served utterly crap food. It was unnervingly bland—a cardinal sin for an Indian dish. My recommendation: stay away from Brick Lane and support your local curry house. If your local curry house is on Brick Lane, go somewhere else.

We ended the night at a little bar 20 minutes walk from Andy's place in Bethnal Green. It was a nice enough place, but with no where to sit, we quickly got tired after our day out walking, so hit the hay in anticipation of my last two days in merry old England.

londinium: part 1

Tue, 22 May 2007 22:36:22 +1200

And so it came to pass, as all good things do, that I ended my most enjoyable time with Felicity and Nathan in Birmingham and headed by train to London. I left on Tuesday morning (24 April) with bags fuller than when I arrived. Various Irish t-shirts, second-hand books and clothes for my nieces were now packed in with my belongings. I hoped that the extra bits and pieces hadn't taken me over my luggage allowance; I didn't really want to have to biff any ballast.

I arrived at London Euston train station about lunch time on the Tuesday and found a little man in a booth willing to part me with 20-something pounds in exchange for a seven-day travel pass for the London Underground and the buses. Then, with my various bags balanced precariously about my person, I rode the escalator down to the Euston underground tube station. One little push from someone in the wrong direction would have had disastrous consequences, as I would've taken out the people below me on the escalator like ten-pins. I then used my newly-purchased travel-pass to let me through the narrow electronic gates to get into the tube station. A struggle thanks to the giant backpack I was wearing and the two other not inconsiderably sized bags I was carrying; it wasn't until I made it through that I looked back and saw the special luggage gate for people like me. I then managed to compress myself onto a newly arrived underground unit that was heading in the correct direction: towards Oxford Circus to meet Andy who was going to give me his flat key so I could turn around and head out to Bethnal Green where I was crashing in on him and his flatmates.

I had timed my arrival just so, such that I would meet Andy at the Oxford Circus tube station, grab his key, get back on another tube train, head out to Bethnal Green, get to his flat, drop my gear off, turn around, come back into town on the Underground and find a pub somewhere in Soho to watch New Zealand take on Sri Lanka in the Cricket World Cup semi-final. Of course, as it turned out, I needn't have bothered as the Black Caps made me ashamed to be cheering for them. Depressed from the cricket, but thankfully not really caring because of all the beers I'd had watching them during the afternoon and early evening, I called it a day and retired to Andy's couch to get some sleep. Which was unfortunately quite difficult, as the couch was really, really, really uncomfortable. And that's an understatement. The next day I went out and bought his flat an inflatable mattress; both for my sake (as I was spending five more nights there) and for any poor unfortunates following in my footsteps. The inflatable mattress was only about £7 from Argos; Argos is cool; Argos rules; Argos is the man, man.

Wednesday dawned fair and fine. Again. Surely the whole trip couldn't have nice weather? Surely? Although it was a special day, of course: Anzac Day. It should be a requirement to be fine on such a day.

Being on holiday, and weary from the previous day's travel and cricket watching, I didn't get up for dawn service. I made do with heading out to Hyde Park Corner to see the new New Zealand War Memorial. Hyde Park Corner is an interesting piece of green: a traffic island, kind of like the Basin Reserve in Wellington, albeit without the grandstands and cricket oval. It does, however, have numerous war memorials and other statues, including an Australian War Memorial, the Wellington Arch (a great triumphal arch in honour of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington), a few other statues to soldiers and regiments and yet another statue in tribute of the aforementioned Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley.

The New Zealand War Memorial is quite understated in comparison to the arch, and even the Australian War Memorial, but I like it. It's very clever in its design: there are sixteen cross-shaped bronze pillars that have angle-cut tops that look like white crosses. New Zealand motifs and quotes are shaped into the pillars, and on a few of them are inobtrusive neon lights that form the Southern Cross and Pointers at night.

Being Anzac Day, there were a number of poppy wreaths lying at the foot of both the New Zealand and Australian War Memorials. After reading who put them there (mainly the governments of Australia, New Zealand and the UK and the armed forces of said countries) and a moment's reflection, I directed myself into the adjacent Hyde Park to have a wander.

Hyde Park is big; it's great to see an expanse of green like that in such a big city. It makes a change from all the concrete and road and pedestrian noise. However, I found I couldn't escape the pageantry of London. Wandering along parallel to South Carriage Drive I head the clip-clop of horses hooves and the unmistakeable tunes of a brass band. Turning around, sure enough there was a parade of mounted men heading my way: some with instruments (from which I surmised were coming the musical sounds) and some with drawn swords (from which there were no sounds, just the look of shiny and well-cared for steel). The strange thing was: there was no one really to make a parade for around here. Just me and couple of other strollers wandering through Hyde Park.

