Homeward Bound

Ah well, the day has come – we said a very sad farewell to The Enterprise, after having done 13,108 miles. I’ve just looked it up and the distance from England to NZ is 11,682 miles, so we more than drove home (perhaps if they put in a couple of bridges...). It was perhaps fitting that we got this lovely sunset on the last night. And Gus took the photo, while I was away doing dishes. He who won’t usually lift his head off the couch, let alone go outside, to see a sunset or a moonrise! This trip must have softened him...

The very last of the UK was two nights in a London hotel, out near Heathrow. We fitted in a lovely sunny Saturday at the zoo. First zoo we’ve visited on the entire trip! May be just as well too because it was rather expensive. When we first arrived I felt like a little kid and wanted to run (metaphorically speaking of course) in all directions and see everything. Gus got hold of the map though and we did it in a logical order, we did get to see everything though and by the end of the day we would happily have swapped places with the children in the pushchairs for a wee nap. Our favourite parts were the walk-in displays. The first was a butterfly house, which was really beautiful and had some amazingly large specimens, very similar to the one near Cairns for anyone who has been there.

They had two monkey walk-in areas: one was inside and the humans had a walk-way around the sides while the monkeys, Emperor Tamarinds, had free-run of the whole area which included trees and ropes and the walkway if they wanted it. These fellows had the most incredible moustaches, I kept thinking they were wearing rings through their noses.

The squirrel monkeys were in an outside walk-in enclosure and had lots of ropes as well as trees and bark to explore. They completely ignored the humans which meant that we got to see them really behaving as they would in the wild. There were zoo volunteers standing around to make sure no-one was tempted to feed or touch them. One man was telling us that at some other place you can feed and touch them, and seemed quite affronted that he couldn’t here, but I thought it worked really well – otherwise they’d just seem like pets. We got to see them digging in the bark on the ground for grubs and chasing each other through the trees and along the ropes right over our heads.

The third display that really impressed us was, believe it or not, ants. They had set up a series of large jars with food in some and a place to build their nests in others. So the ants were going about their business of cutting leaves, climbing out of the jar along the rope and back into another jar which contained their nests. There were large signs up saying they bite which would have been enough to deter most humans from disturbing them, so they seemed completely oblivious to being in such an unusual environment. So that was our day at the zoo. Next we had a beautiful walk through Regents Park back to the tube station. I must say at this point too, that we are feeling very smug about our newfound abilities to catch tube trains and buses – this is a skill that neither of us has ever needed to acquire until now, having mostly lived in places where public transport is non-existent.

Then early next morning we flew to Vancouver. We were pleasantly surprised by how quickly the flight went – maybe because it is the shorter flight and we have the longer one in the few days back to good old NZ. We had some great views of the snow-topped mountains as we flew in. The lady at the hotel desk asked if we minded a high room and we said we were fine with that – neither of us minds lifts, so we are on the 29th floor! Fabulous views over part of the city and out to the mountains beyond. There’s no balcony so I can quite happily take in the sights from inside the room, suits me! I am writing this early in the morning as my body clock is all confused and I have been awake since midnight – stupid time-zone changes! Gus is asleep now, even though he was awake a lot in the night too, he might be a bit more with it than me today. We now have three days in Vancouver and then we’ll be home!

Vancouver was a lot of fun, really lovely city, little bit more expensive than we’ve been used to though. We particularly enjoyed Stanley Park, seeing our one bit of Canadian wildlife...

We enjoyed the city itself and went on a day trip up to Whistler. While we were there we decided to take the Peak to Peak gondola. Firstly we caught a gondola to the top of one peak – this takes about 30 minutes and on the way up we saw lots of mountain bikers taking their bicycles up to fly down the mountain tracks.

Then we got in the next gondola that goes from the peak of one mountain to the peak of the next – 4kms in one span – incredible views. We had lunch at the top and then enjoyed the view back across and down again. We were told there was a good chance of seeing black bears so I had my eyes well peeled but they must have all been in the shade of the forest because we didn’t see any.

The drive up to and back from Whistler is also lovely, the road follows a fjord and we stopped at a couple of waterfalls and across from a hanging glacier.

Now we are heading home on our last flight...

To quote Captain Kirk: “These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

So... These were the voyages of the Campervan Enterprise. Its five month mission: to explore the old world, to seek out diverse languages and ancient civilizations, to boldly go where millions have gone before.

