We are finally here

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12/07/2008

Drove to Calais and Gabe is showing magnificent form driving on the wrong side of the road. Got a very welcome text from Jan and John and fired up the GPS – everything is just going great. The GPS is so damn good but she sounds like a very posh English lady so we have christened her Moneypenny (from the Bond movies).

The internet has been so damn hard to access for us luddites.

Basically treated this as a rest day.

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Stayed in Calais

13/07/2008

Departed Calais 8:50 am.

Bloody hell we are driving through the middle of London in a left hand drive car – red double decker busses, black taxis, BMW’s and all sorts of other expensive cars not to crash into zooming by – thank God it was only a Sunday.

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Arrived St Pancras Youth Hostel at midday.

Hunted hard for parking for Pierre so that we could tuck him in for a few days – not a cheap little exercise but the public transport is so much easier to use.

14/07/2008

London Zoo was Leon’s big pick for the trip – he loved the zebras, giraffes, lion and the bug section.

We really wore out some shoe leather today – not only around the zoo…. but getting to it. Again the kids handled a very tiring day extremely well. We caught up with Row (Nicole’s old flatmate) for tea and a few beers in a local pub. Ade couldn’t keep up with Roe drinking the local ales, he reckons he’s a lager man but really he is just a girl’s blouse.

15/07/2008

Zig zagged across London like true champions of the Tube. First stop was the Girl Guide shop which was just down the road from Buckingham Palace. Leon thought that it started with an “F”. As usual we didn’t get invited in for a cuppa so we buggered off to Pak’s Lodge – the Mecca of guiding in England. We had a grand tour of the accommodation but were unable to see the bureau due to renovations. As you could expect Ade and Owen were overwhelmed by the experience and the girls and I heard no end of it for the day!~

Next stop was the Tower of London which turned Elena’s tummy with all the gory tales of head-severing and spiking from our tour guide. Then on to the London Eye which gave great views of London but was a bit tame for six thrill seekers like us. Team Z dragged their tired bodies back home and crashed.

16/07/2008

Had a great day riding an open topped double decker bus around the sights. In true traveller form we realised that we were running out of time and tried to squeeze in as much as possible on our last day. Did Madame Tusauds, Abbey Road studios, a Thames River cruise and caught a London cab. The kids loved Madame Tusauds. We even managed to fit in some Bollywood dancing. Caught up with Row again (and Ade didn’t do any better against the power drinking legend from Sydney) but it was really relaxing to sit and chat with an old Aussie mate. Row confessed to eating her fully imported Twisties on the tube on the way home (Gabe bought over a comfort pack full of Aussie treats) – she reckons that the bag was split but we know she was missing good old Aussie snack food.

17/07/2008

Left London with a sense of many stones still to be turned – we’ll be back some day.

Drove to Bath via Stonehenge. Ade reckons he ran naked around the monoliths and has photos to prove it, gut if you look closely at the photo you might guess he’s lying – we heard the cats miaow.

Drove up a leafy tree canopy lined avenue to an 18^th century mansion that was our Youth Hostel…(Cilla this was a step up…LOL)

18/07/2008

Today we really just cruised around absorbing the city. Bath is stunning, superb and splendid. Every building is by law required to be made out of the local honey coloured Bath stone – a stunning effect – I won’t even try to explain it… you just have to come here sometime.

19/07/2008

Still cruising around this gorgeous stone city and I am showing my male side to Ade with my sense of direction… (well it is better than his even if it is not as great as Owen’s!). We went to the Roman Baths which was like walking back 2000 years in time. The baths are fed from a thermal spring. At the end of the tour they gave us a glass of the water from the spa which was BLOODY AWEFUL. It supposedly has a curing effect and did, in fact, cure Ade’s cold that has been hanging around for a week – go figure. Then we had a massive 5 hour drive along tree lined country roads to Penzance in the far south. Along the way we drove through tiny villages and feasted our eyes on countless houses with thatched rooves - totally awesome, fully sick.

20/07/2008

Drove down to Land’s End today. We heard that this was a very tacky tourist spot, which it is if you do the tourist bit. We just walked along the coastline and marvelled at the natural wonder of this incredible southern-most tip of England. The cliffs are a bit like south eastern Tassie while the farmland is like a quaint version of the North West coast. The kids had a play on some decommissioned fishing boats in a playground and Kaye sounded like the Fisherman’s wife that we have always said she is…..lol. In the arvo we raced an in-coming tide across the land bridge to St Michael’s Mount – a castle and village built on a tiny island off Penzance. Gabe found the names of 3 men named Hill who were part of the nobility and gentry of the time – will Google them to see if they are related – a family legend has it that this could be so.

