Puffins, Roman Ruins & PhD’s
After leaving Scotland we drove a couple of hours south, across the border into Northumberland and through to the small village of Rothbury for the night. There was a traditional music festival that weekend and the town was humming. We joined the festival goers for a beer in the memorial park and although the main acts had finished for the day there were still a few musicians jamming.
The weather could not have been more perfect the next day for our trip to the Farne Islands. But before we got to Seahouses where the boats leave from we stopped off at Dunstanburgh Castle. We joined the National Trust earlier in our trip and once you pay your initial membership you get free entry into all the National Trust properties. There’s a great App that shows all the nearby sites and as we had an hour and a half to fill before our boat trip, and as Dunstanburgh Castle is National Trust, we thought we’d stop by and check it out. The castle ruins sit on a rocky outcrop along a beautiful stretch of coastline. It’s barren and windswept and quite extraordinary. This was once one of the largest and grandiose forts of Northern England and its presence still dominates the skyline.
Seahouses is a cute fishing town bustling with tourists many of whom are here for the same reason as us, to see puffins on the Farne Islands. The Farne Islands is a wildlife sanctuary just off the coast of Northumberland in the northeast of England. Looked after by the National Trust, there’s a charge to go on the islands for non-members in addition to the cost of the boat trip. Our boat took us out to the furthest islands first, motoring close into the cliffs where guillemots, razorbills and gulls were nesting and then out to rocks where a colony of grey seals spend most of their days. The boat took us very close to the seals. They were wary but didn’t move away and some appeared to play up to the cameras. After our tour by sea we landed on Inner Farne island – the pièce de résistance! This was where the puffins nest. Here I was back in Wales thinking that the closest I’d get to a puffin was peering at a dot through the zoom in my camera. Well, on the Farne Islands there are over 80,000 breeding pairs of puffins an most are living on Little Farne. That’s more puffins than I ever hoped for.
Before we could get to the puffins we had to contend with dive-bombing artic terns who were keen to chase us from the island. We had been warned about this and told to wear hats – good advice indeed. Protecting ourselves from angry terns while at the same time trying to avoid stepping on their fluffy offspring, who seemed to be placed everywhere and anywhere, took some skill.
We spent an hour on the island watching puffins coming and going out of their burrows, waddling along the rocks, flying back to their chicks with beaks stuffed full of eels, and generally just doing puffin stuff. We were only a metre away from them at times and one even walked across the path in front of me. It was incredible. Of course, there were plenty of other birds as well: guillemots, razorbills, eider ducks, kittiwakes, fulmars, shags, and Arctic, common and sandwich terns. They’re all here sharing these islands for a few months a year and by mid-August the islands will be empty and quiet again, apart from rabbits and seals.
Back on the mainland we drove from coastal Northumberland to the hinterland of Cumbria to experience some Roman history – Housesteads Fort and Hadrian’s Wall.
Hadrian’s Wall ran from one side of England to the other and was built around 122 AD under the reign of the Emperor Hadrian as not only a defensive wall but an attempt at keeping peace. By clearly defining the northern border of the Roman Empire Hadrian hoped the warring tribes would be appeased and stop the continual conflicts that were draining Roman resources. Housesteads is one of 16 Roman forts along Hadrian’s Wall and the best preserved. It sits on the side of a hill and Hadrian’s wall runs up a steep valley to meet it before heading off in the opposite direction over the rolling hills towards the west. A few hikers went by while we were at the fort, walking the length of the wall from coast to coast. It was almost six by the time we’d done with fossicking around the fort and scrambling along the wall. We walked back across the farmland to the parking lot and drove on to the small market town of Alston for the night. Earlier in our trip we’d stayed in Buxton in the Peak District and now here we were in Alston. The two towns share the title of ‘highest market town in England’ as both are 1,000 feet above sea level. Hopefully that’s a pub quiz question one day.
The next day we set off on the long drive south to Malvern. My sister Bronya had arrived in the UK for her graduation from Exeter University, where she had completed a PhD remotely, and we were heading down to meet her at her parents-in-law’s home in Malvern before going on to Exeter for the ceremony. We wanted to see the Yorkshire Dales and plotted a route that took us the scenic way. Down through the North Pennines, with a landscape of open heather moors and peatlands, to the Yorkshire Dales where rivers tumble across rocky beds through green valleys and under historic arched bridges. Here rolling pastures are criss-crossed with grey stone walls, and black-faced sheep meander across the road taking little notice of the sporadic traffic. This is the England of books. We were almost expecting James Herriot to roar past on his way to save a bloated cow.