Dublin and back to Jolly Ol' England

Today was Dublin, (I was particularly keen to see this city after just having read ‘Ireland Awakening’ by Edward Rutherfurd) we stayed in a camping ground that the hop on/hop off tourist bus collects people from, very convenient. I got us two tickets for the bus soon after we arrived, later I regretted this because some Australians that were just leaving offered us their tickets for free (the tickets were valid for 2 days and, like us, they only stayed for one) – would have saved us 32 Euros (about $45) if I hadn’t been so organised, damn!

Our bus driver for the trip around the city was hilarious, I’m sure he could do stand-up comedy. He certainly did amazingly well considering he was also imparting information about the city and driving a double-decker bus through city traffic at the same time! I’ll attempt to tell one or two of his stories but you’ve got to understand it sounded much funnier with his accent and ‘gift of the blarney’.

This spire was erected for the millennium and was of course expected by 31st December 1999; it was therefore completed in February 2002. It cost 5 million Euro, so he felt they must have stuffed it with 4 million of that. No I was right, this doesn’t read funny at all, at all. He also said that the lion that roars on MGM was bred at Dublin Zoo. He said “Now you’ll never be able to get that out of your heads. Years from now you’ll be thinking ‘How do I know that, WHY do I know that, damn I’ve forgotten my PIN number’.” Ok I give up; I won’t make an Irish bus driver let alone a comedian...

One feature of Dublin you can’t help noticing as you wander the streets is the pubs – on every corner, at least one – they are all characterful (not sure that’s a word but you know what I mean). We heard on the radio that the Irish don’t like their reputation of having a drinking culture, well hello!

Our bus driver pointed out that Dublin has 3 cathedrals: St Patricks, Christ Church and the Guinness Brewery. This is certainly a huge industry – the founder, Arthur Guinness and his wife had 21 children, 21! There must be some magical properties in that stuff, think I’ll keep away from it... Another famous Dubliner is Jonathon Swift, who wrote Gulliver’s Travels. Apparently he had tinnitus (ringing in his ears) in later life. Unfortunately, as it was not a known condition then, he thought he was going mad, so funded a psychiatric hospital. Gus said he can identify with that! The final word on Dublin has to go to our bus driver – Irish whiskey from Jameson Distillery is distilled 3 times: to be sure, to be sure, to be sure. He said he had to get that in.

Our last day in Ireland was the drive from Dublin back down to Rosslare. We went via the Wicklow Mountains (small ones) and Sally Gap; this was a beautiful drive through wild moorland country, and a lovely cascade of water over rocks. Today we’re on the ferry leaving Ireland – we’ve enjoyed Ireland but have been very fortunate with the weather apparently. We had 10 days in a row with no rain: we didn’t think the weather was anything to get excited about, often very overcast and blowing a gale, but according to the locals “lovely weather”, charming place but appalling climate. The roads leave something to be desired - all but the major ones are bumpy, narrow tracks that Gus reckons he’d be ashamed to have had a hand in! We still noticed a tension in some of the stories between the different factions, there was trouble in both Belfast and Dublin while we were there, not that we saw anything luckily. The people (and the countryside) are lovely though, charismatic and friendly.

Back in England – we stopped at Salisbury because the weather was so appalling when we were here last time we hadn’t seen Sarum at all, and any fan of Edward Rutherfurd just has to see Sarum! We ended up staying two nights so we had time to have a look around Sarum and Salisbury. Sarum is a hill with two extremely large moats in concentric circles. In the middle one is the ruins of a castle, just bits of walls but still evoke so much history – the moats alone must have taken forever to build with very limited tools.

Salisbury itself also has a beautiful cathedral which was built in about the 12th Century, it has a huge spire which collapsed soon after it was built and had to be rebuilt. They must have got it right the second time though because it is still there! The story of this is in ... and ‘World Without End’ by Ken Follett? (I’m still a librarian, Liam!) The town of Salisbury is also well worth looking around, one of those really lovely medieval villages, very like Canterbury.

Then today was our last real day of the campervan holiday before we have to get it cleaned up and sold and catch the train back to London. So we had a look at the map and I saw a motor museum – hmm. Anyway we had a look on the internet and it did look a good one so, on the absolute promise that we go to London Zoo while we’re there, we headed for Beaulieu Motor Museum.

I have to say that it was the best car museum I’ve ever been to. We started with the Top Gear section, I’ve had to sit through enough episodes of this over the years to remember what most of these cars were – they had the double decker cars, the indestructible Toyota Hilux, the ridiculously long limousines, the ‘amphibious’ cars, and even the ‘Cool Board’.

