A Trip Of A Lifetime

First and foremost, an apology for my lack of posting . Time was getting the better of me and something had to give, and sadly for a few months it was  my blog.
I had seriously contemplated  finishing it off altogether but as  I love doing it so much,  I decided to  just take  a breather and hopefully I may now find the time to sit and do a few posts here and there.
So what have we been up to?
Last year we were sitting around a campfire with Brian's two brothers and their wives and we jokingly said "We all should do a holiday to the UK together" and so  the seed was sown !!
We were lucky that a friend of our neighbours 'a Grey Nomad, who travels in an RV and was happy to come here and farm sit while we were away, and once Colin  arrived and set up we headed off to Brisbane where we were to fly out from. I will write this blog probably over 3or 4  posts as I have so many photos to share, so please be patient if I have overloaded  everyone with them.

The six of us had a few days in Brisbane to get a few things organised  and headed off to the airport.

We called this "Our Trip Of A Lifetime" as we made the huge decision to fly Business Class, something we had never done before and will most likely be never able to do again.

We flew with Etihad airlines which had a seven hour stop over in Abu Dhabi.

The Etihad lounge was amazing and we made full use of its services.

I think our decision was  a great one as we had never done a long haul flight before and the trip to Abu Dhabi  and then on to London was really comfortable. The food  and service was amazing.
We hit London running, we stayed at a hotel in Bayswater that on booking online had seemed quite impressive, only to find it was  totally over rated and not as good as it had seemed. We were on the 4th floor with no elevator(74 steps).

The first day we had booked a tour around London with a few  stop offs to check out, the first being "The Changing Of the Guard" at Buckingham Palace.

It was so wonderful and colourful, and the flowers at the palace were stunning.

We also did a tour of  St Pauls Cathedral, no internal photos allowed.

The tour took us to The Tower Of London, and we saw the Crown Jewels.

We also saw Tower Bridge and took a Thames River Cruise.

We saw many famous buildings and  places of interest including the London Eye.
Dinner back at our hotel consisted of  beautiful finger food sourced from the local Sainsbury's supermarket eaten in the hotel foyer.(This became a regular way of eating our meals as it saved us heaps over the period of the 4 weeks that we were away.)

The next morning we had a quick trip to St Mary's Hospital as brother in law Bernie had been unwell for a few days and after a visit to A&E they decided he had Shingles. I have to admit he was wonderful !, as lousy as he felt and the pain he must have been in he continued to soldier on....
After the hospital visit we headed to the Thames to ride the London Eye.

The view form the eye was spectacular, I had thought I would be terrified but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
After the Eye we wandered across the river and the boys went to the Winston Churchill exhibition while we three girls went to St James's Park.

In St James's Park we found a little friend, I fell totally in love with the squirrels.

The next morning we picked up our hire car, a nine  seat Ford Tourneo and headed out of London.
Our first stop was Leeds Castle in Kent.
To get to the castle we had a walk through the beautiful gardens.

We got a group photo in the dining room at Leeds Castle.

Leeds Castle was stunning, well worth  having a wander around, beautifully maintained.
We had booked into a B&B in Maidstone in Kent  as that was the area that all Brian's family had originated from. It was a beautiful old historic building that had been converted into a hotel.

The next morning we headed off to Dover  and did a tour of Dover Castle.

Before we left Dover we checked out the  famous White Cliffs.

We followed the coast around and our next B&B was Bexhill, with it's pebbly beach.

One of the things to do on my wish list was to visit Stonehenge,I loved it !

And now I can cross that one  off my bucket list.
Our next B&B was in Trowbridge.

The next morning was another wish list place for most of our group, the Roman Baths at Bath.

After the Roman Baths we headed to Cheddar Gorge, a quaint touristy town  nestled intothe  mountain side. It is famous for it's cheddar cheese that is made there and stored in the  mountain caves nearby.

Our accommodation that night was in Taunton and we enjoyed another finger food dinner.

