Anyone who happened to follow me around England would become very sick of cathedrals and abbeys, and even everyday churches. I can’t walk past a church without checking it out. Each one is a little different (or very different) to the one before, although after a while I have trouble remembering which is which without having to look at the photos.
Author: Coral Waight
I started travelling alone at the age of 60. I and my little hatchback, thermos and Esky in the boot, began the first of four road trips around the island of Tasmania, south of where I live in Melbourne, Australia. I planned to the 'nth' degree, but nothing could prepare me for getting stuck on the side of a mountain in the dark with my petrol tank on empty. Nothing could prepare me for being on my own in a caravan park on the west coast in the middle of a violent storm, or forgetting I get sea-sick and spending a boat cruise around Tasman Island with my head in a bucket.
With my 'Tassie' experiences under my belt, I ventured overseas, across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand and, eventually, to the other side of the world - England. They say if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. He must have been rolling on the floor as I discovered that no matter how much research you do, at some stage you have to give up your set ideas and just wait to see what happens.
Bath UK
On my first trip to the UK in 2011, I hired a car and spent two weeks wending my way, nervously, around narrow roads and laneways designed originally for horses and carts. I decided this time not to put myself through that stress, and so took advantage of a British Rail offer: 8 days of travel within a month for under $500, which I thought, after checking prices for individual trips, sounded good, though the offer is only for we people living outside the country, which seems awfully unfair on the locals.
Back to Cambridge
What is the best thing that can happen to a travel blogger when she’s lost all her travel photos? Get the photos back? And that’s what’s happened. I took the camera card to Payam Data Recovery, just to check out if something could be done with it. A week later, I was picking up my photos, saved onto a USB stick. And so I can share the more interesting parts of my recent trip to England after all. It’s fair to say I’m over the moon.
Ely Cathedral
I had discovered while researching my trip to the UK that just 14 miles out of Cambridge was Ely, famous for its cathedral, and where Oliver Cromwell lived for ten years of his life.
The bus took an hour and a quarter to get there, the consequence of stopping at every local bus stop along the way but I had a good look at the suburbs of Cambridge and the surrounding countryside, and watched the locals coming and going, noticing the change in their accents the further away from Cambridge we got.
Cambridge UK
I’m sitting in front of my computer, asking myself what could be the worst thing to happen to a travel blogger. For me, it’s the loss of photos. And that’s what’s happened.
London
Back from a month in England and recovered from jet lag, I can now think over how my trip panned out. The first two days were spent in London. I wanted to use the time exploring many of the places I’d grown up hearing about and had seen on television and in films, especially those I missed last time around: Bloomsbury, Mayfair, Holborn, Soho.
New College Oxford UK
On my second day in Oxford, I was wandering alongside the old city wall when I came upon a set of heavy wooden doors, a smaller door cut out and open, the same as mine at Balliol College. It seemed an odd place for them, surrounded by nothing but high stone walls, and I had to investigate where they could lead. Peering through, I saw a pointed arch, framing an emerald green lawn, turretted buildings rising behind. A sign said Welcome to New College.
Oxford UK
While preparing for my upcoming trip to England, my mind wandered back to my first trip in 2011.
I’d always wanted to slip, ‘when I was at Oxford’, into the conversation, and so I booked myself into Balliol College, the oldest university in the city.
Edithvale Beach-Melbourne
I’ve just come back from a week-and-a-half stint with two of my teenage grandsons, while their parents were overseas. It’s definitely not hard work for me to leave the traffic and noise of my suburb and decamp to the beaches of Port Phillip Bay.
Captain Cook’s Cottage, Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne
The temperature was heading for zero (well, 10°), the wind was blasting and it was threatening to rain. But, intrepid traveller that I am, I headed back into the city. It’s years since I’ve been to Captain Cook’s cottage, settled in the gorgeous Fitzroy Gardens, stretching behind the State Parliament buildings.
Continue reading “Captain Cook’s Cottage, Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne”
Planning to the Nth 