We then visited the ‘On Screen Cars’; this was great – they had Del Boy’s van from ‘Only Fools and Horses’, the De Loran from ‘Back to the Future’, Mr Bean’s mini and even Mr Weasley’s Flying Anglia from Harry Potter. Oh and of course Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Who knew there are actually some cars I like after all...

Gus was disappointed that the ‘James Bond’ section was closed; they were filming a promotion for a new DVD that’s coming out on all the Bond movies. They did have some Aston Martins lined up outside for the filming though so that kind of made up for it. They even started one up – you could see all the men watching just about unable to contain the thrill, it’s a boy thing!

Even the main National Motor Museum was very good – they had all sorts of cars you never see including very early ‘horseless carriages’, a ‘steam carriage’, and various Rolls Royce’s etc. I did get a little bored after a while though so decided to wander around the rest of the grounds and arranged to meet Gus in another hour – hopefully enough time for him to see all the cars in detail... (He and a friend once spent over 4 hours at Southwoods Car Museum in Paraparaumu!).

On my wander I was delighted to find that the main ‘Palace House’ is open to the public as well, I hadn’t expected it to be. So I had a really good wander around that and the ruined abbey that is right next to it. After I met up with Gus we were in time to have a tour of the private part of the house. It’s been in the Montagu family since 1538.

Part of the house dates back to the early 12th Century and formed part of the abbey. Henry VIII destroyed it when he named himself head of the church in the 16th Century – the present owner’s ancestor was a favoured friend of Henry VIII so was fortunate enough to be able to buy the estate off him, 11,000 acres for just over a 1000 pounds! The rest of the house was built around the abbey remains in the Victorian era. The current Lord Montagu is 85 and is in the House of Lords. He decided, when he inherited the estate in 1952; that he would need to open the house to the public to be able to hold onto and maintain the property. He also decided to bring 4 vintage cars he owned into the front hall as a display and an added interest for visitors. This was the beginning of the amazing museum that is now there.

Lord Montagu is a very keen jazz piano musician and over the years, they’ve hosted many famous guests in the house including Princess Anne, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Liberace, Shirley Bassey; and even Roger Moore called in for a cuppa just today.

Then when we got back to the museum on our way out they had finished filming and opened the James Bond exhibit – 50 cars from all the James Bond films, some complete with rockets and the like! Completed the day nicely. Gus couldn't quite remember whether this pose was from James Bond or Charlie's Angels ;-)

Causeway Coast

We visited an old cemetery today, really old, as in 3-4000BC, Carrrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery. It was quite enthralling, an area of 5 acres or so with about 10 different stone circles, a large cairn (which was actually a reconstruction), and about 20 dolmen. Dolmens are little piles of rocks that they believe were used as tombs. Every one of them faced the setting sun at the winter solstice. In one of these small dolmens they found 35kgs of burnt human remains. The bones were placed over a period of 500 years or so, so the area was obviously used over a long period, in the late Stone Age. They don’t know what religious rites people of that time may have practised of course, it’s just so long ago that it’s mind blowing to contemplate. In one of the photos you can see a large cairn right on top of the hill in the distance. This is Knocknarea, it’s made of 40,000 tonnes of stone and is believed to be the grave of the legendary (apparently, although we’ve never heard of her) Queen Maeve – it’s never been excavated.

We stayed in a camp at Benone Beach; it’s a lovely long sandy beach. Not surprisingly, since there was a cold wind and it was the first Monday that kids have gone back to school, there was almost no-one else on the beach. What was surprising was that there were two lifeguards on duty – rather optimistic we thought!

We are now on the Causeway Coast. Our first stop was Downhill House – a ruin of a house built in the 19th century – didn’t last the test of time. It was owned by Earl-Bishop Frederick Hervey who apparently had a sense of humour and used to do things like scatter flour on the floor so that he could see which guests had visited whom in the night.

He also built Mussenden Temple, upon the death of his female cousin whose beauty he admired; hmm my suspicious mind imagines they were more than cousins?

The temple was close to the house and used as a library – I think I would have found it hard to relax with a good book being this close to the cliff edge – this view is from the window.

We also stopped in at Dunluce Castle, which also hangs almost over the sea – what is it with these people and their cliff edges! It also had a cave that went right under it to the sea – there was a sign saying ‘Danger of falling rocks, do not enter’ but there was a path with a handrail leading right to it so of course we entered, like many others before us judging by the track going in...

