The Last English Hoorah

During what was to be our last visit to England for a long time, we had a huge list of "must dos". London sightseeing, catching up with friends, tracking down some family history and a road trip to Cornwall - we had a lot to fit into our 10 day visit. So we spent our first weekend catching up with mates for food and beer (surprise, surprise), plus we showed Rachael the what's what of London. We spent a day doing a bit of an "Em and Bol's Walking Tour" taking in Buckingham Palace, Harrods, the Thames, London Bridge, Tate Modern, Westminster Abbey etc etc.

Bol and Rach in Green Park soaking up some rare London sun

Westminster Abbey and Big Ben

Silliness outside Buckingham Palace

Rach thought we should swing on the Buckingham fence for this pic.

The guards aint what they used to be: Where are the cool hats??

Girls by the Thames

Lunching with Grant and Vicki on a boat on the Thames

While in London our friends Tim and Traci bought me a birthday cake for the previous week. They had to carry the cake around all Friday night from pub to pub because I was supposed to meet them out and I failed to show up because I was sick with a stomach bug. So they reorganised things to have some friends over at their place on Sunday for beers, cake and bbq. So sweet!

And of course no London blog posting would be complete without the photos on the town with mates ..... minus me because I was home feeling sorry for myself while staying close to a bathroom :(

So after an action packed weekend in London we headed off on our five day road trip to Cornwall. We hired a "Wicked" campervan (an Australian company which has spread out to the UK) and hit the road. The van was decked out with a big bed which converted to table and chairs, as well as a gas cooker, sink, esky etc, so we were able to completely live out of the back of it. Fantastic. To save money we actually hired a two seater van and the third person had to lie down on the bed in the back the whole time, out of sight of police. Such rebels:) So each day Bol would drive, Rach and I would take turns snoozing in the back, and then at night we would find either a campsite or a simple truck stop to pull over and sleep in. The three of us squeezed snugly into the bed - not much room to move, but it did the trick. We didn't even have blankets so each night we would wake up several times and turn on the heater for five minutes so that we didn't freeze. Now that's travelling!

Bol and our "Wicked" van with its trademark spraypaint job

As I mentioned earlier, our expedition combined some sightseeing with some family history. The first part of that history came during our first day when we visited Surrey, about an hour out of London, to track down some old landmarks for "Poppa Crawley" - my mum's dad. Poppa was in hospital in Surrey during the war and he gave us some photos from 1940 of the old hospital, his friends house, a street in Godalming and some other landmarks to try to find. We were successful on all accounts. We spent hours chatting to enthralled locals who just loved seeing old photos of the area. And the local Godalming museum was so interested in his old photos that they took photocopies and asked that we get in touch if we have any more information about that time for them. We finished off our successful first day with a visit to Stonehenge and then we drove most of the distance to our next destination, Bodmin, before finding a truck stop to pull in at for the night.

In Godalming at the exact spot my grandfather took a photo in 1940

At Ryecroft, his friend's place, which has hardly changed in almost 70 years

Stonehenge at Dusk

The next day we continued with the family history part of our journey. We pulled in at Bodmin, which is at the top of Cornwall, mid-morning. Bodmin is where "Poppa Birdwood" - my dad's dad, spent his childhood. I had a couple of vague names and addresses to follow and after many questions to locals I found the two things I was looking for: Scarletts Well and Tranquil Lane Cottage. My grandpa had liked to hang out at the well when he was a child, and Tranquil Cottage was his home. I was so happy to have found them both and we spent the morning wandering around and taking photos before hitting the road again: destination St Ives. We had originally planned on staying in Newquay for our second night but the line ups to enter the town were ridiculous because of a surfing championship being held there. So St Ives it was - which turned out to be a gorgeous little beach town witha great campsite for us to stay at.

Tranquil Lane Cottage, where my grandpa grew up

At Scarletts Well

The beach at low tide in St Ives

Our campsite in St Ives

Our campsite was between this paddock and the ocean

So with my family history investigations behind us, the next day was spent getting stuck into some Cornwall sightseeing. First off was the Lost Gardens of Heligan - a garden previously hidden away and overgrown for decades, which has recently been rediscovered and restored. Then we drove to the world renowned Eden Project - a series of biomes which look like they are from another planet, containing tropical plants in what are essentially man-made humidity chambers. After these two "educational" stop-offs we jumped in our beast of a van and headed to Looe- a beach-side town recommended by my dad- where we had a beer, took a stroll on the beach and generally spent a couple of hours relaxing. Our final destination for a busy day 3 was Chesil Beach, in Dorset, where we arrived in time for sunset. The beach is quite amazing: millions of perfectly polished, smooth pebbles over a series of tiers which eventually taper off at the ocean. After a long day we ended up pulling over in a truckstop, having a cider and quick game of cards and nodding off to sleep.

This strange character was hiding in the Lost Gardens of Heligan

The crazy biomes of the Eden Project

Above and Below: At Looe

Bol at Rach at Looe

Beers in Looe

The amazing pebbles at Chesil Beach

Sunset at Chesil Beach

The next morning, bright and early, we had an interesting suprise while eating breakfast. Who would have guessed that our lowly truck stop would be the scene for tank training for the army! So we slurped on our weetbix while watching the boys in green with their ever so stylish berets cruise around in this:

A bewildered Bol and Rach enjoy the morning entertainment

After breakfast we jumped back in our van and headed for Monkey World. For those of you who don't get Animal Planet on TV, Monkey World is the sanctuary used for the classic animal show "Monkey Business", which follows the lives of a group of gibbons, orangutans, chimps and baboons as they leave their formerly terrible lives and get rehabilitated. Just fantastic! Seeing the monkeys in real life was amazing and they each had good sized enclosures and clearly enjoyed interacting with each other in their new home.

Awwww........

After Monkey World we found a nice spot to pull over to cook some Spaghetti Bolognaise for lunch ....

Doesn't get much better than that

And then we proceeded to the popular beach town of Brighton where we spent our final night having drinks with some of Rachael's friends before driving our beast back to London the next day. All in all we had an AWESOME road trip and returned the van with big smiles and no dents. We were so glad we had taken the time to check out some of England's countryside before leaving theUK for our beloved Asia.