Glastonbury

Megan is back from Canada now and to kick things off we headed out for a nice hike up Glastonbury Tor (Tor is a Celtic word used to describe a hill)on Monday (bank holiday in England). Glastonbury is famous for a few reasons. The biggest is probably the Glastonbury Festival which is the longest running music festival in the world. This could be the reason that there are always hippies hanging around the town. Unfortunately this year they did not hold the festival. Next year is looking promising though and Megan and I are planning on attending. 3 days in a tent on a muddy field sounds like so much fun. Anyways Glastonbury is also famous for the Chalice Well and Gardens which is "supposedly the hiding place of the Holy Grail" and Glastonbury Abbey which are now ruins but is said to have been founded by the great uncle of Jesus called Joseph of Arimathea. Glastonbury claims to be the birthplace of English Christianity and also the resting place of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. But then again there are at least 10 places in England that claim this. The main reason we went Glastonbury though was to hike up the Tor which is "supposed" to be the home of the King of the Underworld. Well we didn't see any signs of this but we did get some great views from the top. At the top of the Tor there is the remains of the medieval church of St. Michael. Inside it was more like a wind tunnel than a tower.






After the hike up the Tor we walked around the town a bit checking out the abbey and going into some of the strange stores around the town. Most of them sell swords, crystal balls, and aromatherapy oils. Quite a strange place but it is definitely unique. Hopefully we will return next June for the festival.

Oh, in one of the windows of a stange bookshop Megan found a great flyer for International Talk Like A Pirate Day. We couldn't resist a picture and of course a browse around the website.

The height of Darkness

Well I spent this weekend down in the county of Devon in a place just outside Totness where my grandmother lives. On the Saturday we met up with my Uncle Keith and Aunt Helen to do a little geocaching. We went to a National Trust park not far from dartmoor and walked along the river for about 20min or so before coming to the bridge. After about 20min of searching, Keith finally spotted the geocache underneath the bridge. The only problem was it was right in the middle of the bridge and only accessible from the water. So I took off my shoes and socks and waded out to the middle of the river (about knee deep) and jumped up and grab onto some reinforcing under the bridge and stayed there swinging on one arm while I grabbed the canister. That was the easy part. Getting it back up was a bit of a problem while swinging from one arm but I eventually got it back into place. I got a little bit wet from the river but it didn't really matter as this is England and of course it was raining anyways.

Later that afternoon when my cousin Sam was off work he joined Keith and me on another geocache. This one was unlike any others that we had done as it involved us climbing into a cave and had the name "the height of darkness". We had some trouble finding the entrance and it resulted in a few hundred stinging nettle stings as I was only wearing shorts. Once we scaled a bit of a rock face we came across a very small opening. After looking at it quite skeptically, Keith dove in head first and we followed not allowing ourselves to be outdone. Once inside this cave we could all stand up without a problem. There were a lot of spiders with egg pouches on the walls but it was really amazing inside. The clue for the geocache said to look in the highest chamber. There was another chamber a little higher in the cave so we made our way up to that before we found this rope leading up a steep incline. There was just enough room to lie on our stomachs and inch our way up while holding onto this rope. We figured we must have ascended about 100ft before we got to yet another really small opening. Only just scraping though the opening we found ourselves in this really large chamber that was about 20ft high. While same climbed up a ledge and found the geocache I was taking a few photos with an old camera. Through a small hole in the roof of the cave was a few bats and a few more spiders. After this we made our way back down without going into some of the other areas of caves as the girls were back at home with the BBQ. But I am sure one if not all of us will be back there again at some point. Who knows maybe this time we won't go in shorts and t-shirts and we might even take hardhats with us.

Don't Complain To Me About Gas Prices

Well I thought I would cheer all you Canadians up by telling you how lucky you are when it comes time to fill up your car. I am sure it may seem like a lot of money at the time but at least you don't have to fill up your car over here in England. Below is a picture of of what it cost me to fill up at the pumps.

In case you don't know what the exchange rate is currently sitting at I will fill you in. Today's rate is 2.11289 which means that to fill up my car it just cost me $107.38 Canadian. So next time you fill up your car consider yourself lucky. Also, the wages may be slightly higher here but they do not compensate for this!!!

Punting the backs and a new kind of jumping

Well this weekend was a long one but we managed to pack in as much as we could. First I should probably mention that on Thursday night I picked up Paul and Lauren from Temple Meads Station in Bristol. They had just come from a 3 week trip in Spain but also stopped in Paris, London, and then on to Bristol. I picked them up at 9:00pm and took them on a driving tour of Bristol and then around a few very narrow country roads before heading back to our flat for a few good old English ales.

The following morning we drove out to Bath to see the abbey, baths, and Pultney bridge. While Paul and Lauren walked around the Baths I decided to save some money by just walking to an old church instead. We piled back in the car after about 3 hours and drove on to Stonehenge. It was absolutely packed. I have never seen it have so many people. But true to the blog we did manage to get a few great jumping shots. After we had had enough to trying to dodge all the other tourists we drove north to the small town of Avebury. Avebury is the place where you can walk around the and touch the stones and is never packed with tourists even though the stone circles here are much bigger. We went to a few stones in a field where there were a lot of sheep. This is where sheep jumping was born. Paul tried to convince me to jump over a sheep and he would get a picture. We figured the sheep would run away before I could close so instead we snuck up to them and jumped beside them. Hence sheep jumping was born. Photos below!!!