Last but definitely not least today was the Giant’s Causeway itself. This is an amazing piece of geology. I also really enjoyed some of the legends that surround it. One story is that the local giant, Finn MacCool, challenged a Scottish giant, Benandonner, to a fight because he’d heard that he was supposed to be the strongest giant in the world. He built the causeway so that Benandonner could come over for the challenge (because everyone knows giants don’t like to get their feet wet). When Finn saw the other giant, he ran home and asked his wife to hide him because he was a lot bigger than Finn. His wife told him to jump into bed and dressed him as a baby. Benandonner came looking for Finn but when he saw the size of his ‘baby’ he lost all desire to fight the father and ran home ripping up the causeway as he went. Apparently there are similar rocks on a beach in Scotland. I liked this story, with both giants no braver than each other.

The tall columns on one side of the causeway show how high the columns are, otherwise you only see the tops and don’t get a true perspective of them. It was intriguing the way the hexagons are formed into hills, steps and valleys.

Our first stop today was Dunseverick Castle, just a couple of wall corners sticking out of the ground now. Mind you it has been around a while – it’s the remains of a 16th Century tower. Apparently Dun means a royal fort and was possibly a fort as early as 500 B.C. It was attacked by Vikings in 871 and destroyed by them in 926. St Patrick apparently visited in the 5th Century – quite a bit of history for a couple of stones sticking up!

We also walked along the coast a bit – it’s really the most beautiful place: lots of dramatic rocky beaches with waves crashing and swirling, then just around the corner a lovely sandy bay.

These sheep seemed to have no idea of the danger they were in, I was too scared to go too close in case they were frightened over the edge - how horrific that would be... Mind you if we could have scrambled down to them we could have eaten well for weeks! I'm joking

Our next visit was the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge. Of course I had no intention of crossing it – it crosses over a 24m deep and 18m wide chasm from the mainland to a little island. Just the word ‘chasm’ gives me the creeps. While I was waiting for Gus, I was talking to another woman, who was no braver than me and we agreed that they should print T-Shirts with the insignia “I was too chicken to cross the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge”. I reckon they’d make their fortune! Gus reckoned it wasn’t too bad, very steady, notice in the photo that he’s not even bothering to hold on, but agreed that I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it. It was originally used by salmon fisherman to cast their nets from the island.

After the horrid bridge we drove up to Glenariff Forest Park and went for a lovely walk – we saw a couple of beautiful waterfalls and even a red squirrel – one that stayed still long enough to have its photo taken, albeit on a very high branch. We also found a quiet little camp in the Forest Park – there was only one other couple there – when the warden came round to collect our fee, he refunded the parking we’d paid when we went for a walk so it worked out very cheap – good camp too.

Today we visited the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum outside Belfast. It was really two museums in one. The first was a transport museum with an exhibition on the Titanic, which was built and launched in Belfast. My favourite bit was when a young woman in period costume gave us a talk, taking the part of ‘Violet Jessop’, a woman who was a stewardess and survivor from the Titanic and later a nurse in WWI; and went on to survive a second shipwreck when she was on one of the Titanic’s sister ships ‘The Olympic’ which was hit by a mine and sunk. In the displays they also blew a few of the myths that were maintained in the movie: 1. The steerage passengers were not locked downstairs, it was harder and longer for them to find their way on deck – this was a design fault but not deliberate. 2. A second ship that was supposed to be close enough to rescue them was stuck in ice itself, so even if it had known of their plight (which it didn’t) it couldn’t have saved them. 3. It was true that the men in the crow’s nest didn’t have binoculars when they should’ve but, as the iceberg was struck at night, it’s unlikely they would have made any difference.

The Transport Museum also had a really good collection of trains, here’s Gus playing engine drivers in his favourite one. They also had everything from hot air balloons (they sent the first one up with a sheep, a rooster and a duck to check there was enough air to breathe), to early aeroplanes, horse carriages, and some cars.

The second museum was the Folk Museum, this was a whole village of houses, shops etc from around 100 years ago – their theme being that this is how people would have lived when the Titanic was built. Some people were demonstrating crafts from the era, including a basket weaver and this lady working on the loom – the perfect job Karen?

Gus wanted me to show this real Steam Roller, people often call modern diesel rollers ‘steam rollers’ and it’s just not right, so to correct this anomaly... note the difference!

We were intrigued by these hot water jars you could hire to take into the picture theatre with you. The picture theatre showed moving pictures with someone playing the piano in the corner, cute!

And finally they had different houses open and furnished; from simple labourer’s cottages with tiny backyards, just big enough to contain a long drop toilet and a pile of coal, to quite comfortable looking bank managers residences attached to the bank. Guess what I’m in, I guess the bank manager’s residence just isn’t for the likes of me!