South and Mid Wales

We started our trip in wales full steam!! Driving in from Bristol, we headed straight to Blaenavon to check out the Big Pit coal mine. We found this little gem in our rough guide to the UK, and what a little gem it was!! It was a real decent underground guided tour, 90m deep into the mine, guided by the old miners themselves. Our guide (I can't remember his name) was a real old little miner man, with a thick Welsh accent. he was very protective about the mine and even got up in one ladies face because he didn't like the way she was looking at the walls, haha it was a laugh. They gave us our helmets, head torches and little belt packs with our safety equipment on and put us into a rather large 'shaft' that took us down into the mine. 50 minutes of exploring learning and whole blackness left us amazed and a little bit sad learning about the miners and the lives they had. What great start to Wales, and it was FREE! 

Off we went to Crickhowell where we decided we would climb table mountain. It was only 3miles, but it was straight uphill, none of this zig zagging stuff it was straight up, and my legs and sometimes lungs would not obey. It nearly killed me, I'm not as fit as some might think, but I made it to the top!! The views were spectacular. Hills surrounded us, green green grass and sheep, the sky was blue with fluffy white clouds and I was eating chocolate biscuits. (I needed my energy back!!) The walk back down the mountain wasn't as easy as I had hoped, my legs were shaking trying to stop my body from falling down as we were almost vertical for the top part! Never mind, we made it down and I was feeling hopeful that I might be able to climb bigger mountains yet!! Our first day in Wales and it wasn't over yet, blissful!

Off we went to another little town where we would spend the night relaxing ready for our next day. 

River Usk. We parked up in a beautiful park, daffodils lining the road and an absolutely gorgeous river right in front of us. An info sign told us that salmon, crayfish and otters lived in this river. Otters!! Awesome!! It was 5pm so we sat in our van and watched the river, I said to Aaron, if there were otters about they would come out between 5 and 6pm to feed… BAM 5.30pm and a cheeky little otter came out to feed! I couldn't believe it, I was so excited, otters are one of my favourite animals, we jumped out of the van and watched him dive down and come back up with little fish and chomp them down we watched him for about 15minutes until he finally was out of sight down the other side of the river. A lady asked us what we were looking at, and I told her about the otter, she was so annoyed, she said she had been walking the river for an hour trying to spot one and she missed out! We are so blessed!! 

Our first day was over and our first night was about to begin. And what a night it would be. 

It all started when we were cooking our pasta and tuna which was to be our dinner, when a nice (but was he too nice?) Scottish man came over to ask us if we had everything we needed as he was in the camper van just down from us, we said we were in need of some water and kindly (too kindly?) filled our container up for us. We were so thankful, and he stayed and chatted to us as we cooked our food, after a while he began to pop his head in our van, looking around, observing and when our food was ready he wouldn't leave. It was quite an awkward situation, such a nice guy helped us out but now we needed to eat our food, how do we tell him to leave? Finally after quite a long awkward silence and a prompt from me he left and we sat down to eat our food. While we were washing up our dishes a man in a station wagon pulled up next to us with his two daughters, small girls, must have only been maybe 6 and 8 years of age and they ate there fish and chips, lovely I thought, come to the river to eat your dinner, why wouldn't you? After washing up we got into the van and had a cuppa tea and chilled out enjoying the view when we noticed a little girl walk past our van by herself with a torch light, she looked young maybe 10, it was dark so it was hard to tell, but she should't have been walking alone along a river leading into a park. I though it was weird and was thinking about it when Aaron noticed the Dad next to us turn his light off in the car, 'what is he doing?!!' Aaron was all confused and a little weirded out while I was thinking that little girl shouldn't be alone. I couldn't handle it a minute longer, I told Aaron I needed to find that girl and do something, I was worried about her so I jumped out of the van and started down the river the way she was heading I walked around the park looking for a little girl, while feeling a little bit scared myself! After walking around for a bit I seen a figure walking around so I walked up to it, AH HUH the little girl I found her!! I asked her if she was ok and what she was doing and she informed me she was trying to find her friend who went missing 20 minutes ago, gutted, she was looking for the girl I was looking for. I felt a little bit panicked, took her cell number assured her I wasn't a creep and told her I would call her if I found the little girl. I went back to the van and told Aaron the news and asked him if he would help me look, I felt a little bit responsible as I just watched her walk past my van and left it too late, all of a sudden there was a guy running around screaming the girls name and a little group of people were on the search…Aaron was telling me the Dad in the car next to us was still in there, they had been in there for at least half an hour by now and due to what was going on around us we started thinking the worst…. pedo, AHHH what do you even do in that situation? 