While we were walking through a quaint village in the Dales it started to rain – the first time in ages.
We finally arrived in Malvern in time for dinner. It was great to see Bronya again and Robin and Patience too. After dinner Robin and Bronya took us badger hunting. There’s a badger set at the back of the golf course and I’d always wanted to see one that’s not squashed on the road. I was hanging back behind the others trying to be very quiet, when I heard a twig break and a bush rustle and next thing I’m eye-balling Mr Badger. I tried to get Andrew’s attention without making a sound, meanwhile the badger had worked out that to get back to his den he had to come straight towards me. He froze, I froze, and then he made a dash for it, coming straight up the bank towards me and then straight into his burrow, just as Andrew arrived to see his bum disappear underground. Bronya came back too late to see it, but she has seen plenty during her past life living in England, and Robin was way ahead, so he missed it, and then he had the audacity to question whether I’d actually seen one.
The next morning after a birthday breakfast for Patience, Andrew and I headed off to Bath. We planned to meet the others that evening in Exeter.
Bath is one of the loveliest cities I’ve visited in Britain. It sits in a natural amphitheatre with a river following through the middle and the golden-hued buildings exude past-era elegance. The Roman Baths are the most visited attraction in Bath. Built over a natural thermal spring between the first and fifth centuries AD this was where the Romans relaxed and unwound, as well as worship their goddess Minerva. The museum takes you through the baths into the heart of the where the Temple of Minerva stood and past the sacred spring itself. It is an outstanding experience. The interactive displays and holograms bring the Romans alive in front of your eyes and there are some spectacular artefacts like the Gorgon’s head that dominates the Roman Temple pediment, the gilt-bronze face of Sulis Minerva and the treasure trove of Roman coins. The ‘curse tablets’ are amusing. These are a collection of messages written on lead or copper that were thrown into the sacred spring. The messages are really quite juvenile in their content: “curse him who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, whether slave or free”; “Docimedis has lost two gloves. He asks that the person who stole them lose his mind and his eyes…” Life must have been simple to be bothered traipsing to the sacred spring to write a curse about a lost hoodie.
Attached to the original Roman Baths is the 18th century Pump Room that once was the venue of an elegant salon during Bath’s fashionable heyday. It’s here where we sampled a cup of the famous spa waters. It didn’t taste great; warm, slightly metallic with a hint of sulphur.
As funny as it sounds Bath offer more than just baths. We visited the beautiful Abbey, with its magnificent fan-vaulted ceiling and then walked up past Jane Austen’s house to the Circus, an elegant circle of terraced houses with an intricately carved frieze of serpents, theatrical masks and druids running along the buildings. Down the hill the elegant shop-lined Pulteney Bridge crosses the River Avon and looks like it would be right at home in Italy. We walked along the Grand Parade with views across the river, past the ornamental gardens and through to Orange Grove and bought fresh cherries from a street vendor before heading back to the carpark. Then it was off to Exeter to meet Bronya, Robin and Patience for a pre-graduation dinner.
The next day was graduation day and Bronya’s was the first ceremony, starting at 9am. She was there early for official photographs and met us outside before the ceremony, looking wonderful in her graduation gown and floppy doctoral bonnet. It was an excellent ceremony with uplifting addresses from the University’s leaders, a great performance from the choir and an interesting keynote speech from the recipient of an honorary doctorate, former Labour MP and writer Alan Johnson. The best part was being there to see Bronya receive her Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD) that she worked so hard to achieve. Afterwards there was champagne and cupcakes in the auditorium before we all headed off for a celebratory lunch at a gastro-pub on the edge of the Dartmoor National Park.
The newly capped Dr Dean was flying back to NZ two days later and she and her parent-in-laws were off to visit some of their family and we had a campsite in Cornwall to get to, so we bade farewell and took to the road again heading out across the Dartmoor plains.
Dartmoor National Park is a vast moorland with craggy rocks and clumps of woodland stunted by wind. We were not far in when we first encountered the parks famous inhabitants – the Dartmoor Ponies. I thought we’d have to hike off the road to find some, but there were herds everywhere, walking all over the road and standing in parking areas. These ponies have been on the moorlands for 3,500 years and are part of the natural heritage of the area.