After this we drove up to London to get some much deserved fish and chips before heading off to bed. The following morning we had planned to go to London but it was pouring with rain so we decided to go somewhere that didn't cost as much to get in to. We decided on Cambridge and after a 40min drive we took the park and ride into the city centre. It rained off and on for a while until we went into the Kings College Chapel. It was absolutely stunning inside. The roof was packed with detail and is really a site to see. There was no photography allowed so we spent about an hour in the chapel and then walked around the grounds. We entered a door marked private (unknown to us at the time) and found ourselves in the campus pub. As it was open we got a beer and relaxed until it was time to continue around Cambridge.

Walking out the back of the University you go across a bridge that crosses over the river Cam. This part of the river is know as the Backs as there a many different colleges (all part of the University of Cambridge) that "back" onto the river. We had a great view off all the people "punting the backs" which is basically gondola rides up and down the river. We laughed quite a bit at a head on collision between 2 boats not really knowing how hard it was to do. Although little did we know in less than half an hour we were about to find out.

Well instead of paying £10 each for a guided tour and sitting on one of the boats we finally agreed to just pay the £14 total and go punting for an hour by ourselfs. Paul started off and after a few min was getting really good. After a while I gave it a shot and got the hang of it after a few mishaps. We took it down the river right past Kings College and turned it around and went back. It was such a great time and something I can't wait to try again. If we had known and had more time we could have taken it further down past Trinity College to the bridge of sighs. Well we know now for next time. This was definitely the highlight of the weekend for me.



After returning the boat we walked around a few more sights like Pembroke College, a few others colleges I forget, and then to the round church which as it sounds is a round church. It was getting late but we still wanted to check out the bridge of sighs. We got close but could not find a great way to it without paying the admission fee into the college. We walked around trying to take many different paths to get there but ended up in the wrong place which resulted in us getting kicked out of St. Johns College by a professor. Well he was nice enough and unlocked a side door so we could get to the city side instead of having a long walk around the river and colleges. We made it back the car by 6 and drove up to Ely Cathedral even though it was closed. It is such an amazing site from the outside Paul and Lauren had to see it as we were so close. Back at Hatfield heath we looked a few photos and then made our way down for 3 pints in the white horse pub. Yes the same one we took Ryan and Curt to on different occasions.


Sunday morning we decided to go into London despite the rain as Paul and Lauren still had a few things left to see. They spent two days in London before coming down to Bristol but still had not been to Buckingham Palace. Something you have to see while in the area. So we drove to harlow to find out there was no rail service to Chesthunt (2 stops down the line). Just like with Curt we had to jump on a bus which took almost 45min before we could get onto the train. And the National Rail wonders why it is so often at the end of a joke. Anyways we went to Buckingham Palace, walked through St. James Park to Hyde Park, walked up to the Marble Arch and then made our way to Westminster. We walked the long way around to Westminster Abby before making our way back to Harlow (all the way by train this time) where we loaded up the car and I drove Paul and Lauren down to Gatwick. We were there around 9pm and it was 9:30 when I left after we had a quick bite to eat. I manage to make it back to Bristol just after midnight. It was a great but very exhausting weekend but Paul and Lauren were great guests and I hope they make it out this way again before too long.

Sorry for the really long post. I just didn't want to leave anything out.

Wales.......again

So last weekend I went over the border again with some friends from Australia. We started off at Chepstow Castle. Well I took the wrong bridge over to Wales and took us the long way there through the small narrow country lanes, which was fine as we were in no rush. We spent a good hour or so at the castle before digging into some Cornish pasties from a small bakery in the town. I have posted some different pics of the castle as I any of you following along with this blog have seen quite a few entires and photos of it already.


Not to far north of Chepstow is a place called Tintern Abbey is a old Cistercian abbey that dates back to 1131. It is in rough shape now but it is still a pretty amazing site to see. We decided to save the money and not pay to go in as we could see pretty much every thing we wanted from just walking around the outside as you can see from the pictures.



After a walk around the area we made our way through the Wye valley stopping for some nice pictures in some small towns in the country. We took a "short cut" on the "white roads (Dawn, Brad, and Megan know what I mean)" to get to a place called Harold’s stones. Well they were not as exciting as they sound but we did get to disturb the sheep who were lounging around until we came in. They ran off pretty quick (well as fast a sheep can). The stones are just 3 standing stones that have been there for 3500 years. There was a plaque saying that they were either marker stones or used for religious purposes. Hahaha that’s what they say about all standing stones. I think that just means they have no clue what they were for.


As it was getting late in the day by this point we drove back to Chepstow and stopped in at a pub right next to the castle. We sat outside on the picnic bench enjoyed sun and the view before heading back to England. Wales is so picturesque that I took quite a few pictures and some panoramas that are not yet stitched together. I will get around to it soon and post them later in the month. Hahaha.