London Life, Thanks for the Memories

Perhaps a little late to be reminiscing about our life in London - now sitting at 1 year and 10 months since departing; but better now than never! London - one last tribute, here it is.
Also hoping that this post sparks off a better run of consistent blogging, as we have dropped off a bit. Distracted about plans to revamp this site to be more responsive and search engine friendly; unfortunately the core element - the writing content then dwindled away. Stay tuned for the revamp - it will happen. It was a new year's resolution after-all and those are never made to be broken!

Cork, Kenmare and Galway, Ireland

At the end of May, we visited the southern region of Ireland. The weather was slightly better than what we had experienced in North Wales in the sense that it did not rain. Our route took us from Dublin to Cork, then along the southern coastline to Kenmare. After looping around the Ring of Kerry and a stop over at Moll's Gap, we drove north along the west coast to Bunratty with a final stop at Galway. Along the way we saw some stunning scenery, drank beer, ate many full Irish breakfasts and met some amazing hosts at the Bed and Breakfast places we stayed at.

North Wales, UK

During the first May Bank holiday weekend and whilst Mei's parents were visiting the UK, we spent four days visiting North Wales.
As most of the sights we intended to visit - castles, seaside towns and Snowdonia National Park were outdoors; we hoped for good weather.
But then we were travelling within the UK and were soon brought back to reality that late Spring weather is often full of rain and gloomy skies and rarely sunny and clear.
This added a level of glumness to our trip as we only saw fleeting moments of blue sky - giving us hope on the first day; and sending us on our way the day we left.

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Our trip to Northern Ireland was motivated by a visit to the UNESCO listed Giant's Causeway - an ancient geographic feature caused by a volcanic eruption. We had seen similar basalt columns at the southern tip of Tasmania a few years ago.
Our flights were booked to Belfast - a city full of history and conflict over the years, but now going through a regeneration due to new tourist attractions (eg. Titanic themed museum) and very friendly locals that were curious to find out why we chose to visit Belfast over Dublin.

Winchester, Hampshire UK

The legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table has been remade many times by Hollywood (eg. Camelot, First Knight) and when we found out that the 'Round Table' actually existed in Winchester, we put it down on our 'must visit' list.
Winchester has a historical link as the capital city of Wessex (one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms) and also of England until William the Conqueror moved it to London. The city is linked to King Alfred the Great: his statue is located in the main street and the author: Jane Austen who is buried in the cathedral.

Durham, Yorkshire and Northumberland, UK

This expedited blog post (skipped the queue ahead of postings for Italy and Switzerland adventures during the May Bank Holidays) recaps a very special weekend away in the counties of Durham, Yorkshire and Northumberland. The trip up north was in celebration of Mei's birthday and all the planning and logistics had been organised by Olie in secret. From the photos, you will see that he did an amazing job. Looking forward to next year's birthday celebrations.

Jersey, UK

On the last weekend in November, we visited Jersey - one of the Channel Islands and only 14km off the coast of France. We had booked the trip to Jersey for three reasons:

- The Michelin Star restaurants - so given that good food options is always a trustworthy travel destination criteria - we were on-board to visit (and Jersey butter is pure heaven!) 

- Counting 'another country' although we have aligned this to the UK in our blog categories
- It promised to be warmer than London in November. This turned out to be partly correct as we did get blue sky but also a wind-chill that put Canary Wharf to shame.

Brighton, UK - Part 2

Our trip to Brighton was in celebration of Mei's birthday - a surprise fishing trip that had been organised by Olie.
On the weekend we traveled, the last rays of the September sunshine came out and there was much talk of buying a cooler box to store our catch so that it would stay fresh on the train home. Sadly, no fish was actually caught and Mei got over any romantic notion that deep sea boat fishing was actually an enjoyable activity. The rough choppy sea resulted in several bruises, a good soaking and a new appreciation for the skill of baiting a line with semi-defrosted worms. Squishy.

Isle of Wight, UK

To give our family in Australia a reference point when we talked about the location of Mei's birthday weekend trip - we compared the Isle of Wight as England's version of Phillip Island (just without the penguins).
For the non-Victorian based readers, we invite you to do a quick internet search of Phillip Island, skipping over references to the MotoGP, koalas and giant earthworms; you will find that note only are the Isle of Wight and Phillip Island both lemon shaped, but they both have townships named Cowes and Ventnor.

Weymouth, UK

In celebration of Olie's birthday and following on from the theme of seafood inspired day trips in the UK - we decided to venture a bit further down the coast to Weymouth for the annual seafood festival.
For this trip we recruited two friends to join us - Wai and Jade.
Our journey began from London Waterloo station early on a Saturday morning. The train journey took almost 3 hours and as there was little air-conditioning in the carriages, by the time we arrived at Weymouth close to lunchtime we were seeking fresh air and an outlet to fill our stomachs.

