So this is a very delayed blog. As will the next 3 or 4. Sorry to all my avid readers….mum, Nanna, Grandad etc. HAHA. My 6 week trip with my parents began in the UK and Ireland. And so, this will be the first instalment. Our travels included 3 days in London, 4 days on a Canal boat, 3 weeks travelling England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales in a camper van, 1 week in Paris and finally 3 days in Cinque Terre, Italy and then to Florence for 2 days and Milan to end the trip! Writing it all in one sentence gives you a little bit of an idea of the jam packed 6 weeks I had with my Mum and Dad.

So I guess the only place to begin is at the start! I arrived in the UK from Rio De Janeiro sick as a dog! An unfortunate side effect of non stop travel. Getting run down is all part of the fun unfortunately! Luckily I had 2 days before my parents arrived from Australia recuperate. So not much sight seeing was done in those days! However, I did get to catch up with a few friends from my 2 week tour of Peru. This was so nice to see some friendly faces. Thanks Ellie and Frankie! I also made the effort to get to the V&A museum, on the advice of one of these friends, Ellie. This ended up being an awesome recommendation and was a really cool museum with a big mix of artefacts and art from many different time periods as well as many different cultures. This was also a good diversion as I had to make sure not to do the main sights before my parents arrived!

 

The day after this, it was time to meet my parents at the Air B&B we were staying in. It was a cosy little apartment in the town of Ealing. It was such a surreal experience seeing them in the flesh after such a long time! My mum immediately offered me a cup of tea, which warmed my heart instantly. In the next few days, we spent all of our time exploring the wonders of London. I loved the city and it was surreal to see all of the things that you only see on TV or in Movies (cough, cough… Harry Potter… cough!). This included Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, The London Eye, Buckingham palace, Hampton Court Palace etc. I have to say that my favourite day, was our first full day, in which we spent exploring Notting Hill,  where one of my favourite films is set! We also went and saw a show, and I happy to say that I have now seen Wicked! It was everything I had hoped it would be! A MUST see for all, I’d say. It was also a nice bonus that we were able to meet up with Genevieve while we were in town. My sister in law to be! A nice catch up and good pizza dinner was had, where we discussed everything that had been happening, mostly the coming arrival of the new addition to the family. My new niece or nephew! So we all gushed over that for most of the dinner. Three days disappeared way to quickly and it was all of a sudden time to head to Bradford-on-Avon.

 

It was here that we were to collect the Canal Boat, in which we would be travelling up the canals to Bath and back again. I really liked this part of the trip. It was so beautiful, and really relaxing. However, I feel I must mention, I wasn’t driving the boat at anytime…I think that my dad might say something a little different! The canal boats are not steered with a normal wheel, but a steering pole. If you wish to go left, you pull it to the right and if you wish to go right, you pull it to the left…you could see where this might take some getting used to! So needless to say, there was a lot of patience needed for this part of the trip. I feel like we got to see a good bit of the famous english countryside. On days where it was sunny (luckily we did get some sun) everything was such a bold colour of green, it didn’t appear real.

Bath was such a lovely town, with such an amazing vibe of community, you almost immediately felt welcome. It was here that we went to see the famous Roman Baths, which were constructed in 70 AD. They have been so amazingly restored and kept, you truly felt like you had traveled back in time. I would recommend this as a must see to all UK bound travellers! The river Avon also goes through the town, and provides such a beautiful centre to the city. There are an abundance of tea and cake shops there, which couldn’t be avoided. This seemed to be a running theme with all English towns. They love their tea and cakes! Let just say I was in my element. This was a quick four days, and then it was on to Bedford, located just above London. It was here that we collected the motorhome, which was to be our mode of travel and our home for the next 3 weeks.

 

This was the main event of the trip. It was in these three weeks that we toured a good amount of England and Ireland, as well as some snippets of Scotland and Wales. I really fell in love with it. As a nature girl through and through, I felt at thoroughly at peace and happy in the English countryside. What made it even better, was that nestled between all this stunning natural beauty, were the quaintest, sweetest towns in which the people were so friendly and welcoming. Even the bigger cities still felt unique and were also fantastic to see. During this trip, being in a motor home, we had to find places to park every night. This was a new thing for all of us, but my Mum being the brilliant planner she is, had happened upon something fantastic in her travel research called Britstops! When you buy this book, you are then a member and can stay at any of the businesses in the book for free. This is an awesome alternative to paying for Caravan Parks every night. These businesses were usually pubs or inns. We had some AMAZING food in these small pubs in the middle of nowhere. Many of them provided power which was super handy! We did do caravan Parks at times, especially when we were visiting main cities, as they had good public transport connections and also when we had to get rid of the dreaded ‘black’ water. Ill let you work out what this is on your own!

 

We spent just over a week traveling up the centre of England, our first stop was Cambridge where it was VERY COLD and VERY RAINY. But we managed to see a bit of the university, eat some pretty tasty lunch and see a little bit from the bus rides there and back!An A for effort, but we hardly saw anything of it! The next two days were castle days, where we were lucky enough to see Chatsworth House (PRIDE AND PREJUDICE!) as well as Alnswick Castle (HARRY POTTER)! Needless to say I was pretty content with these two days.

It was on these days that our route took us travelling through the lovely parks of the Peak District, Yorkshire dales, Northumberland National Park and the Lake District. In the Lake district we were lucky enough to take a train ride from Haverthwait to Lakeside to see some of the beautiful countryside, the weather left a bit to be desired, but you get the idea!

These were on our way to Scotland where we stopped to see the beautiful city of Edinburgh. Here we had two nights and one full day, where we spent one whole day in Edinburgh, and Im glad we did, as it was spectacular! I could really see myself returning there, I think there is still so much to see and discover.