It soon made a bit more sense when I saw them turn into a gate that said “The Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment”. I guessed that they were the Mounted Regiment and that was their home. Still, quite why they were doing the full parade thing (including police escort to protect them from the non-existent ravening hoards) was a bit beyond me. Maybe it was just practice. Or maybe they'd all been to see the Queen in Buckingham Palace and they were all in high spirits to be heading home again. Whatever the reason, it made for a cool spectacle.

I then noticed a small riding pen in Hyde Park, just across from the gate through which the parade quickly disappeared. I surmised it was probably the Regiment's training pen. My deduction was helped by the fact that there were a number of horsemen in military-type clothing and carrying big sticks with flags on them running all sorts of drills. It made for a good photo opportunity and it soon drew a reasonable crowd of onlookers.

After I satisfied my photographic whims I headed south from Hyde Park and ventured towards that paragon of department stores, Harrods. Not really being in to the whole department store shopping thing, this was more curiosity value than anything else. And what a curiosity. It is a big store, as you'd expect. And it was packed with people, as you'd expect. And there was this strange Egyptian motif going on; which, as Harrods is owned by Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, is also as you'd expect. What I didn't really expect was the sheer range of things for sale inside the place. There are probably stores around the planet who stock more stuff, but I had Harrods pegged as an ultra up-market store, and not a place where you could buy cricket bats or bandaids. But you can, if you so desire. Also, I didn't really expect that some things would be reasonably priced. Some things weren't, of course. But some things were.

To tell you the truth, I was quite glad to get out of the place: it was mainly tourists inside—mainly late-middle-aged American tourists—and it mainly made me want to leave. I think I'd rather do my shopping somewhere else.

And so I did. I went to Argos and bought an inflatable mattress.

The next day dawned fine. Again. Really, when was I going to get bad weather here? (As it turned out, except for a brief half hour period, never.) Today was my day to visit the British Museum. I'd been to the Science and Natural History Museums last time I was in London, but missed the British Museum. Eveyone had since told me it was not to be missed. I was determined, therefore, not to miss it again.

After once again turning the wrong way after leaving a tube station, I eventually sorted out my bearings and found the British Museum. Everything's upside down in the Northern Hemisphere; the sun is in completely the wrong half of the sky and that throws me out completely; I think I will start calling the Northern Hemisphere “Upside Down Land” from now on, because it is. As it turns out, finding the British Museum isn't really all that hard, because it's a pretty big building. In fact, it contains the largest covered public square in all of Europe. Or so I am led to believe. I must admit, it is a pretty large covered public square, so maybe they are on to it.

The British Museum specialises in antiquities from around the world. There are so many antiquities there, it makes you wonder if there are any left out in the real world. The Egyptian rooms go on forever, and just when you thought you'd conquered forever, you'd be confronted with the Roman rooms, the Greek rooms, the Middle Eastern rooms, the Japanese rooms, the Asian rooms, the…I get tired just thinking about all the walking those rooms entailed. It is a place you could easily spend a day at, and I pretty much did.

The undoubted highlight was the Rosetta Stone, and the rest of it was overwhelming. So much to take in, I probably didn't. I bought a book on the museum and its collection, so I now fortunately don't have to remember.

Coming out of the museum, I was struck by a most peculiar sensation. The sky was dripping on me. What was that all about? I looked up and couldn't see blue sky. Oh no, was the sky about to fall? Or at least, was the water vapour held in suspension about to fall? The answer was almost. It kinda rained for about a half hour, and then it went away again.

After a quick stop in at Covent Garden to have a look around and with early evening approaching, I met an old friend of mine, Bryce, in town for a few drinks. Bryce has been living in London for about eight years now, which meant I wasn't expecting him to get lost as much as he did as we walked from pub to pub. Well, not lost as such, because he always knew that if he walked in this direction for long enough he'd find somewhere recognisable, but let's just say he wasn't pointing out many points of interest in our journeys. He explained that it was the Londoner's malady: the Underground may be a great way to get from A to E, but you completely miss points B, C and D on the way.