My Sister in Law Pam here in Australia has an English cousin in Somerset that I have met out here a few times and as we were close we paid Jane and her husband Ian a visit.
They  operate a lovely small  B&B in the Somerset Levels and they welcomed us  warmly and it was lovely to catch up again.

It was a lovely visit and  we then continued on  towards Plymouth passing through Dartmoor National Park.
We stopped at  a small village called Postbridge in the national park and walked down to the nearby river to check out the two beautiful old bridges there. One is a lovely old arched bridge and the other is a beautiful example of a "Clapper" styled bridge well over 500 years old.

The Dartmoor moors were beautiful, wild  desolate country with ponies and sheep  roaming freely  among  the many hikers that we saw  wandering the trails.
Plymouth was our next stop, a beautiful seaside town, famous to Australians as the  departure port of Captain James Cook. Brian's brother Bill had also  been stationed there  at the army citadel many years ago when he was in the army.

We wandered the streets after doing a tour of the city on the hop on hop off bus,

We loved all the little lane ways and  side alleys

We had lovely cream teas in in small cafe's and feasted on beautiful fresh fish and chips at a restaurant on the harbour.

We spent two nights were spent at Plymouth in a lovely little B&B in Pier street near the harbour, close enough to everything to walk.

Our next destination was St Austells, Cornwell  which we had to cross the bay  by car ferry.

We had googled "Things of interest in  that area" and came up with "The Lost Garden Of Heligan"
It was an amazing garden spread over 200 acres. These gardens  were lost for a period of time due to family members and workers being killed in the war, it was re discovered 25 years ago and now is a magical place of beauty.

There were wonderful  old  rhododendrons , lovely walled gardens and archways of  espaliered  fruit trees,

There were more stunning tulips, and quirky corners.

There is a beautiful walk down to the rain forest area,

A lovely crimson  carpet of fallen Rhododendron petals,

Rope swinging bridges are not my favourites but I managed to cross it and then looked  back at the beauty of the rain forest pool.

We travelled many tiny  country roads and lanes with hedges and stone walls either side of us, the country side when we could see it was so beautiful and green especially after leaving our dry drought affected farm.

Our next B&B for that night was Lodgehill Hotel in Tilverton.

Doing our laundry  while travelling was easy as there were laundromats everywhere, and while doing our laundry  the next morning in Tilverton I loved seeing the big tractors parked at the traffic lights , a common scene in England and Ireland.

After laundry duties we headed to the Cotswolds area  and found our next B&B "Stratton House at Cirencester, a beautiful old historic hotel .

The next morning we headed into nearby Bourton On The Water to wander around  and see this beautiful town with it's  gorgeous Cotswolds style buildings and picturesque  river passing through the centre of town.

The boys checked out the motor and toy museum while we girls wandered the quaint touristy  shops.

After leaving Bourton On The Water we headed directly  to Wales heading towards Ireland.
The natural  beauty of Snowdonia National Park is outstanding. We only passed through but this is somewhere I would definately like to spend more time in one day.

We headed to the port of Holy Head where we stayed overnight at the Travel Lodge  ready to board the Ferry next morning to Ireland.
Our English hire van was held at the Travel Lodge until our return.

The process of loading walk on walk off passengers was interesting, we waited at the terminal and then were all loaded onto a bus which then drove down  into the hull of the ferry.

The passengers all then alighted from the bus and  entered  by climbing several floors up the staircase to the upper deck lounge and  restaurant  area.
We said a temporary farewell to England,

Had some breakfast in the restaurant, had a wander around the open deck area,

Everything had finally caught up with us and we all hunkered down in the lounge and rested  for the several hours  the crossing to Ireland took.

What a wonderful holiday we were having, seeing so many places and things that we had only ever dreamed  about or saw on television or in magazines, cannot still believe we were there.
I have enjoyed sharing some of the highlights with you and hope that you hang around for the rest of our holiday.
Hopefully,available  time and internet access( which has been shocking of late to say the least) allowing I will follow up with the next leg of the journey soon.
Take care
Cheers
Jane and Brian.