After a quick stop to stroke the ponies it was on to Cornwall and the small coastal village of Padstow. Since leaving Scotland five days earlier we had been continuously on the go covering over 1200 kms. It was time to slow down. We decided the campsite at Padstow looked good and we checked in for four nights.
Camping in Cornwall
For the next three days we based ourselves at Padstow, taking it slow and enjoying the sunshine. Padstow is a pretty little fishing village and is most known for its famous resident Rick Stein who first opened a fish restaurant here in 1975. As Rick’s fame grew so did the popularity of Padstow and many people come here for his cooking schools and to dine in his restaurants. We couldn’t bring ourselves to try his fish & chips as the thought of deep-fried anything on a baking-hot summer day doesn’t go down well, but we did have one of his Cornish pasties and they were actually quite good. In Cornwall pasties are everywhere, of course they are Cornish, but we didn’t expect every store to be selling them and in such large quantities.
Apart from the quaint town there was a lovely beach around the point from Padstow with golden sands and vivid blue water. Padstow is on an estuary and a popular walkway runs along the Camel River. Our campsite was next to the walkway overlooking the water – a perfect spot.
Just up the road from Padstow is Tintagel, a small quaint village on a hill above the sea. Beyond the village’s single main street on a rocky headland are the ruins of a castle surrounded in mystery. The castle has long been associated with the legendary King Arthur. But whether he lived here or not matters little when you see the beauty of the place. The castle’s ruined battlements dating back to the 13th century are spread across a rocky pinnacle and the steep climb up a narrow stone staircase is worth it for the exhilarating views of the Cornish coastline.
Around a few bays along many one-lane winding lanes is the cute-as-pie fishing village of Port Isaac. This is where the TV show Doc Martin is filmed. You can’t drive down into the Cornish fishing villages, so we parked at the top and walked in down the narrow lanes and past wonky whitewashed houses to the bay. It wasn’t on the tourist trail until Doc Martin. Now they’re cashing in with tacky Doc Martin souvenirs and signs identifying the houses from the show. We did the rounds and saw where the Doc lives, Bert Large’s restaurant and the old school house.
Newquay south of Padstow was another day trip. There wasn’t much more than surf shops, pubs, nightclubs and Cornish pasties here, and a small beach with a cluster of colourful beach huts in the corner. The most interesting thing was a house perched on a rock accessed by a footbridge from the mainland. We weren’t impressed with Newquay. Andrew described it as the Benidorm of Cornwall.
It was time to move on. We packed up the tent and headed further south. First stop, St Ives. Once again, we parked at the top of the hill and walked down the steep streets into the town. St Ives is bigger and was bustling with tourists. It was once Cornwall’s busiest pilchard fishing port and suffered as fish stocks declined at the start of the 20th century. Help arrived with the arrival of holidaymakers via the railway and among them were artists. Artists like Turner were drawn to the clear light here and many of the harbourside net lofts were converted to studios. The fishing never recovered but the tourists kept coming, attracted by the gold sand beaches and many art galleries.
We continued on and the landscape changed to barren open coastal plains. Through a few more villages, historic Zennor and Pendeen where the tin mines were, then around the corner to the famous landmark of Land’s End. Not technically the southernmost point of mainland Great Britain (that honour goes to Lizard Point around a few more corners), this is the symbolic end of the country and the journey from John O’Groats in Scotland to Land’s End in Cornwall has become somewhat of a pilgrimage. There is an excellent exhibition telling the stories of the many people who have walked, ran, cycled and even ridden lawn mowers the length of Britain, mostly to raise money for charities. Part of the exhibition includes a film taken of the entire journey and sped up to fit into 15 minutes. It’s accompanied by a clever poem incorporating all the places along the way and is fascinating to watch. The rest of the complex at Land’s End is very touristy with food outlets, slot machines and souvenir shops and there’s even a charge to have your photo taken by the famous sign-post. We thought that was a bit cheeky and took our photo from behind the chain fence.
A few miles around the coast from Land’s End is beautiful Porthcurno. A golden sand beach in a cove surrounded by steep cliffs. From the top of the cliff the view was stunning, and the turquoise water looked more like Spain than England, the heat making it feel that way too.