Wow, I can't believe how much I'm writing. I'm only a couple of days into my London section of the trip, and yet I've already written a tome. That shows, I think, the calibre of stuff around London. More of that high-bore stuff to follow shortly…

wales

Mon, 07 May 2007 14:52:48 +1200

Over my last weekend in Birmingham—the weekend of 21 and 22 April—Felicity, Nathan, Geoff, Kerryn and myself all took a trip to Wales. Because it was only a weekend, we couldn't really go too far, or see too much, but we decided upon two stops:

Aberystwyth, because it was reasonably close, it is a seaside resort, it is historical (although what isn't in the UK?) and just saying it makes you feel Welsh; and
Hay-on-Wye, because it is full of secondhand book stores, was once an independent state and is one of the few places that Geoff and Kerryn hadn't been to.

We took off in Geoff and Kerryn's car on the Saturday morning. I didn't notice it at first, but about half an hour into the trip Geoff pointed out that one of his rear wheels was squeaking. Sure enough it was, and from then on all I could hear was the wheel. It steadily got worse, and of course it was contagious: the other rear wheel started squeaking. And then both started squealing. Ah, nuts. Well, probably wheel bearings to be honest.

“That's the first I've heard it do that,” said Geoff. I was waiting for the rear wheels to both drop off and bounce past us as we slid to a halt in a shower of sparks, but fortunately that never happened. In fact, we soon stopped at Berrington Hall and once we started again we only heard the squeak intermittently for the rest of the trip.

Berrington Hall is the quintessential English manor house. Imposing and austere, it looks out over a grand vista of rolling green fields, copses and a large lake. It also has a ha-ha and was the last landscaping project of the improbably named Capability Brown. We had no real reason to stop there, save that it was on our route from Birmingham to Aberystwyth and it was a National Trust site, which meant that Geoff, Kerryn, Felicity and Nathan all got in for free, because they had little membership cards. Because I had been too lazy to join the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, which would have given me a little membership card and reciprocal rights to National Trust sites, I had to pay a couple of quid. That will learn me.

We didn't have enough time to stick around and go on a tour of the interior of the Hall, so satisfied ourselves with wandering the grounds for a few minutes. Then it was back into the car and onward ho.

The trip from Birmingham to Aberystwyth took about two and a half hours, and apart from the intermittent squeak was pretty uneventful. We passed into Wales—or Cymru as the welcoming sign told us—and the landscape started getting a bit more three dimensional than what we had been passing through in England.

We took a brief detour off the road into Aberystwyth to try and see the Devil's Bridge. We didn't know much about it before we made the turn off, other than that it was a bridge and probably had something to do with the Devil, or at least a devil. In the end, it was a bit of a wild goose chase: we found a car park in which there seemed to be a number of cars, er, parked, but there didn't seem to be any signs up saying we had found what we were looking for. So we exited the car park and made on our merry way looking for some sort of signage that would point us in the right direction. It was only a little way down the road that we realised that we had been in the right car park, but (a) we couldn't be bothered turning around and (b) we'd have to make a 27-point turn to turn around on the narrow stone wall-lined road we were on.

We reached Aberystwyth about mid-afternoon and headed straight for the sea shore. Aberystwyth has two main beaches: a stony one and a sandy one. We somehow got landed on the stony one. The sandy one looked quite nice, sitting there off in the distance in the sunshine. I don't know why we didn't move over to it. Still, sitting on the stony beach skimming stones in a relatively flat sea wasn't too bad an experience. It wasn't like we were going to go and have a dip. Although it was spring-time and the UK was currently having it's warmest April on record (or something like that), the sea looked cold. This was confirmed when Nathan took his socks and shoes off and waded in a bit. He came back all a-blue and teeth chattering. No further explanation was required. Of course, this didn't stop the odd local rushing into the water. But even they must have found it cold, as pretty much all of them assumed a position of hands straight up in the air, standing on tippy-toe and breathlessly screaming as they attempted to tell their bodies that although it was freezing cold this was really quite fun.

Aberystwyth has a ruined castle on the waterfront, which is quite a cool thing to have. More places should have ruined castles on their waterfront. After a couple of hours of throwing stones and exploring the castle, we decided to head into the tourist centre to book some accommodation for the night. Unlike our trip to Ireland, we decided to wing it and just stay in whatever was available. We wanted to stay a bit out of Aberystwyth to get some country air and solitude. As it turned out, we ended up with a bit of bizarre bed and breakfast place. It was obviously used for school camps and such, as there was the main house where the host lives (and which has a couple of guest rooms), plus a spooky house out the back with untold rooms (mainly showers and toilets, as it turned out). We ended up staying out the back in the spooky house. We didn't mean to choose this place: it was recommended to us by the tourist centre. Maybe it was because we were New Zealanders and keep beating the Welsh at rugby and they decided to get a little of their own back by putting us up at the local spooksville. Actually, the place wasn't that bad: it was a rambling place that had a certain amount of charm. It also had a ping-pong table, a mini-pool table, big giant couches, and no ghosts.