A: Knock on the door and demand to know whats going on, obviously implying he is being rude with the little girls and possibly be wrong and get beaten up for saying such a thing 

B: Knock on the door and demand to know whats going on, obviously implying he is being rude with the little girls and possibly be right and get beaten up for catching him 

C: leave it and never know, possibly leaving the girls in danger

We couldn't decided what to do so I turned on my torch light and tried to look inside without getting too close to the car and being obvious but had no luck, I couldn't see anything. 5 minutes later he turned on the lights and allllll the windows were fogged right up, the girl in the passenger seat rubbed her hand on the window and looked out before the Dad started the car and drove away, whatever happened that was weird! 

I got into the van and we sat in silence for a bit. The search party was still searching and Aaron was telling me how he was 'sure the Scottish guy was just a nice person, but you never know right? you always seen to know your killers' and that was that. We left. My mind was a mess and I felt really bad so we drove away to a nice little street and slept the night away.

One day and one night down. Wales, you are a strange but beautiful place.

The next day we drove to Ystradfeltte - waterfall country!! Driving along the road I felt as if I was almost back in NZ, Otago, the grass was brown, the road windy and there was a beautiful river right beside the road for most of the way, it was hilly and there were waterfalls by the road, very beautiful! 

We are in the Brecon Beacons national park and ready for a 4 hour hike around a waterfall circuit. It was raining softly on and off and the information lady had warned us not to go… we don't have time for the weather to stop us though, we must get going, plus the rain would just had to the beautiful waterfalls. We arrived and got walking, it was hard walking up and down all these hills, down to the waterfall and then all the way back up again, getting hot and then getting cold, raining and then not raining, level 5 walking track they said, but it was well worth it, the waterfalls were magnificent! And all this walking is good for me, we have Snowdon and Ben Nevis mountains to climb yet! 

At the end of the day, tired, we made some food and drove to Mumbles to watch the sunset and sleep.

Rhossili Bay. 

We came to Rhossili Bay on a mission! Low tide was at 11:05am and we had until 1:30pm until we had to be back on the main land. Why? Allow me to tell you my friend, here at this beautiful coastal area, is two islands that are separated from the main land at high tide and joint at low tide, due to strong currents its very dangerous to attempt to cross at any other time. So we had a time limit and a lot to see! The views from all places were absolutely stunning, I cannot describe the scenery here so heres a photo for you.

It was an amazing. the views were spectacular and all the land you can see in the pictures above, we walked it all. 14.74km we walked up and down the hills across the beach, we played on the sand dunes, we found a tennis ball and played football, we watched the surfers, we collected shells and then stomped on them, we were cold then we were warm. It was a magical place. It was a stunning.

The next few days we relaxed, we were tired from full on days and we needed to shower and wash our clothes. Eventually we made it to Aberaeron where we drove through the village and decided to have a quick stop and a look around. This is the cutest little village we have passed through so far, everything is so bright and beautiful!! All of the houses, not just some but all of them are bright colours, pinks purples, greens, blues, yellows!! It was great!! We quickly moved on though, as we needed to get to devils Bridge to check out the waterfalls there before the weather turns too bad. 

So far Wales has only given us patches of blue sky, it has been, for the most part, drizzly rain and grey skies.

We arrived at Devils Bridge and, can you believe it! they were charging a pound for one waterfall and 2 pounds for the other waterfall. No way am I paying to see nature! So up the road we went until we came across a very tall gate! So we decided to climb over. Not as easy as it sounds, the holes in the gate were small so I couldn't stick my foot in to get a grip and fling myself over, I fell, and despairingly looked at Aaron and told him I couldn't do it. Mr Muscles said it wasn't so hard and used his upper body strength to fling himself across. Easy for some. Didn't I tell you earlier I'm not that fit?? So after a few attempts, some grunting and my tongue out my mouth for extra strength I managed, only just, to haul myself over and fall onto the other side. We were in!! We had picked the better waterfall too!! it was a huge waterfall!! MASSIVE even. There were 14 different look out points just so we could see it all. Nature is beautiful. 

