Getting round about in Milton Keynes

When we arrived in Milton Keynes it was pitch black (and only 5:00pm!) so we didn't get to see much of the city, but we did get to go through about 20 roundabouts on the way to my Aunt Irene and Uncle Charles's place. The city, if you haven't heard already, is based on American town planning so has a lot of roundabouts, hardly any traffic lights, and the roads are build in a repetitive grid shape. Although this sounds boring, it was far from it. All the roads are lined with trees (and if it weren't winter I'm sure it would have been gorgeous!) and there are pedestrian and bike ways throughout the city so that you would never have to be on a main road if you didn't want to be.

Unfortunately we were only staying for the weekend, so we tried to make the most of it by doing a bit of road trip out to Oxford. On the way we stopped into the Xscape Centre that houses a massive indoor ski slope and wind tunnel for indoor sky diving. Very impressive for both Matt and I as we've never skied nor sky dived (although we didn't attempt either of them there and then, maybe on our next trip!).

After our eventful search for a car park in Oxford we wondered round the town and visited the Christ Church which was quite impressive, even in the dreary day. We walked down to the river and were lucky enough to see a bit of rowing race going on. The guys looked freezing gliding fast through the water.




We then decided to take in a bit of a late lunch in a wee cafe where I recognised our waitress. Although I just couldn't figure out how I knew her. Charles couldn't help himself, so asked her and it turned out, after lots of 'do you know such and such' and 'have you been to such and such' we figured out that we'd met at Oktoberfest in Munich. No wonder we didn't know straight away, we'd obviously had too many steins. Small world though, eh?

On our second day Irene and I sent the Matt and Charles to Bletchley Park - where they did a tour of the museum and grounds where the Enigma code was broken during the war - while we went shopping. And the shopping centre and Milton Keynes was very grand - again everything is in a grid shape but there are lots and lots and lots of shops. I would have been happy to spend the day there!

In the afternoon we left Milton Keynes and took a drive to Newmarket to visit my Aunt Isabel and settle ourselves into her wee house, which we'll be house sitting while she's out in Australia.

Beers, beers, beers, and a bit of sightseeing, in Belfast

Our trip to Belfast went very quickly indeed, even though we were there for over a week - the longest we've stayed in once place on our trip to date. It was great to catch up with the Montgomery side of the family and again Matt got to meet lots of new people. I told him that by the time we left Belfast he would have met nearly half of my family! LOL

In a nutshell our time in Belfast consisted of lots of pub visits thanks to Brian and Louise, my Granny's birthday dinner, a trip up the coast to the Giants Causeway and Bushmills Distillery with Carly, lots of tourist activities including a open top double decker bus trip around the city (which was freezing!), a "fiddle de dee session", and our very first pasty bap experience! Phew, no wonder we were exhausted by the time we left! And I got to meet another of my newest second cousins, Saria, gorgeous!

The weather was definitely changing when we we were in Belfast, starting to get very cold and a bit windy! I left Belfast with more gloves and more bed socks (thanks Louise and Carly!) to keep me warm.

We were very impressed with the open top double decker bus tour we did of the city - the best tour of a city we've done on our trip so far. We visited the shipping docks where the Titanic was built, the Cathedral district, the 'trouble areas' which included the Shankle and the Falls roads (lots and lots of murals), the University area and lots more. We've since learnt that tourism in Belfast has grown over the past 5 years because the troubles are easing and we definitely didn't feel like we were in any danger when we were there. And we did spend some time by ourselves of a night time in the city. Lots of development going on in the city, which is great for it's economy and tourism - so people get out to Belfast if you can, it's worth a trip!

Our road trip up to the Giants Causeway and the Bushmills Distillery was another highlight. Although the day was a bit dreary we still got some great coastal and mainland views. We got out and walked to the Causway (the remains of an old volcano, very impressive) which at first I was dubious about because it was freezing!! So much so that Carly and I hand to tie our scarves round our heads, we looked like right eejits! But it was worth it in the end for the magnificent views. We then drove about 10 minutes further for some lunch and a visit to the Busmills Distillery. The tour was quite interesting but I have to say that it wasn't the tastiest of whiskies...shame really cause the tour was so good that by the end of it we were all looking forward to a whiskey (even though I don't drink it at all!).

We spent quite a bit of time seeing the inside of old school Irish pubs as well thanks to Brian and Louise. We visited the oldest tavern in Belfast, Whites Tavern, we also visited the Duke of York (down a wee alley way, wouldn't have know it was there if Brian didn't take us), the Crown with lovely old style booths where you buzzed for the waitress (tre cool!) and Fibber McGees where we experienced our first Irish "fiddle de dee session" - Matt liked it so much that he bought their CD; he claimed he was supporting local talent, I think he'd just had too many Harps! LOL. We also managed to see some more stylish modern bars, but by far the old school pubs were our favourite.