The next day was travelling on to Stirling where we visited the Falkirk Wheel  as well as Robert the Bruce Monument in the town of Stirling. Continuing on, we headed to Loch Lommond.

Now funny story. According to my mother this is the REAL home of the Loch Ness monster, as she said that the Loch Ness is a mythical place. Much to her astonishment and my hilarity, this was NOT CORRECT. Understandably, the Mythical Loch Ness Monster came from the very real Loch, Loch Ness! Unfortunately for her I can never let her live this down. (sorry mum! HAHA) In her defence, Loch Lommond was very beautiful, and I guess Loch Ness will have to be next time! We then headed back down, travelling through Glasgow and making sure that we saw the famous Lake District on our way back to England .A beautiful place and definitely worth the hype, but weather was of course against us, so most was seen from the car. It was England in April in their defence. Not to worry! I have all intentions to return to the UK in summer when I may get some proper hiking weather to properly explore the amazing national parks and districts.

It was next that we made haste to Manchester where my dad had his very important and expensive Manchester United game. In hindsight, this was a funny day. Not at the time. Haha. My Dad had a fantastic day at his game. Mum and I began our day in great spirits and in our defense, the morning was great! We had a nice coffee and then had grand plans to frequent a local market which sounded fabulous. However, unfortunately they had changed locations and not specified it was only on once a month. This was the first thing. We then made plans to go to a fantastic high tea shop. However, when we arrived there, there was a line out the door and around the corner and we didn’t have time to wait, as Dad would be meeting us at the train station soon. We then found ourselves at a loss of what to do! At this point we feltlike nothing was going to go right. Our luck did change however, and we found a fabulous alternative and enjoyed special strawberry bubble cocktails with little crazy jelly spheres in them and some truly delicious nibbles and a dessert to share. It was just a day where everything didn’t quite go to plan. I think we learnt the valuable lesson of not putting too much expectation in things when travelling. The spontaneous decisions are often the best parts. After Manchester, we then headed down to Hollyhead, where we would take the ferry across to Ireland with our motor home.

 

When we arrived in Ireland, we began our trip to Dublin, where we did as much sight seeing as we could in one day, and then I was also able to catch up with an amazing friend of mine, Andrew. It was so nice to catch up with him, after leaving San Francisco in December and to see how he was reintegrating into normal everyday life! An added bonus in the end was another Irish friend, Jenny whom I met in San Francisco had also gone home to Dublin and she was around too! A great night in all.

From dublin we headed towards Northern Ireland for a very short visit, mostly to see Stangford Castle on Ward Estate. This was where they filmed parts of “Winterfell” from Game of Thrones. Priorities right?! After this we headed back down into Southern Ireland towards Galway, and on the way visited Kylemore Abbey, a very impressive castle overlooking Kylemore Lough on the edge of Connemara National Park.  This lead to a day in Galway, exploring the city and a museum of the area as well as seeing the famous Spanish Arch. I also tested out my vocal chords in the amazing acoustics of the St Nicholas Collegiate Church, having a rare moment when it was just me and Mum and Dad in the lovely church.

It was from here that we joined onto the Wild Atlantic Way, which is a stunning driving route, highlighting all the must sees of the West Coast. It was on our way to join this famous route that we chanced upon Dungaire Castle. It had snowed the night before (just all part of the famous Irish weather) and so we captured some gorgeous photographs. However, our main aim was the Cliffs of Moher. Which didn’t disappoint! They were amazing!So beautiful and the weather was prime for a visit. We didn’t do the whole Wild Atlantic Way, but we came on and off of it a few times. It would be great to go back one day and do it in its entirety.

At this point, we headed to Adare in the area of Limerick, which had some beautiful thatched roof cottages that we felt we had to see. Then we made use of the afternoon sun and visited Ross Castle in the Killarney National Park. Coming to the end of our time in Ireland, we headed to Cork.

 

Even though we were so tired from all the travelling, we made sure we headed to go and see some proper Irish Music. The next day we had grand plans to see some of the city of Cork, however the weather obviously had other plans! Not being able to do much sight seeing, we instead decided to have a proper high tea. Something I had been desperately wanting to do since arriving to the UK and Ireland. I was a very happy girl to get her wish. Finishing on this high note, the next day we headed to Rosslare Harbour where we would head back across to Wales and the UK.

Once safely back across to Wales, we used our last days with the van to drive back into England and to the lovely area of the Cotswolds and visited one of its more popular towns of Stow-on-the-Wold.

We then headed straight to Stone Henge. We all felt as though we couldn’t come to England and not see Stone Henge. I’m very glad we did. Besides the hefty entry fee, it was definitely amazing.  It is a very bizarre feeling to look upon something that has been standing in one place for so long. Something that has seen so much and watched civilisations come and go. It’s really hard to imagine everything the stones have seen.

Finally, with our last day we visited the town of Rye. I feel I must put an extra note about Rye. It may be one of my favourites places I have been to in all my travels in the last year. And well, thats saying a lot. You feel as though you are in another world, surrounded by so much history. Its also the most quaint and beautiful story book town with little hidden cafes and restaurants, unique gift shops, stunning views and the weirdest tiny doors in which most people would never get through. (Perfect for me though!) So if I can influence someones trip at all, I’d say, GO TO RYE. You won’t regret it. One or two days is enough. But it should be seen!

 

It was from where we began, in the town of Bedford that we we finally had to repack our bags and get ready for the next stage of our trip! I really hope I didn’t forget anything but this turned out to be one of my trickiest blogs! We did so much everyday and went to so many different places! I was very lucky, but all blurs together after a while! My next instalment will be first european destination, Paris in which we spent one week in an Air B&B. Also a very late blog, but better late than never!

xx