After the excitement of sneaking in and beating Wales, we carried onto another free event!! Kite feeding in Bwlch Nant Yr Arian (you can tell we're getting into the real parts of Wales now, look at the name of this place!!) At 2pm everyday they feed the Kites here because of the harsh winters and not being able to easily kill alive prey, Kites have a low chance of survival here, they almost went extinct, the number went from something silly like 4 Kites to 800!! All because of the feedings in the winter. It was a magical thing to watch hundreds of Kites come in for the feeding!! The people feeding them worked in the national park, and feed them bits of chicken and pork. Lots of it. Awesome! 

Now its today. Its cold, its raining, its raining all week, and next. Horrible bad rain. Its bad, and horrible and if it carries on we may go back to England for a few weeks and return to Wales later. We are living each day as it comes. Well see what happens, and i'll let you know next time. 

For now, football and pubs. 

NB: If you want to check out more photos, I have them all on Facebook, in my Wales and England albums.

Cornwall

My favourite county so far!

We drove into Looe at night drove around the harbour and found a beautiful spot in a residential area, on top of a hill, over looking the ocean. Parked up our van and we were out to it for the night. Cornwall is 'world renowned' (even though i'd never heard of it before) for its cornish pastys and cornish ice-cream, so our main goal on our first day in Cornwall was to have a cornish pasty and find an info centre. After the info centre and finding probably the best map ever, we went to 'Sarah's homemade cornish pastys'. Pastys are sort of like pies, they are made of pastry and filled with steak, spud, swede sometimes a bit of onions and some seasoning… they are so beautiful and very filling, but for 2.50pounds they are just too expensive to be buying all the time! Plus I have put on 3kgs since I've been in England, so I'm trying to keep away from all the pastry and pasta!! Probably doesn't help that I ate a bag of chocolate caramel buttons this morning at 10:30am...

Allow me to explain exactly how we are living. We bought an eight seater toyota van. We lay all the seats in the back down and bought a memory foam mattress off ebay and laid that down on top of the seats, we both have our own sleeping bag and a duvet to go on top, there are curtains on all windows including the back and behind the front seats so no-one can see in at all when we are sleeping. Our bed takes up alllll the room in the back except for one small space behind the front seats, and thats where our backpacks live. The back seats are 3/4 of the way down so when we sleep our heads are slightly on an upwards angle, which is surprisingly comfortable, so our boot space is very limited. We keep all our food and cooking utensils in the back on the left side we have a dry cooler bag for food and in front of that we have a cold cooler bag for the cold food. In the middle space we have the dishwashing bucket along with the tea towels and washing up liquid, and in front of that we have our 20L container of water, which needs filled daily. And on the right side we have a banana box filled with plates and pots and things. Under the seats are our extras that we barley use, plus our twin gas cooker along with the refill bottles, we also have an extra gas cooker that is sort of stuffed somewhere in the boot.

We use public toilets all the time and we shower every 4 days or so. We never pay for our accommodation, we find a space on the street somewhere, in a posh residential area usually - just depending on where we are, and we never pay for showers, leisure centres (swimming pools) will usually let you shower for free. Hand sanitizer, dry shampoo, a cloth and soapy water works a treat. I have learnt that when you need to pee in the night, you need to pee, so yes I have peed on the road, don't judge me until you've been in my position!! 

At this point I had not shaved my legs in about 5 weeks, possibly longer and my body was in need of a good working over with some hardcore soap and hot water. Luckily for us, the little angels Beth & Rich, Aaron's sister and brother-in-law, had given us a spa retreat and tea for two voucher for Christmas, that voucher was sitting with my passport in a hidden location in the van. 

St Austell, Cornwall Spa Retreat and Hotel, here we come!!