Oh my gosh, I nearly forgot, we also caught a Karaoke Kab home one night. Now Brisbane could definitely do with one of these bad boys! A mini cab with microphones and karaoke screens installed so that you can sing your way home; the cabbie even gets into the spirit of it. It was pretty much the best thing ever! And by the time we'd left the pub, had our cheesy fries and kebabs, we were in serious karaoke mode. Hilarious!

So all up a busy and very eventful trip to Belfast - we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! We then hopped on a wee plane to Stansted and then onto a bus where we arrived safe and sound in Milton Keynes.

Island living in Guernsey

We've really enjoyed our wee trip to wee Guernsey! It was great catching up with (and in Matt's case meeting) the Guernsey Parkers and Stevens' and Griffiths'! We've done so much as well over the last 5 days - gone on cliff walks and bike rides and celebrated birthdays and our first Guy Fawkes night - we're almost tired out!

Oh and one of the most exciting things happened to us - we had our first encounter with a famous person! Tony Robinson was on our flight from London and I saw him when we boarded but somehow Matt missed him (well he is pretty tiny). But when we got off the plane, I ducked into the bathroom and when I came out Matt was sat there one seat away from him. And it turns out he'd had a nice chat to him while I was in the bathroom because the airline had gone and lost our luggage - Matt and mine and Tony's (we're on a first name basis now!) and his partner's luggage didn't arrive from Gatwick. So we rubbed shoulders with famous people while filling in lost luggage forms. Unfortunately I didn't get in a "I have a cunning plan" line. Our bags did show up in the end though.

So what a start to our trip, hey! The next big event was meeting my little second cousin Gracie which happened the following day - oh *and* of course seeing my cousin Lisa and and her husband Jamie again :) Gracie is such the cutest and most chilled out baby I know! I tried to get her to say Stormy, but she just can't..yet!

The big party for my cousin Lyndsey's 30th was that night as well - such an awesome party. There were wigs, there was gambling, there was sing star, what more could you want!?! Matt and I didn't win anything in the blackjack or roulette unfortunately, but it was such a great night!

We spent the majority of the rest of our time in bikes as the weather was pretty perfect. And we managed to fit in a cliff walk that had some fantastic scenery. Oh *and* we went to our first Bonfire Night (for Guy Fawkes night) which was pretty impressive as well - tell you what though I've never been so close to fireworks before; I was a bit of a wuss and a bit scared! But it was good to watch while sampling some of the local fare - bean jar. Matt loved it.

So a great trip to Guernsey all round! Tomorrow we head to see my Mum's side of the family in Belfast via Manchester - just had a look at our ticket and we spend more time in the airports than we do on the planes...gosh!

London: Part II

So after our very serendipitous meeting with our Aussie mates, we arrived safe and sound in Old London Town. We were staying with Bronwyn again (thanks Bronnie!) and decided it only right to cook her a home-cooked dinner and buy her (okay us too!) a couple of bottles of wine to bring in the evening.

We had really planned our second trip to London to be a relaxing couple of days to get over our busy driving tour, so we've pretty much been doing just that. We were thinking of taking in a show, but decided to put it off until we come back to London (probably before Christams). We're starting to get a bit touristed out!

The one thing that we really arranged to do was catch up with Jay, Hitch, Mika (one final time before they headed off home) and my friend Kimmi from Brisbane for dinner on our second night. I also had my first pint of cider, which I may or may not have loved!! Bring on the cider that doesn't taste like Strongbow, I say. And we were tipsy enough to feel like another sing-song along but unfortunately the only karaoke bar we could find cost £90 - what the?! So we decided it probably wasn't the best way to spend our pounds. Matt and I still can't stop converting the pounds back to dollars, so everything is pretty much super expensive here! Arrrgh!



Tomorrow we leave London for the second time and head off to visit the Guernsey Parkers and to help celebrate my cousin Lyndsey's 30th birthday - can't wait!

Ye Olde York

We tried hard to take full advantage of our time in York because unfortunately we arrived late afternoon and we had to get a bus back to London the next morning. So most of the afternoon and early evening was spent walking around the old town, the shopping district, and taking as many photos of old castles as we could.

We'd read that York rivals Edinburgh as the second best sight-seeing city (after London) in the UK and we could see why. We read up on a bit of the history of the city - the northern most city in the Roman empire where merchants had to pay taxes to enter the city walls, which parts of still stand. So we took photos of it!

The city seemed quite nice and if we'd had another night we probably would have been better tourists and done a bus tour and visited some of the castles, but we just didn't have the time. We may go back and visit.

The only crazy part about our trip to York was that on our way back into London our bus just happened to stop in front of a random Pizza Hut where our mates Jay, Hitch, and Mika had decided to stop for some lunch. So in a city of 7 million people, we still managed to run into our fellow Aussie travellers - brilliant!