21/07/2008

Basically a down day – driving to St Austell then doing washing etc. The locals call this place St Awful and now we know why – it is just a big country town with nothing going for it.

22/07/2008

We went to the Eden Project which is totally amazing. 20 years ago a team of environmentalists had the idea to transform this old china clay pit into a centre for educating and changing people’s views on plants and the impact they have on people’s lives. We saw plants from all over the world in massive domes. There were 2 sections - tropical and Mediterranean with each including heaps of little microclimactic regions from all over the world - tropical rainforest to desert and everything in between.

Next Moneypenny took us through a labyrinth of hundreds of bloody hedgerow lined single vehicle only roadways. Years ago the walls were dry stone fences but over time weeds and organic matter have colonised them and turned them into tunnels. If you gave them a good trim you might well find a 4 laned highway and probably several towns and a few lost species. In some places the roads were so narrow we had to press a button to pin Pierre’s ears back – we also collected lots of plant matter in the door strips.

The frustrating drive was well worth it in the end when we popped up in the tiny fishing village of Polperro. Our camera died two days ago so we don’t have any photos to show but we’ll definitely be coming back again some day. To get into town you need to either walk or catch a ride with a horse and cart. As we hopped up on the cart our horse, Oliver, dropped a shocker of a fart. Owen bailed out to the back of the cart and Kaye and Leon laughed for half an hour. This has been by far the highlight of Kaye’s trip, I don’t reckon we’ll top this. The only giveaway that this town had moved on from the 19^th century were power lines. We took a fishing boat trip for half an hour along the coastline – it certainly gave us an appreciation for how sheltered this little village is from both the sea and the modern world. Leon and Kaye had a steer of the boat (nearly capsized)

We ran out of time here and had to make tracks to Plymouth to catch our ferry for France departing at 11:00 pm.

23/07/2008

Arrived Roscoff in Brittany at 7:00 am and with bleary eyes, drove all day to Tours. Settled into the scungiest hostel of the trip so far, it’s only redeeming feature being that it was only a block from the centre of an amazing medieval part of town. Wandered the streets, often getting lost both literally and in its awesome beauty.

24/07/2008

Bought a new camera so we quickly took some photos of Tours then headed off to Poitiers. By contrast we settled into the best hotel so far (Gabe was so, so relieved). Dined at a local French restaurant recommended by our very gay hotelier. We all had a crack at snails for our entrée. Elena rated them 8/10, Ade gave them 4/10, Gabe 2/10, Owen 3/10, Leon 2/10 but Kaye didn’t rate them at all – pushed them around with her fork and begrudgingly swallowed her second one with a Coke chaser like taking a bitter pill. Followed up with a delicious rabbit main course with wicked desserts to follow. This follows our eat local tradition – a creperie in Calais as well as black pudding, Cornish pasties, fish & chips, bacon & eggs and pork pie in England – can’t wait to get to Italy!

25/07/2008

Had a massive day at Futuroscope, near Poitiers. Futuroscope is a high tech theme park as much as it is an architect’s showcase. All super modern buildings housing interactive and cinema based futuristic attractions. Very tiring but a very stimulating day out. Again, getting lost we stumbled upon Poitieres’ ancient quarter – breathtaking.

26/07/2008

Drove to Lyon, it’s a “bloody long way Nanna.” Enjoying the typically French housing and countryside, it is amazing to see newly cut hay bales strewn across the fields in July.

Got lost trying to find the YHA, Moneypenny has been pretty poor in town lately. Finally found the hostel and it was simply terrible. The shower was EIEIEIEIEIOOOWWWW!!! - we couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. The room smelt like open sewers, it was too small for 6 and the coffee was undrinkable – All up out of 10 we would rate it an EIEIEIEIEIOOOWWWW!!!

27/07/2008

Another big driving day heading to Milan. No road rules in this city. Adrian got a bit obsessed with doing our washing – the prat at the hotel kept saying things like if you wait half an hour we can sort it out – they have very long half hours in Milan – still didn’t get it done all day.

28/07/2008

Still trying to do a wash, walked for about an hour with 4 big bags of washing through sweltering heat – Team Z was not a very happy camp.

Drove 2 hours to Bazzano. Moneypenny took us to another Via J F Kennedy about 1.6km’s away from where we were supposed to be – how extraordinary.

Pina welcomed us and we settled into our new Hotel at Pina’s house – a downstairs self-contained flat.