We arrived at night slept in the car park and we were in at 8am. Through out the day I washed my hair and body in the shower 4 times, I went through 3 shavers, my legs were smooth and moisturised, we used the sauna and steam room, we swam in the pools and relaxed in the spa, we lounged in our robes, we got all dressed up and pretended we were rich and beautiful while we drank tea and ate scones and finger sandwiches and cakes until we could eat and drink no-more, we used the golden loo's that actually smelt like roses, then we returned to the pools. We did this until 10pm when after fully satisfied we returned to our lovely little home outside in the car park and slept wonderfully.

Fully rejuvenated with smooth legs and all, we carried on our journey around the coast of Cornwall. Pendennis castle is one of Henry VIII's Device forts, (a 'device fort' is a series of castles that were built to protect the southern coast of England, deal castle is also a device fort.) It was built in the 1500's for King Henry VIII to guard the entrance to the River Fal on its west bank, near Falmouth. St Mawes Castle is across the river on the east bank, they were both built to defend Carrick Roads from the French and Spanish threats of future attack. It is in such a beautiful location and the amount of history pilled into that site was spectacular! Once again we cheated England, and we climbed almost vertical walls using grass growing out of the cracks as our grips and stepping stones, and so we got in for free! HA! There were canons poking out of walls everywhere, great big war guns and bunkers everywhere, the gun deck was fantastic!! The castle was still in great condition, although we didn't get to go inside the castle its self. We took loads of photos until we seen a security guard walking around when we stealthily boosted it to a wall jumped a spiky fence and ran away laughing! We walked a short walk to the very edge of the ocean, where there were more war bunkers and another small castle like fort, the rocks surrounding the bank are so beautiful and they really suit the location, spiky and dangerous looking. Content with our adventure we moved on, we drove the coastal road past a few pretty spots stopped here and there checked out some gardens until we arrived at Lizard point, the most southern point of England. We watched a beautiful sunset and settled down for the night. The next morning our rough-guide-to-the-United-Kingdom directed us to Kynance Cove, a little gem not many people know about. Cornwalls coast is so dramatic, like really dramatic. The cliffs aren't just straight cut cliffs they are beautiful coloured rocks with huge drops and large spiky rocks pointing in and out from everywhere, there are coves and holes and little ocean ways everywhere, the water is crystal clear and bright blue. This particular morning it was miserable and drizzling, we were almost put off but decided to brave the weather and go for it, it was a 10 minute walk down a track, the rain stopped as we got to a point in the path that said "dangerous, path reconstruction, go that way -->" we totally could had gone the other way, but where is the fun in that? We veered off track and went rock climbing we found lots of secret rock pools and beautiful views, we reached the beach and explored some more, I just can't get enough of these wee treasures. The water is so gorgeous and the view is beyond words. Its as good as NZ you know, some English people just don't understand or appreciate what they have in there own country!! We slowly made our way back to the van sticking to the edge of the cliff enjoying the views, and just as we got back it started to rain again, good one England, you put on a good show!! 

Onwards we go, to a place called Minack Theatre. A women called Rowena Cade with the help of two or three men built this theatre after the first world war for her and her mother to live in. Minack Theatre is an open-air theatre built above a gully with a rocky outcrop cutting into the sea. There was no sneaking into this one unless we went swimming and tried to climb some super intense rocks, England got one over us and we paid 4.50pounds each to have a look around. Even though I hate paying for historic sites that I believe should be free and available for everyone, I thought this one was well worth it, and had they been showing a production, I'd have paid to watch that too!! The view from the theatre is magical and I can't get over the fact that a women back in 1890 decided to build a theatre in a cliff edge!! So crazy and so beautiful! Whitsand Bay and Lands End were our next destinations, both beautiful spots, Lands end is the most western point of England. We spent the night in St Just in a car park. Today was our 2nd year anniversary and what a great day it had been, we ended it with vegetables and fish cakes for tea. I am so lucky to be travelling Europe with Aaron, and we are so blessed to be able to live in such a small space together and love each other more, not less. Happy Anniversary to us :)

On the front of the awesome map of Cornwell we got from the lady in the info centre in Looe, is a big beautiful picture of two old houses on the rocks on the cliff edge, it is such a beautiful picture and I desperately wanted to see it in person. So we headed from St Just to Botallack where we were told the picture was taken after some searching and the non existent road signs, we carried onto the Levant Mines. They mined here for cooper and tin, the old mine site was beautiful, and right on the cliff edges, like everything in Cornwall it was all very dramatic and beautiful, it was a freezing morning, -1 degrees when we got up! We even snuck into an old mine tunnel which we weren't allowed in without paying, or guidance! It was scary, but cool. It was scary cool! hahaha. (Lars that ones for you!) 

