Sliding down a muddy incline at a football ground on the worst day of winter and wrecking the ligaments in your foot, is not conducive to travel. A moon boot and crutches make exploring the world difficult, hence my lack of blogging for a while.
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.
Final Thoughts England 2016
I enjoyed my exploration of the south of England in 2016 enormously, and I thought I’d list a few of my favourite spots, some of which I’d been wanting to check out for years.
Visiting Charles 2016
One of the items I wanted to tick off from my bucket list while in London was the Charles Dickens Museum. I came to Dickens relatively late in life, falling in love with Oliver Twist and going from there.
Eton and Windsor 2016
I knew when I was heading for Windsor that Eton was close by, but I didn’t realise it was just on the other side of this lovely bridge.
Hampton Court Palace
When I visited London in 2011, I ran out of time for everything I wanted to see, one of them being Hampton Court, Henry Vllls main palace. I headed out on Sunday morning to catch the train from Waterloo Station.
Canterbury to London 2016
I caught the train from Canterbury to spend the last few days of my trip in London.
Canterbury Cathedral
I’m not free to go exploring at the moment, so I thought I’d return here to my trip to England in 2016. Having landed in London, I trained it from Cambridge to Bath, to Salisbury and across to Cornwall, back along the coast to lovely Chichester, ending up in Canterbury, before heading back to hit London’s West End.
Tower Hill, Warrnambool
Not far past Warrnambool is Tower Hill Nature Reserve, nestled in the crater of a dormant volcano.
Bay of Islands to Warrnambool
I dragged myself away from The Bay of Islands here and continued to the end of The Great Ocean Road at Warrnambool. It’s a prosperous regional city of around 35,000 people, based around agriculture, in particular the dairy industry.
Revisiting Port Campbell National Park
I hadn’t been across to the west of Victoria for twenty years. The last time, I was in between houses. I had left one and had space before getting into the new one, so to fill in the time, I took the Great Ocean Road and then the Princes Highway across to Adelaide, coming back inland. It was an interesting experience: no address, no mobile phone at the time; floating free.
Planning to the Nth 