Belgium

We made it safe and sound on the train from England to France and then only managed to drive on the wrong side of the road once so far! (Luckily it was night time and it didn't matter). We didn't hang around long in France we just stopped for lunch and then it was on to Belgium. First stop was Bruges which turned out to be a great choice as there was a concert on in the centre. We had a look around and bought frites (Belgian fries) and chocolate which were both delicious then we went for beer which was even better.

The next day we looked around Bruges again then we drove to Antwerp where we had another look around more fries and more beer. We stayed the night in Antwerp and today we drove to Michelen where unfortunately we had just missed a huge festival of some kind. After lunch we drove to Brussels and are just about to go exploring here and hopefully find more Belgium beer.

The language has been interesting so far as Belgiums national Language is Flemish or French, but after most people realise we are looking at them blankly they tend to know some English too. Tomorrow there is a huge Flea market on in Brussels which starts at 4:30am so we may be getting up pretty early for that and then we will spend another day or three in Belgium then head to Holland.

Southern England

From Wales, we headed to Salisbury. On the way we stopped in at Bath, home to a nice Abbey and the Roman Baths which are a couple of thousand years old. A real tourist town, it was one of the busiest places we have been in terms of tourists. Didn't stay there long as we were on a mission to Salisbury. Salisbury is a market town and for the last 600 years have held markets every Tuesday and Saturday....... it was Tuesday. After having a look round the markets we went and saw the Cathedral and then drove out to Stonehenge. By the time we got there it was getting dark, but there were a whole lot of campers parked up for the night so we joined them. Stonehenge is right by the roadside so it was really easy to have a good look at it and where we slept was only about 200 metres away from it. We woke at 6am to a magnificent view of stonehenge and a beautiful sunrise, all from the comfort of the van.....pretty exciting! After I spent a while taking far too many photos of Stonehenge we were ready to go. We moved on to another stone circle in Avebury. On the way we saw one of the 8 white horses in the area. (Pictures of horses carved into the chalk hill) The oldest one is about 200 years old. The Avebury stones were cool but you can't see the whole 348m circle at once because many years ago they convieniently built a small village in the centre. From there we went to a place called Old Sarum. It was a site which had been used by many people over the years from the Iron age, Normans, Saxons and i'm sure there were some others. There is currently castle ruins on the site. It has really high banks and once had a moat.

From Salisbury, we headed down to the bottom coast, to Christchurch (purely picked for the name) We visited the Christchurch Priory which is a lovely church and also found out how Christchurch got its name. Visited the New Zealand gardens where it is all planted out with plants from home. On Thursday we left Christchurch and headed back to Tina and Martin's in Essex where we are now. We leave tomorrow for the East coast where we will take Ted on the tunnel train to France.

Wales

We pulled into Pembroke in the wee hours of the morning so didn't go far before turning in for the night. The next morning we woke to find we had slept by a tidal millpond, mill and Carew castle. We had a look there then moved onto Swansea. On our way we found a massive car boot sale so had to stop for a look. It had been on our list of things to do while in the UK. We bought a book for 30p and a couple of wine glasses for 10p each. I could have bought so many more things but fragile old vases and bowls aren't really good for us right now. Margaret you would have loved the car boot sale. Then as we were heading down a very narrow country road we came across some dirt track racing so pulled in to watch for a while. We had arrived just in time for the finals and were stoked to see some minis racing. Once we finally made it to Swansea we went out for a pub meal. Trying to keep it as traditional as possible we had Lamb Cawl and Pork faggots which was quite good! Swansea also had a lovely beach for walking and a marina, we walked around there for a few hours. We drove up to Beacon National Park where there was a lot of nice walking areas and caves. It was soooo hot though that we only had a short walk. We drove the coast road to Cardiff which was lovely and had lots of little seaside towns with nice beaches. As the weather was beautiful there were a lot of people around. In Cardiff we walked through town and saw Cardiff Castle and Millenium Stadium. I would have said Wales is a lovely place to go on your Summer holiday and relax for a week by the beach.