Just a note for all those heading into Aberystwyth: it isn't all that big, but as we found out after trying to leave the place, it has possibly the most confusing one-way system on the planet. Kerryn was trying to navigate using a street map; unfortunately, the street map did not note the direction of traffic flow on it, so working under the assumption that all roads were two-way was probably not the right thing to do. We'd get to an intersection, go to turn left, and find out we could only turn right. This happened disconcertingly often, and we eventually managed to work ourselves into a single lane side street going in entirely the wrong direction up a hill. Bugger. After a bit of judicious reversing, we tried a couple more times to overcome the one-way system. After going around the same roundabout for about the fifth time in a row we eventually pulled out trusty TomTom and said goodbye to Aberystwyth. (Note, this is no slight on Kerryn's navigation skills—we all had our opinions to offer on the map and which way to go and invariably we were all wrong.)

After our night in the haunted B&B (well, it looked like it should have been haunted, but there was a distinct lack of white-sheeted apparitions) we headed south-east towards Hay-on-Wye. Hay-on-Wye would normally be an unspectacular place, even though it is on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park and the ominously named Black Mountains (which aren't really all that Black, and are not really mountains either). So, back in the 1960s, a local named Richard Booth decided to change all that by opening a secondhand bookstore. Some would say that this is not really a world-changing event, even for such a small place as Hay-on-Wye.

However, Booth knew what he was doing, which was to establish Hay-on-Wye as the centre of the secondhand book universe. And it's testament to his tenacity that he has succeeded. Hay-on-Wye is now home to about 30 secondhand book stores, including Booth's (which claims to be the biggest in the world).

We spent about four hours wandering around the township. Not all the bookstores were open (it was a Sunday after all), but a goodly percentage of them were. Certainly enough to keep us all reasonably entertained for a few hours. And when there wasn't a bookshop to satisfy us, there was a fudge shop. Mmmmmm…fudge.

Most of us came away with at least one book. I came away with three. It probably would have been more, but airplane weight restrictions kept nagging at me.

And so our weekend in Wales was at an end. We bundled up into Geoff and Kerryn's squeaky car and headed back to Birmingham. I only had one more day there before heading to London for the last section of my trip. And I used that day for that most entertaining of tasks: washing of clothes and packing.

around birmingham

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:08:52 +1200

The week after we got back from Ireland, Felicity and Nathan both had to go back to work, as did Andy. Poor Andy. He had to catch a 7am train on Monday back to London from Birmingham in order to go to work that day; this was after getting in from Belfast at about 12:30am! I, however, being on holiday (bwahahahaha) had time to kill. I took the Monday off and spent it playing with my photos from Ireland and writing up the last of my blog entries for my time there.

The rest of the week, however, I either borrowed Felicity and Nathan's car, or took the train, and visited various locales in the Birmingham area. I started on Tuesday with Ironbridge and Ludlow.

Ironbridge is famous for…well, what else…an iron bridge. The first bridge ever, indeed, built entirely out of iron. And typically for stuff built a long time ago, it is very decorative. But Ironbirdge is not just an iron bridge. The valley where Ironbridge lies, called Ironbridge Gorge and cut by the River Severn, is the hub of the Industrial Revolution, and the iron bridge is just a very visual reminder of the profound change brought about by that period. Quite a legacy for what is a pretty small place, and one that now looks as serene and green as it's probably ever been. The importance of this region can be summed up quite well by noting that it is now a World Heritage Site.

There are a number of small museums dotted about the Ironbridge Gorge area, each one detailing a small part of the region's Industrial history. I only visited one on my fleeting visit: The Museum of the Gorge, and missed going to the other nine museums. However, the Museum of the Gorge is probably the main one to check out as it gives an overall view of the history. Each of the other nine museums is dedicated to single industries, such as china, tiles, iron foundries, pipeworks (the type of pipe you use for smoking), etc.