I’d found a list of the cutest villages in Cornwall and Mousehole (pronounced “mouzel”) was highly ranked. It was our next stop. It was very small and surprisingly we could drive right down to the water and park on the granite sea wall. The walled harbour once held over 400 pilchard fishing boats in the 19th century. It’s still full of colourful boats. They’re mostly for pleasure and tourists. The heat was taking its toll. Time for an ice-cream. Cornwall is famous for its clotted cream and the ice-cream made from organic cream from local farms. I chose Cornish Cream Tea flavour and Andrew had chocolate. Mine had chunks of jam and pieces of scone in it – the full cream tea experience in a cone!
Around a bay, through Penzance and along the coast, and we finally stopped at a farm campsite on the outskirts of Falmouth, pitching our tent for a two-night stay. We were right next to a thick hedgerow and Andrew threw some leftover couscous salad into the bushes. It didn’t take long before there was a lot of rustling and a chubby grey rodent popped out for a nibble. It didn’t look like a rat – it was rounder, cuter and had a shorter tail. He was very shy and difficult to photograph. I gave him some almonds, he loved those, and some melon. After a lot of Googling we concluded our friend was Water Vole, a rare and protected species. A stream ran through the hedgerow which made it even more likely that was what he was. During the two nights we were there he and his friends got plenty of fruit, berries and nuts.
Falmouth is a nice-enough seaside town with a castle on the point and a pretty harbour. But, it’s a bit tired and rundown and apart from a wooden jetty there’s no waterfront as such. It’s the surrounding area that people come here for – the beaches and the woodlands.
After two nights we packed up and continued on. Further along the estuary is Trelissick House and Gardens. This stately home sits on its own peninsula at the top of the Fal Estuary with stunning views down to Falmouth. It was owned by Ida Copeland, one of the earliest women to become an MP. She was also very active in the Girl Guides movement and social welfare. Ida donated the property to the National Trust following the death of her son. It’s a tranquil setting and gardens are lush and expansive. The climate in Cornwall is great for gardening.
Not far down the road is the town Truro where we stopped for lunch. We liked Truro. It is a pretty, historic town with cobbled pedestrian streets lined with colourful hanging baskets and a magnificent cathedral. It’s the administrative hub for Cornwall, the capital really.
Our next stop was the Eden Project. When you approach the Eden Project, you can’t see any trace of that anything significant is around, there’s just trees and the roadside signs directing you. This is because it’s at the bottom of a giant pit. We parked and followed a path that wound down the hill. Andrew was looking at me, questioning where we were going. He knew nothing about the place. I had tried to explain what I knew but that made him more confused, so I just said, “wait and see”. We finally arrived at the visitors centre and ticket office, still unable to see what lay beyond. Then we were through the doors and overlooking an amazing oasis of green with two enormous futuristic glass domes sitting in the centre. This once disused quarry has been moulded into what is described as a “living theatre of plants and people”. The domes are “biomes”, the largest greenhouses in the world and inside them different environments have been created – rainforest, temperate and arid – all surrounded by gardens filled with plants and flowers from all over the world. It looks like a piece of paradise. As we walked down towards the biomes I noticed the many New Zealand native plants in the gardens. We started in the Mediterranean Biome where mosaic pathways and rocky steps take you through gardens and plantings from the Mediterranean, South Africa, California and Western Australia. The landscapes are created to mimic nature, but there’s also a tribute to the cultivation of food in this climate with a vineyard complete with sculptures of Bacchus, a chilli patch with every different type of chilli from across the globe, and a super-sized herb garden that smelt amazing. I had to keep my hands by my sides to stop myself stealing the runner beans and peas in the vege patch. Next was the Rainforest Biome touted as the “largest rainforest in captivity”. A wall of heat hits you as you walk in. It’s lush and damp and so very warm. Colourful roul-roul partridges walk around the ground keeping the bugs under control. Some of them had tiny black fuzzy chicks. As you walk along the path you move through different tropical countries – Africa, South America, Malaysia and more. There’s a waterfall and pools and even a cloud generator. Along the paths are rubber trees, bananas, cashews, cocoa, vanilla and other fruit, nuts and spices – so many products and foods come the tropics. High above the forest is the canopy walkway and of course I wanted to go up. Andrew left me to it. We were the last group through before they closed it. It was getting too hot and humid to be up there – 38 degrees and climbing. This is an incredible place, like another planet but it’s all ours.