More photos from Ireland

Ireland

We have had a wonderful 6 days in Ireland and are about to make the drive to Rosslare to catch the ferry to Fishguard in Wales.
We began as you know in Larne where the ferry goes to, and the next day went to the Giant's Causeway and had a day walking around the stunning cliffs and coast. Next stop was Derry (Londonderry) the home of Bloody Sunday. Derry was a lovely town with A LOT of history surrounding it from the 1600's right through to the 1990's. Over the next day we drove the Causeway Coast to Belfast and stopped there for a night. Belfast was the home of a large ship building industry, and where the Titanic and its sister ships were built. We walked the dry docks and saw 'Samson and Goliath' the 1000 tonne cranes. Had a Guiness at the Crown Liquor Saloon and visited the city halls which are made of a lot of beautiful marble.
We moved on down to the Republic of Ireland the next day and had to make a hastey exit from the motorway when we were approaching a toll bridge and realised we didn't have any Euro's. This bought us to the lovely town of Drogheda. Close to Drogheda was some 'mounds' made by the people in Ireland over 5000 years ago. They are like burial mounds with passageways and they also work like a calendar for the people of that time using the sun. They were built even before the pyrimids and Stonehenge and were amazing. We went for a tour through one called Newgrange.
That night we moved onto Dublin and had our first paid night of accomodation in the Camac Valley camping ground which was delightful!
Spent the next day looking round Dublin. Went to the Temple bar established in 1840 and a cool museum.
Next stop was Kilkenny. Arrived later in the day so went to the pub and not much else. Today we have looked around Kilkenny town which had lots of nice little shops. Also went to Kilkenny castle. On the way out of Kilkenny to Rosslare we stopped at Kell's Priory which was a highly fortified monastry ruins. These were the biggest and best ruins we have seen so far but funnily they are free to look around when and how you want. We were the only ones there when we went which made it even better. Once in Rosslare we found that the ferry to Wales was cheaper to go to Pembroke so we booked in for there. The ferry crossing was partly in daylight so we got to sit on the veranda and watch the sunset. The trip took 4 hours and we arrived into Wales at 1am. We have booked the tunnel to France for the 21st August. P.S (For Mum) the weather in Ireland is mostly cold and cloudy and it rains from time to time. I can't believe i'm saying this but I am looking forward to going back to England for the sun!

The Raft Race

As you can see from the last lot of photos the raft was well under way to being completed. Now it was time for the race. There were 4 guys on the raft (Mish, Justin, Marcus and Markus) and it was powered by homemade paddles and Mish's kite (until the wind died anyway) and it was proudly displaying an All Blacks flag.
They got off to a bit of a bumpy start with the kite proving to provide more power than the poor little raft could handle, this was followed by the wind dying and making the kite useless. It was quickly discarded and some good old fashioned paddling was commenced. After a tiring 40minutes of paddling the current finally bought them home a respectable 4th (out of 5). I think if they had have just started with the paddles from the beginning it could have had a different outcome. After that it was off to the pub for a well deserved beer (or two).
On Sunday morning we were packed up and ready to go by 10am. We headed in the direction of Stranaer to get the ferry to Ireland, but were not expecting to do the trip all in one day, however at 10pm we were pulling into the wharf to buy tickets and the next ferry happened to be booking in in 15minutes so we went with that. Before we knew it (actually in was 1am) we were in Larne, Northern Ireland.

More Scotland

We made it to Edinburgh and for our mother's sake can say we had a police free day! We looked at a few things here including Scottish parliment and the Queen's official Scottish residence. (Holyrood Palace). We then walked into the City and up to Endinburgh Castle. The Royal Mile (the main street that leads up to the castle) was full with tourists and every second shop was a souvenier shop (I don't know how they all stay in business). We spent 4 hours looking round the castle as it had lots of parts to expore and a few military museums. We saw the crown Jewels which were pretty impressive especially considering how old they were. Justin's favourite place was room that was full of swords and guns....... oh and the big canon that could fire a 150kg ball over 2 miles (I must admit that is quite impressive). We stayed another night in Edinburgh (our first time staying in a place for more than 1 night!) The next morning we did a few hours walking up a very steep hill in Holyrood park an seeing a great view of Edinburgh. After that we hit the road again and went to Dundee. There wasn't a huge amount of anything very exciting in Dundee so we moved on to Aberdeen for the night. In Aberdeen we went down and looked at the Harbour and went to the maritime museum which was very interesting. It had a lot of old maritime stuff as well as models and things on the oil rigs in the North sea.
On our way to Inverness we stopped and saw Kildrummy castle, another castle ruins. The weather that night and the next morning was pretty crap, all damp and rainy. We had a bit of a look round Inverness then headed to Culloden to look at the battlefield. We parked up that night on the side of Loch Ness with a nice fire.
We were very close to Mish's house but a day early so we picked a random place on the map that was on the way to spend a day and night. That place was Nigg. There wasn't much to Nigg but we did find a church which had an 8th century Pictish Stone and an interesting cemetary. It was also close to where fighter jets do training flying so that kept us entertained for a while.
On the way to Mish's house we stopped in and had a tour of the Glenmorangie Whisky distillery which was really good, however I still don't like whisky.
Had our first night at the Campbell's last night, there are 12 people staying here at present, so never a dull moment!
The boys have made a raft for a river race on Saturday.........

We headed up to the North Coast of Scotland for a night, was hoping to see the Puffins but they had left the weekend before. There is only one overgrown road to the North Coast but it is a very scenic trip! Stopped at a place called Smoo cave which was thought to have been used by the Vikings!