After leaving Ironbridge, I headed for Ludlow. Ludlow is in Shropshire, a very rural part of England. Consequently, there is a lot of rolling pastureland about; the countryside is typical English countryside. Ludlow sits quite serenely amongst the land. A lot of the houses are of the Tudor style known as half-timbered (the white houses criss-crossed with brown or black timbers). And in the middle of the town sits a large castle—mostly in ruins, but it is still quite impressive. The first castle was built here in the 11th century, and it has been added to considerably since then. For the last three hundred years or so, however, it hasn't really been touched. A restoration project is underway, but it will probably be a number of years before the castle is fully restored. It is well worth visiting now, however, as if my experiences with Warwick Castle are anything to go by, when it is restored there will be many more visitors and the splendour of the place may be diminished somewhat.

So, Warwick Castle. I went to Warwick on the Wednesday. Older than Ludlow castle by about two hundred years, Warwick Castle is also in far better condition. It is also a bit of a tourist trap. There is absolutely no doubt the castle is in magnificent condition and one of the best examples of a castle anywhere, but the workman vans parked around the grounds with the workmen weed-eating and watering lawns kind of diminishes the mystique a little bit. Only a little bit though. Warwick Castle is now run by the Tussauds Group (as in Madame Tussauds), which may give you a little idea of how it has been commercialised. And yes, there are wax figures present.

One thing that Warwick Castle does quite well is give information presentations about medieval life. When I was there there were four shows running: one on archery, one on trebuchets, one on falconry and one on the ghosts of Warwick Castle. I didn't bother seeing the ghosts, mainly as it cost extra, and getting into the castle was expensive enough—£15; still, you could pretty much spend the whole day there, which I virtually did. The other three exhibits were free, however, and quite well done.

The archery one was just a guy dressed up as an archer from around the time of the Hundred Years' War. The main topic of conversation was the English Long-Bow (actually invented in Wales), and how hard it was to shoot. There were also some reasonably graphic descriptions of arrows and arrowheads, and how to remove them if you got pinned. (Note: removing them really, really hurt). The host proceeded to reel off a few shots with his long bow. He was a reasonable shot, but the one thing you noticed was that there is no time to aim with a long-bow: it's so hard to pull that you can really only pull and release immediately. Hence it requires a lot of practice to get really good at it. The English realised this and made everyone train with them from the age of seven. (Every man in England at this time was required to have a long bow and be proficient at it.)

The second presentation was on the trebuchet. The castle has a real, live and quite large trebuchet. In fact, it is the largest in the world. The demonstration finished with them firing it. I'm not sure whether anything was actually fired, certainly not the boulder it is capable of firing. The public were kept well away from the machine while the demonstration was going on and it was hard to see whether anything was in the firing basket. Four lucky members of the public, however, did get to prime the trebuchet. This is done on this particular machine by walking around, hamster-like, in a two big wheels to draw the firing arm back. It is apparently quite a bit of work to do this, and it is also common to induce motion sickness in those walking in the wheel as the slats produce a motion picture effect. Animals weren't used to prime the trebuchet as apparently during wartime when you were away performing a siege on a castle or town you couldn't afford the expense (mainly in terms of manpower) in looking after the animals.

The final presentation was on falconry, and it was a chance for the castle to show off its collection of birds of prey. Not only falcons are used in falconry; in fact, out of the four or so species of bird on offer, not one was a falcon. There was a Verreaux's Eagle Owl, a Bataleur Eagle, a couple of vultures and a Bald Eagle, which isn't really bald of course; it's just a contract from piebald, meaning “without colour” and in reference to the white head and tail feathers.

Although expensive, Warwick Castle is probably worth a day out; there are exhibits within the castle buildings as well as the live presentations: wax figures, the castle through the ages, etc. The castle was in use as a residence right up until the 20th century, hence there have been additions to the castle throughout all the ages. The most recent additions were electric generators, both hydro (the castle is next to a river) and gas, and there is even a small exhibit on the various generators.

My last Birmingham day excursion was to take a drive through the Cotswolds. This is quintessential England. Small picturesque villages studded through green rolling hills. Most rich people in England live in the Cotswolds, and it's not hard to see why. Driving your Ferrari down some of the one-way lanes, you'd have to be rich not to worry about the occasional ding or scrape. In fact I did almost get hit by a Ferrari in Chipping Campden. Maybe it was Jeremy Clarkson.