Eden Project may be unique and rich in educational value, but it’s not immune to the tourist trap. Like everywhere else there are multiple food outlets and all with long queues. Andrew’s bugbear – people arriving at a place and promptly starting to eat.
Down the most hair-raisingly narrow roads we’d driven on – one-lane and with few passing areas – we found our campsite for the next two nights. This one was on a working farm on a hill above the prettiest of all Cornish villages, Polperro. We camped here for two nights. Polperro stole our hearts. This 13th century former pilchard fishing village is almost too pretty for its own good. A single main street of whitewashed cottages, old mill houses, inns and boathouses with the little River Pol beside them, runs down a wooded valley to the fishing harbour and tiny stone Roman bridge. We spent most of the next day there watching the harbour fill as the tide came in, the tourist boats come and go, eating lunch in the sun at a pub, chatting to an English couple on holiday, clambering up rocks for the view, and soaking up the slow pace of life in this adorable little town. It was the perfect place to finish our time in Cornwall.
Devon & Dorset
The English couple we’d met in Polperro had suggested Salcombe as a lovely place to visit so it became our first stop after leaving Cornwall. We used the Park and Ride, the walk to town was too long in the heat. Salcombe is a sweet little coastal town with a thriving artisan community. There are boutiques, workshops and distilleries crafting everything from leather goods and wooden surfboards to Salcombe gin. The crowd holidaying here are a more upmarket lot, and the restaurants and cafes are catering to this more affluent clientele. We found a deli with some lunch in our price range and ate it watching the boats come and go.
We took the Park and Ride again when we arrived in Dartmouth. Dartmouth is another lovely town, sitting on the edge of the estuary of the River Dart. There’s a lot of history here; Tudor buildings, a castle on the peninsula and medieval fortifications in the town. It was filled with tourists and boats going in every direction. The coast of Devon is very beautiful. We continue to be amazed at how diverse the landscape of Britain is, from mountains to moors, to beautiful beaches and watery playgrounds like here in Dartmouth.
After an hour or so we were back at the car driving down to the estuary to take the car ferry across. On the other side we navigated down some more very narrow country lanes, dodging huge tractors laden with hay bales, to Greenway, Agatha Christie’s beloved holiday home. This is another National Trust property and is set up as it would have been in the 1950’s when Agatha and her family spent summers and Christmases here. It has a relaxed, dreamy feel and you can imagine the family and guests playing croquet, strolling through the woodland to the boathouse by the river, and perhaps listening to Agatha read her latest mystery. The family were great collectors and the house is filled with archaeological artefacts, silver, china, art and of course books.
We camped for the next two nights in Dawlish Warren, a seaside resort town not far from Exeter. The weather started to turn and the following day it was showery and windy – no longer beach weather. We took a drive to Exmouth for lunch and on the way back visited A La Ronde, a fascinating 16-sided house. Not only did it look interesting from the outside but inside it was full of treasures from around the world. It was built in 1796 by two women, cousins who had been on a grand tour of Europe and were influenced by the round shaped buildings of antiquity. They also loved nature and fantastic shell and feather designs decorate the house, including an amazing shell gallery around the top of the central circular auditorium. They must have been eccentric women as it really is a quite fantastical place, and to add interest they named only female successors in their will and those females had to remain unmarried. And yes, this is another National Trust property. By being determined to get our money’s worth out of our membership we uncovered all sorts of hidden gems.
The weather was deteriorating when we packed up the tent and headed on to Dorset. Our first stop was Dorchester, a handsome historic town humming with activity and market stalls selling local produce lining the high street. After lunch at the Horse with the Red Umbrella we drove into the countryside to see the Cerne Abbas Giant. Carved into hillside this 55-metre-high white chalk figure depicts a nude male figure with a rather large erection. It’s thought to be ancient but there’s all sorts of debate as to how old it really is as the strange thing is it wasn’t mentioned in literature until the late 17th century making some people believe it was a political joke about Oliver Cromwell. Either way it’s quite impressive and amusing.