After some exploring we thought we would attempt to find that picture I so badly wanted to see, so we walked and walked, we didn't take the normal coastal walking track, we made our own, again on the cliff edge, we can't get enough of it!! We climbed the massive rocks and jumped from point A to point B and before long we were missioning it along the coast!! Staring death in the face, Aaron clinged from rocks with huge drops into water he wouldn't survived, while I ran down steep banks with a small gap of a path before a drop into the wild ocean, you would think we are stupid, but its so much fun, adrenaline rules our lives these days. After an hour or two of walking I looked down the edge of the cliff and seen my picture!! We ran down and around onto a big rock that sticks our to get the big shot!! Pulled out my camera and absolutely gutted, it was flat!!! So instead we used Aarons phone, the quality is average, but what a shot!! We sat on the rock and chatted and enjoyed the view for ages. It was my favourite moment, equal with the seven sisters. What an absolutely beautiful place. It was surreal. It was only 11 in the morning and we were already being stunned by England. We spent the rest of the day travelling around and checking out beautiful beaches and just chilling out.

It wasn't long before we'd driven to New Quay. Stunning place, but we didn't spend long here, we drove to Watergate Bay Aaron jammed on his guitar I did a word find we relaxed and watched the sunset and the surfers, a gorgeous beach and a pretty sunset.

Tintagel Castle. Just up from New Quay. A beautiful castle, one half of it is on the main land and the other half is on an Island just beside the main land. Built into the cliff side the castle is believed to be built in the Roman times and is also believed to be the birth place of King Arthur, although there are doubts if he even existed!! Still it is a very beautiful place and the ruins are gorgeous. Once again it was 6.50pounds each to go to the Island and see and explore the castle. We didn't want to pay, of course, and they closed at 4pm so we decided we would just wait until then to see the other half of the castle. The part of the castle on the mainland was really easy to sneak into. We walked around a bit and waited until 4:30pm. It wasn't until we climbed the stairs and snuck up until we realised they shut the door! Allow me to explain exactly, the bridge and stairs leading up to the second part of the castle is almost vertical, there are HUGE stone walls on the cliff edge, the door that we didn't realise even existed was closed and bolted and padlocked shut. There is no chance at all of climbing that wall, and if you did try and climb the dirt and rocky ground and attempt to get over the wall, if you fell, you would fall a very long way to a horrible death, it was far to dangerous and risky. England had got one over us and we were gutted!! Never mind we saved some pennys and that would pay for our next few meals, instead we walked to a different point on the mainland and enjoyed the views from there. 

I love Cornwall.

A Cornish Pasty.

Minack Theatre

Botallack Coastal Walk, the much wanted picture :) 

South Coast of England

Leaving the not so sunny East Coast behind us we headed off to the more so sunny South Coast of England, we passed through a few small towns, seen some more castles and plodded along gently. We didn't have a plan, or any places we specifically wanted to see we were just driving the coast, we passed through Dover and seen the white cliffs, they were pretty but we didn't have time to stop and see them, it was going dark and the traffic was crazy… not too far from there we parked up and slept in a small historic town called Battle. This is where William the Conquer came with his army and fought King Harold the 2nd, won and became the King of England!! Most of these historic places are closed until end of March as there aren't people silly enough to travel England in these cold winters, except for me and Az of course, but we didn't vear off our main track to Battle to be beaten by the English Heritage people, no. We jumped the fence and snuck our way in! The main big Castle was busy with people who lived and worked there, so we didn't get to see that part, we weren't to bothered about that anyway our main goal was to see the Battle field where it all happened back in 1066, so we walked the track all the way around the battle field and snuck past the great big castles walls back to our car. It was a real strange feeling walking around the Battle Field, knowing that, back then there was a battle so big it changed the history or future as it was of England. Knowing that right where we were walking men had died fighting for what they believed in, pretty cool.