There's not much to say about the Cotswolds, really. There are lots of small villages, they're really picturesque and the English countryside is very nice on a nice day. Oh, that's one other thing I should say. What's up with the weather here? I haven't experienced rain once on my trip, apart from about half an hour at the top of a mountain pass in Ireland. What is up with that?

(Which reminds, better go out and enjoy the good weather while it lasts. I'm in London at the moment; I'll be writing my time here up soon, as well as my last weekend in Birmingham, which turned out to be a weekend in Wales.)

finally: an irish index

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:16:17 +1200

Well, I've finally managed to finish my postings on Ireland. Here is an index of them for your viewing pleasure (in chronological order):

“the troubles”: being our time in Belfast. My photos from Belfast are here.
“brú na bóinne”: getting from Belfast to Dublin by way of Neolithic burial sites in County Meath. My photos of this leg of the trip are here.
“my goodness my guinness”: our time in Dublin. My photos from Dublin are here.
“make for the gap of wicklow”: heading from Dublin down to Kilkenny by way of the Wicklow Mountains. My photos from this drive are here.
“crystal clear”: our (short) time in Kilkenny and the trip to Cork via Waterford and the Waterford Crystal factory. My photos from this portion of the trip are here.
“have fun storming the castle”: from Cork we made our way to Castletownshend by way of Kinsale. My photos from this leg are here and here.
“seven hours in a jag”: from Castletownshend we made our longest car journey to Spiddal in County Galway. My photos from this day are here.
“the burren”: a day trip through the Burren and to the Cliffs of Moher we made whilst staying in Spiddal. My photos of this trip are here.
“onwards and northwards”: leaving Spiddal, we headed north through Connemara, County Mayo (God help us) and County Sligo to get to County Donegal. My photos of this leg of the trip are here.
“giant's causeway”: the final link in the chain. My photos of our last day in Ireland and Northern Ireland are here.

Enjoy!

giant's causeway

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:38:39 +1200

Our last day in Ireland, and we had a full day to get from Lough Eske to Belfast International Airport. We had various plans for the last day, including making a two hour detour to see the Slieve League, the tallest cliffs in Europe at 600m—why aren't these better known? But in the end decided for a quiet drive up to the Giant's Causeway and then a leisurely journey back to the airport.

We did take a slight detour up the Inishowen Peninsula: again, some pretty interesting scenery; vague resemblances to the Desert Road and Connemara in places. We came back down through Londonderry into Northern Ireland. Now we were back into miles instead of kilometres and the land (being the UK) where diesel is more expensive than petrol. If you're driving a diesel around Ireland, it pays to fill it up in the Republic rather than Northern Ireland as it's a lot cheaper: about €1 as opposed to 95p.

Once past Londonderry, we headed up to the north coast around Portrush where the Giant's Causeway is. The Giant's Causeway was either built by the Irish hero Finn McCool as a way to get to Scotland to beat up his Scottish counterpart Benandonner, or was produced about 60 million years ago when upwelling lava cooled and contracted into hexagonal shapes. Take whatever explanation you prefer.

However they were formed, they do look reasonably artificial. From a distance the symmetry and uniformity is quite a sight. Although, when you get up close you can see how irregular most of the hexagons are: they're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

Tourists are allowed to clamber all over the formation, even right down to the breaking sea. There are signs pointing out the dangers of this, as well as photos of wet and miserable looking tourists being helped from rescue helicopters. Unrestricted access is quite refreshing in this day and age of health and safety and preservation at all costs, but I can see the other side of enacting restrictions. Many of the columns at the causeway are getting worn to a rounded sheen by the thousands of booted feet that have walked all over them. And seeing a Mars bar wrapper stuffed into the gap between two columns is not an endearing sight. Maybe it won't be too long before people are being asked to stand behind the rope.

We left the causeway about mid-afternoon and dawdled our way back to the airport. Our flight wasn't scheduled until 9:15pm, but we wanted to be there reasonably early in light of our experiences rushing through check-in and security on our flight over, although we knew that there was not going to be the jam-packed holiday rush of a Good Friday going back. In the end, our flight was delayed by 50 minutes, so we had an enthralling three or so hours waiting at Belfast International Airport. The later flight also meant we missed the last train from Birmingham airport into the city, so we had to take a taxi. We didn't arrive back at Nathan and Felicity's apartment until just after midnight. Poor Nathan and Felicity had to go to work the next day, but at least work is around the Birmingham environs: Felicity is about 10 minutes walk away; Nathan is a 40 minute drive up to Stone. Even poorer Andy had to catch a red-eye train back to London to get to work. I was the lucky one—although I know the same thing is going to happen to me after I get back to Wellington.