By this time the weather was getting stormy and we decided not to go the Dorset coast and instead find somewhere to camp before the rain set in. The first campsite was in an open field and as it was blowing a gale and we didn’t fancy our tent coming down in the middle of the night we decided to find somewhere else. After another couple that didn’t look much better we finally came across a small campsite tucked behind high hedges. There were only a few others camping there, but it looked fine and there was a perfect spot almost entirely sheltered from the wind. We got the tent up just before the rain came down and it rained non-stop all the next day. We couldn’t lie in bed all day reading and we needed to eat, so to a shopping mall in Poole, along with every other drenched holidaymaker. Just down the road from our campsite a huge summer festival featuring Rick Astley and Simple Minds was cancelled because of the weather. Thousands of people went home disappointed.
The rain cleared that evening for our final night camping. We had a house-sit arranged near London for our last week in the UK and had no more use for our tent and camping equipment. Andrew asked the campsite owner if he knew anyone who wanted it and he offered to buy it off us. Perfect! Then just before bed that night the airbed deflated. We found the hole and managed to repair it with glue and tape (thank goodness Mr Love carries fix-it stuff) and amazingly it stayed up all night. It lasted the trip, that’s all we wanted.
We finished our tour of Dorset with a visit to Durdle’s Door, a rock formation in the shape of an archway on the wild Jurassic Coast. We had to fight against the wind on the path down and then got soaked running back up.
A more sheltered attraction was Kingston Lacy, a lavish stately home inspired by an Italian palace. I’m sure I saw Andrew rolling his eyes at the thought of another historic house to visit but I pretended not to notice. Not only is Kingston Lacy a grandiose house on a large estate but it was packed with incredible art. The house was teeming with paintings by the likes of Rubens, Van Dyck, Titian & Brueghel & Tintoretto and the ceilings are covered in incredible frescoes by Italian Baroque artists. The art collection is 360 years in the making having been started in the 1650’s by Sir Ralph Bankes who built the house. Room after opulent room is adorned with exquisite works of art and antiques. The Spanish Room was particularly lavish with chocolate brown leather walls and dripping in Spanish paintings including one, by famous Spanish maestro Diego Velazquez. Once again this is a National Trust property and one we would never have visited otherwise. And this one blew Andrew away.
We had booked a B&B for the night in a village on the edge of the New Forest and took the slow route through the National Park to see the New Forest ponies. Just like Dartmoor, there were herds of ponies everywhere, walking on the roads and standing in the parking areas. You’re not supposed to pat them but they’re so friendly it’s impossible not to. A foal particularly liked me scratching his chin and wouldn’t let me stop.
The following morning on the way to our house-sit in Chertsey we stopped in at Winchester Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, with the longest nave and greatest overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe. It is a beautiful and impressive building. Jane Austen is also buried here, and fans of her work have left handwritten tributes to her by her grave. One fan thanking her for giving them Mr Darcy and another for Elisabeth Bennet as she is their “absolute heroine”!
Chertsey & Surrounds
Our final week in England was spent in Chertsey on the outskirts of London, looking after two very affectionate staffies, Bailey and Tippy, while their owners holidayed in Turkey. After the brief storm while we were camping in Dorset the weather returned to its summery best and we spent a lot of the week outdoors: walking the dogs in the nearby forest, blogging, relaxing in the sun, reading on the hammock, and generally resting up for the next leg of our journey. Chertsey is quite close to Heathrow so there was never a shortage of low flying aircraft to try and identify.
The Kiwi neighbour invited us for a drink. He’s been here 20 years, married Monica from Poland and now they have two English kids. We had some good laughs telling tales of travel.
We did pull ourselves away to visit Windsor again, and walk along the Thames at Runnymede, the site of the sealing of the Magna Carta. We took a drive past the palatial homes of Virginia Water, the most expensive suburb in England and home to all sorts of celebrities, although we didn’t see any. We went to Ascot Racecourse for a look and there was a day trip to London too. We couldn’t be so close and not go. We do like London. Across Waterloo Bridge, along The Strand, Chancery Lane, Tottenham Court, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, a quick walk down the Mall for a peek of Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, No. 10, the Horse Guards, past a shrouded Big Ben under repair, across Westminster Bridge, past the London Eye and back to Waterloo Station – a big circle, 20,000 steps, a new Fitbit and make-up for me and shorts and t-shirts for him.
And now our time in the UK has come to an end. Andrew tells me we’ve spent 102 nights here, I have lost count. I could go on about how incredibly diverse and beautiful the landscape is and how every corner of this nation is layered in history, but I think I’ve already said everything in my last six blogs, and I’ve certainly gone on long enough.
We had a blast Britain. It’s now time to head east, to Bulgaria.