On the road again, the sun shinning. 

Crusing along a windy road, green grass and sheep on each side we arrive at Eastbourne Beachy Heads/The Seven Sisters. Big beautiful white cliffs with a 575ft drop to gorgeous sandy beach and a blue sea. There was no wind and lots of sun so we parked up made a cuppa tea made our way to the edge. 

Beautiful.

There was a grassy bank that went off the edge of the cliff that lead out to a point so we braved it and sat on the very edge. Its a long way down there. My feet were tingling and I was feeling a little bit giggly and silly because how high I was up and yet so close to falling off. We played and took photos before getting off and back onto 'real ground'. The scenery was unreal, two lighthouses, one just for show I think. We ran along the edge of the cliffs, lots of laughing and being silly, so much adrenaline was pumping through me, it was dangerous what we were doing, Aaron even pretended to jump a crack that he could have totally fell through, I nearly cried then, it was funny looking back on it, and just added to the adrenaline!! What a feeling!! I felt so free. I felt more than free actually, I felt… love, and fun and a little bit childish, cheeky and daring, like i could conquer England!! Haha, it was a really nice day. My favourite day so far.

Back to the car we went and rested, we were tired from so much craziness. 

We travelled along the coast, spent two days in Portsmough/Portsolent catching up with Aaron's friend Laura who works in the Navy, she gave us a sweet tour of the navy area where all the old navy war ships are, and the ones they use now too. Fun fact: the navy sells old navy ships they don't want/use to Gillette for razor blades….. so your shaving your legs, or whatever else, with a little piece of navy ship, awesome! 

Onto Winchester where we visited our beautiful friend Imogen, then up to Stonehenge. If anyone was to ask an English person about Stonehenge they would probably say its just a pile of rocks, nothing special, don't bother. I don't know why they have such a crappy look on it but they do, me however….i loved it!! Firstly, as a kid growing up at school, all the computers screen-savers were stonehenge so its something I've always seen and though 'thats pretty' and its quite a magical feeling to have the chance to see it in person, secondly the mystery behind it all is soooo, mysterious! Ha! The people from the "Bronze-Age' found these massive rocks, somehow then moved them (these things are 9 metres tall and weigh up to like 25 ton and are only found in western parts of Wales), whether by boat or cart they don't know and then miraculously, as if they had a huge crane, lifted them onto each other, but not just for the sake of it… no, they found the perfect spot of flat land between two sloping hills, that spot just so happened to be a the perfect place for the summer and winter solaces or something! Anyway theories are its a huge calendar, or a healing centre, or even a sun worship temple!! So i found it pretty special to be able to go and see that for myself, the wonder behind it all is what gets me. People back then were really smart.

That afternoon after all the excitement of the 'stones' we drove to the New Forest, a sweet place I'd heard loads about from all the english folks! Ol' William the Conquer bought deer and pigs and horses and donkeys to the New Forest for Gaming reasons, and now it is a national park where all the ponies and donkeys and rest of the animals run around freeee and live beautiful happy lives! Its not what you'd expect it to be though, its part forest/trees part swampy hilly land. Still very beautiful and majestic, with little villages here and there with wild ponies chomping on the peoples front lawns. They have cattle stops and fencing around the New Forest (which by the way is actually HUGE) to keep all the animals in. Quite cool. 

NB: a donkey stuck its head in the van window and I pat it and he was really cool.

After all the excitement we moved onto a small town called Lulworth we arrived late found a spot to sleep and crashed out it was dark and creepy, little did we know what an absolute gem this place would be!!

In the morning after our bacon sarnies (english slang for sandwiches) we walked down to the beautiful Lulworth Cove, a nice beach with crystal blue/green water! After oohing and ahhing we carried on to Durdle Door, up a huge hill that i nearly died walking up cause I'm super unfit and over the top we walked to Durdle Door, its similar to that of the 'Hole-in-the-rock' In Bay of Islands NZ. Huge golden cliffs beautiful sand gorgeous waters and the hole in the rock!! It was truly such a beautiful place, i could have sat there all day and just chilled out. The sun was shinning and the waves were crashing and Aaron was beside me, what a dream. Anyway, on we went back over the hill and too the car with happy faces! 