Still, I don't think any of us would have forsaken the trip to Ireland in exchange for a few more hours sleep on Sunday night. Although it was a whirlwind trip, it was absolutely brilliant, and I'd love to go back again at some stage.

onwards and northwards

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:29:50 +1200

Our second-to-last day in Ireland was spent travelling from Spiddal up to Lough Eske, just north of Donegal. The travelling would firstly take us through the region known as Connemara, which straddles County Galway and County Mayo (God help us). Connemara starts around Spiddal, and you don't travel far to the west before the countryside starts changing. Yet again. Connemara is nothing like the rest of the Irish countryside we'd travelled through. In places it gets very much like the Desert Road, except there are small lakes dotted everywhere, which the Desert Road doesn't have. There is the same dearth of trees, the same tufty brown grass and the same rocky appearance, though. In other places it was reminiscent of the Burren, especially as the initially rolling country gave way to more upthrusts of bedrock as we got further inland. But in most places it was quite unique. Around the fantastically named Maumturks and the Twelve Bens the vista really is spectacular. We did see a few more trees as we headed inland, mainly pine—I'm not sure if they were native or introduced for forestry.

We headed from Spiddal to a coastal town called Clifden. From Clifden we headed out of the Connemara district, north to Westport. Like the South Island's Westport, the Irish Westport is a coastal town (I guess the word “port” in the name gives it away) in quite an isolated part of the country, and has some spectacular country around it. There are plenty of mountains, lakes and trees around.

County Mayo (God help us) suffered terribly during the Irish Potato Famine. So much so that whenever the name “Mayo” (God help us) was uttered, people used to add “God help us” to it. The practice stuck around through the ages, and apparently is still said today, although we can't verify this as we didn't hear anyone say “Mayo” (God help us).

From Westport, we struck eastward. We were heading through County Mayo (God help us) and doing a slingshot manoeuvre eastwards through Sligo to get to Donegal. Not far out of Westport, just past the wonderfully named Letterfrack, we came upon Kylemore Abbey. It was originally a castle, built by an eccentric 19th century English businessman because he'd had his honeymoon at that place and thought it idyllic. Which it is, being at the base of stark mountain, surrounded by bush and with its own not inconsiderably sized lake. It was taken over by a group of Benedictine nuns from Belgium during or just after World War I. We had visions of nuns storming the castle with automatic weapons, possibly by using jet-skis and/or water-skiing. But we assume in reality the take-over was peaceful. The abbey is now run by the nuns as an exclusive private school for girls.

After the abbey, we came across what may, or may not be, Ireland's only fjord, Killary Harbour. If it is a fjord, then Ireland has exactly one fjord. If it isn't a fjord, then Ireland has exactly none. No one really knows for sure whether it is a fjord, as although it looks like one, it may not have been formed by glaciation, and if it wasn't, then it fails to meet the most basic of the strict entry criteria into fjord-dom. It is still spectacular, however.

After leaving Mayo, God help us, we entered into County Sligo. And the weird and wonderful countryside just kept getting better. Above the township of Sligo rises Ireland's own table mountain, Benbulben. A limestone plateau, this is really quite striking. Slightly less striking, although no less interesting, is the history of Megalithic tomb building in the area.

We went to one site, the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery, that has more than 50, and possibly as many as 200, Megalithic tombs. About a dozen or so are readily viewable, the most impressive being Tomb 51, or Listoghil, which appears to be the central tomb. All the other tombs so far excavated point towards this central tomb. Listoghil was a portal tomb, or dolmen, covered by a cairn. It has only been recently that concerted efforts have been made to excavate and restore the Carrowmore site.

Carrowmore isn't the only stone-age site in the Sligo area. In fact, on pretty much every mountain top you will find a cairn, indicating some sort of stone-age activity; either a tomb, or a marker of some description. One of the best such places is Knocknarea, another lump of bedrock rising about 300m from the surrounding countryside. There is a fine view of Knocknarea from Carrowmore. The most visually arresting thing about Knocknarea—quite apart from the fact of its appearance in the first place—is the small, but eminently visible, bump on top of it. This bump actually turns out to be a huge cairn about 10 metres high. It is supposedly the tomb of Queen Maeve, a famous heroine of Irish folklore. The cairn has not been excavated, so it is not known exactly what is in it. We would like to have got up to Knocknarea, but we were running out of time (a familiar refrain for our rapid circumnavigation of Éire—pronounced kind of like "ear", by the way, with an aspiration on the r).