Whitstable and Hever Castle, Kent UK

There are the rare occasions when London's weather brings enough sunshine to stop us moaning about how we miss the Australian climate, and even provides us with enough incentive to set up the BBQ in our backyard.
The past couple of weeks have been sufficiently sun-kissed and we felt the urge to head out to a number of day trips in Kent. Our first trip was to Whitstable, one of the UK's oyster capitals. The second trip was to Hever Castle to watch a reenactment of a medieval joust - a fun family day out at the childhood home of Anne Boleyn - wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I.

Cambridge, UK

On the last day of June, the UK Summer finally popped around to say hello and the temperature topped 27 degrees.
This rare moment of sunshine was an excuse to take a day trip out of London and we headed north to the university city of Cambridge.

The train journey from London King's Cross station took a while due to delays caused by engineering works but very soon after we had arrived in the heart of the city with its sandstone buildings and groups of students carrying luggage and trying to work out the location of their colleges.

Carlisle and Scotland, UK

This blog post includes the short trips that we took around Northern UK (Carlisle, Hadrian's Wall, Loch Ness, Edinburgh) and a weekend side trip to Paris when Mei's parents came to visit at the tail-end of a three week European holiday.
The majority of their trip was filled with a coach tour around the big ticket cities of Europe. They then swapped the professional tour guide for our 'services' as we showed them our favourite places around London - the sights that had caused us to fall in love with being in the UK.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Scotland has been in the news lately due to the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence. Will they succeed? Perhaps. The Scots are a passionate group of people, well enough to be fired up by throat burning whisky and the ice cold wind hanging over the Highlands.
We would miss Scotland - imagine border controls at Hadrian's Wall? Import tax on haggis, bagpipes and kilts. Imagine that.
All things aside, we enjoyed our trip to Edinburgh by train as the journey was scenic and relaxed.

Cardiff, Wales

In keeping in line with one of our travel goals to see different parts of the UK, we ventured west to Wales one Saturday for a day-trip via Megabus. Our destination was Cardiff based on other expat friends and work colleagues insisting that  a day was all the time needed to see the city. And how right they were. Collectively, we spent 6 hours on the return trip by bus but only 6 hours in the city centre walking around to see the main sites, including a trip by boat around the harbour as we were running out of ways to amuse ourselves.

Brighton, UK

It was mid-Autumn so we didn't expect London to have a series of 28+ degree Celsius days. We were not complaining as sought out ways to enjoy the perfect blue sky that coincided with a weekend of non-European travel. So we decided to enjoy the sunshine in the UK outdoors, venturing out to Brighton Beach for some sun. The short stint of great weather was perhaps Mother Nature making up for a wet, sulky summer where August didn't really live up to expectations and we spent our European holidays with an umbrella and rain-coat.

Royal Palaces, UK

The Royal Palaces are fascinating buildings - ornate with gold and carved marble, displaying the excess of the monarchy and royal life that have fascinated ordinary people for hundreds of years. Our interest in visiting the Palaces stemmed from watching many Royal Family documentaries during the time of the Royal Wedding.
The history of Britain is linked with the stories of the monarchy and this blog features our visits to the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and Hampton Court Palace.

Dublin, Ireland

Our trip to Dublin contained an number of milestone '1st times' including:
- 1st time 'overseas' to another European (EU) country and having to buy Euros.
- 1st time travelling on the infamous Ryanair
The latter turned out to be an experience that exceeded the expectations formed from chatting to our expat friends. However this may be because of our size as we don't exactly need a lot of legroom and therefore flying budget is not too much of an unbearable experience.

York, UK

We ate Yorkshire pudding in York. And we weren't fans. Too doughy. Olie preferring the mashed potato to wipe up the gravy rather than the traditional batter cake. And it wasn't our first time either. But it seemed like the thing to do whilst in the city that lent its name to the food. Our first Yorkshire pudding experience was part of the dish eaten in Oxford "Toad in Hole" (sausage inside a Yorkshire pudding). The pub, "Eagle and Child" is definitely more famous as the drinking den of authors JR Tolkien and CS Lewis than pub chain food.

Oxford, UK

Our ongoing activities as a UK tourist continued with a day trip to the township of Oxford, almost 2 hours out of London via Oxford Tube. Blessed with a rain-free day, we walked around the main tourist sites as the university colleges were closed to visitors on this occasion. Oxford's streets and architecture, most notably used as background scenery for Harry Potter films, has a distinct yellow sandstone that contrasts with the prettier white marble in Bath but replicates the Old Arts building / Old Law Quadrangle at Melbourne University.