After a quick stop & sleep in Lyme Regis to watch the football and chill, we headed inland to Dartmoor, little did we know it would be SNOWING!! 

We spent the entire day driving around the Dartmoor National Park. Lots of steep hills which our van struggled up and lots of snow to play in! The main attractions in the Dartmoor Nat.P is the rocky hill tops, known as Tors. The people from the Iron ages used to live at these Tors and build there little villages around them. We visited a few different Tors, Haytor Rock, Hound Tor, and walked 45minutes in the snow up to a Tor, which I cannot remember the name of, pretending to be attackers….you have no idea what the cold does to us!! Snow ball fights and running and laughing and kicking over other peoples snowmen it was a fun day. 

East Coast of England

I am 11 days into travelling the Coast of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland and I am loving it!!!We (Aaron and myself) set off on the 20th of January, we left his Mums house in Rushton, Staffordshire and headed for the East Coast, our first destination was Kings Lynn followed by Cromer where we spent our first night in our Van! Kings Lynn was a nice town full of beautiful old buildings and some ruins, and Cromer was a beach town with big red cliffs a long stunning pier and a cosy feeling, We spent the next few days travelling through a few small beach towns - Norfolk Broads, Southwald, Aldesburgh and Orford. Orford had a great big beautiful castle that we parked next to. We had arrived at night in the dark and everything was a bit spooky, the castle had a very dim light coming from somewhere inside, there was a pair of glasses just hanging off the fence, the cemetery was in the middle of the town and one of the headstones shadows was towering over the cathedral, it was quiet on-one on the roads, not a person in sight, we enjoyed the evening alone in a pub with the bartender slowing going crazy! The next morning we were outta there!The beaches are all beautiful little places with beach huts of all colours lined down the beach. The sand is golden and the sea mostly dirty but still pretty. The houses change from town to town, some are white with black boards on the sides, some are little red brick houses with hundreds of chimneys, some are red brick with strange looking roofs made from some sort of sticks or straw, but the most common houses in the beach towns so far are pretty little concrete houses, painted pale pinks yellows and blues.Tthe roads are cobble stone and there is only room for one car at a time!! We moved onto Ipswich where (courtesy of our friends Jess and Simon) we had a shower after 4 days of being….all natural… we had lunch and a catch up and along we went on our merry little way to Whitstable where we spent the night and then moved onto Canterbury. By now we are on the South-East Coast. Canterbury. What can i say!! Canterbury had to be my favourite town (more like city) we'd visited so far. Absolutely amazed by all the ancient buildings. The castle we explored was nearly 1000 years old, it's walls are still standing but crumbling slowly, and one of the castle gates is still being used daily. The cathedral was ancient and stunning, we went to a night service, the organ playing was SUPERB it was so loud and the music was so beautiful, the way it echoed through the building! The Canterbury river which flows through Canterbury town is stunning, a little bit brown, yet so beautiful. It circles in, out and under the buildings, they even have a very old chair hanging over the river which they used for drowning suspected witches back in the day!! (Bad time to be a women I reckon) The buildings, shops and houses were all so OLD and even if they were't that old they were built to look old, I could almost see the horses and carts trotting down the pebble stone roads, and market stalls with dirty little kids running around with sacks while the farmers talk and push there carts of hay around, it could almost pass for a set off Game of Thrones! Such a historic, medieval town. I loved it! However… Something I noticed comparing the small beach towns and the bigger towns is that the smaller towns really appreciate what they have in the way of history. They look after the castles and heritage sites, where as it felt almost like the bigger towns didn't really care for what they had, example being in Canterbury they build big busy roads right next to the crumbling castle, there was litter EVERYWHERE! Even in the castle. I felt a real sadness, and i wondered if half the people who lived there even know or care about the amount of history in that town. So off we went after two days back to the coast and to the small town treasures!!