With light again running out for us, we managed to get to Ardeevin on the slopes above Lough Eske, just north of Donegal. Ardeevin was our final bed and breakfast lodging for our trip. We managed a quick nip into Donegal town for our last proper meal in Ireland, but that was it for our penultimate day.

the burren

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:04:41 +1200

We were staying two nights in Spiddal, so we had a whole day to spend around County Galway and, as it turned out, County Clare. Our main target for the day were the Cliffs of Moher, and it just so happens that they are just south of a landscape known as the Burren. Not knowing much about the Burren, anything would have been a surprise, but I think even if we'd known exactly what to expect we would have been quite astounded by it.

The Burren is within County Clare, just south of County Galway. Driving south from Galway, just after the town of Kinvara (and the castle of Dunguaire) things start to get a little different. That's when you first notice the funny hills. The thing about the Burren (which is from the Irish Boireann meaning rocky; there I just gave it away) is that it is rocky. Not just a little bit rocky, with little stones, but a lot rocky, with little stones, big stones, and more bedrock than Fred Flintstone could ever dream of.

The hills are up-croppings of limestone and look otherworldly. Apparently, about 6,000 years ago the whole region looked relatively normal: you couldn't see any rocks because of all the topsoil and trees. And then people came and started clearing the woods and grazing animals on the land. The (admittedly it must have been thin) layer of topsoil eroded and the limestone was uncovered. The bedrock shows through everywhere.

Even the beaches are rock, which makes for some quite spectacular sites when the waves crash on to them. The day we were there the weather was very nice (terrible luck, I know), and the sea quite flat. Even so, the waves were pounding on the rocky shore. It must be quite a sight in a stormy sea.

Even though the Burren is bizarre, the star attraction of the day was always going to be the Cliffs of Moher. Emerging vertically from the sea, these cliffs tower up to 200m above the waves. They are also one of Ireland's main tourist attractions, with appropriate numbers of tourists. The Clare County Council, with the support of the EU and Fáilte Ireland (the national tourism board), have done their bit to make sure that the tourists don't leave with as much money as they came in with. (To be fair, the place has been a tourist trap for almost 200 years; the famous O'Brien's tower that looks out over the cliffs was built back in the early part of the 19th century to cater for tourists wanting a better look, so really the current administration is only carrying on the good work.)

Because just plonking down an entry gate in a paddock and forcing everyone to pay an entry fee would not be practicable for an entire length of coastline, the Irish have done something even more cunning: restricted parking to one area and charging €8 per car. Not a huge price at all, and if you've come with a carload of people, as we did, then the resultant split (€2 each in our case) is entirely reasonable.

The Clare County Council have been using that tourist money to some effect, as the area at the top of the cliffs is very developed. It is fully paved, has concrete walls to stop you wandering off the edge and giant steps taking you up to O'Brien's Tower. There is even a brand spanking new reception/café/souvenir/exhibition centre set into the hillside.

So, if you've come to be at one with one of nature's great sights in complementary natural environs, be prepared to be disappointed. However, the cliffs themselves have not been tampered with and it is entirely possible, with a bit of manoeuvring, to get photographs that give no hint of the development around you.

After wading back through the hordes of tourists to our car, we took off for the trip back to Spiddal. We were doing a loop of the Burren, and our next stop was Poulnabrone Dolmen, somewhere in the interior of the Burren. The dolmen is one of the best examples of what is called a “portal tomb”: a tomb made of five upright stones and a capstone. It is also quite photogenic. And it's not hard to see where they got the stones for it from. In fact, the dolmen is reasonably well camouflaged against the background countryside. If it weren't for the road-side sign pointing it, you'd probably miss it from the road.

There were a couple of other sites the Burren had to offer (including more forts, castles and tombs, as well as caves), but we were running out of time and daylight hours. We decided to head back to Spiddal by way of Gort again. I wanted to try and find some trace of my forefathers there: there is an old family homestead called “Lisheen”, the post office in town was also once a family home and one of the streets (Bolands Lane) was named after some other ancestors. I managed to find Bolands Lane all right (it's in the process of being demolished for new developments), but didn't really have time to hunt out the other places. Never mind—all the more reason to go back to Ireland for another look, as if I need any more reasons. Yes, I might be repeating myself, but the Guinness really does taste better in Ireland.