Archive: Month: July 2016

We had a little cross country on our way to Mike the second day. Still, we got there in one piece, to the lovely area of Wiltshire called “The Donheads”. It had been a long time since I’d seen Mike and Liz so I was really looking forward to it.

We generally just chatted, ate lots of great food. Helping out proved hard, though we were allowed to do the dishes after we gave out for not being allowed to do anything useful!

We did a couple of short trips, one to a place called Stourhead where we did a tour of the (National Trust) gardens and grounds.

Interesting place. Basically a rich banking families former house. One of them still lives there. We learned an interesting thing about the National Trust though: they have reciprocal arrangements with a couple of societies, in particular the “Historical Society of New Zealand”. Now, it costs ~ 240NZD for a years membership to the National Trust, but only $100 for a membership to the NZ Historical society. If we ever do this sort of trip again, I will be sure to take out an NZ membership!

I loved the ice room. Basically this was a rich persons play thing and a way of showing off in the summer months (cocktails, certain deserts etc.)

There were quite a lot of “folly’s”, mostly Italian based, as that was all the rage at the time. The grotto was most ornate. We didn’t get to see inside the Temple of Apollo unfortunately. Hey ho.

This (in my opinion) ugly looking thing used to belong to a Pope. It’s full of drawers. Worth many millions I was told. It certainly stood out in the room anyway. No one knows how much it was bought for.

We also took in a walk around Mike’s vege & flower garden. He certainly has very green fingers. I loved the “rose tree”. Basically you take an apple tree (or some tree) and then get a climbing rose to use the tree as a frame. Then the rose grows up to be huge as it takes over the entire tree.

Thomas came down from London to spend a bit more time with us, lovely as always to see him. We visited “old Wardour castle” with him. It was the same castle as used at the start of Robin Hood prince of thieves. Actually well worth the trip, great audio guide – well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

It was lovely to stay with Mike and Liz, and to catch up with my cousin Bridget, but all too soon it was time to leave for the next stage in the adventure.

We spent a lovely couple of days in Oxford with my cousin Catherine. She took us for a walk around the town and past some of the lovely old colleges. This first one with the long queue is Kings, I think, at least its the one where the Hogwarts dining hall was filmed, so it gets quite a few tourists. We met a lovely gentleman who pointed us in the direction of one of the colleges. We thanked him, and he said “it’s a privilege”. We definitely felt like we were in genteel England at that point (or somewhere in the middle of a Bronte novel)

My cousin Thomas came up from London for a day too, which was great. He Cath and I are quite close, as there’s only 12 months between us so we’d hang out whenever there were family gatherings. It it the downside of living in NZ – not getting to see as much of such fine fine folk as I would otherwise like to.

I also caught up with cousins (and an Uncle) on the Davey side too which was extra cool. My Uncle was over from South Africa, so its always special to see him – just perfect timing really.

Finally, we visited the Pitt-Rivers museum. It’s an odd sort of museum, everything organised by category (rather than country / time / anything else). I definitely enjoyed the games area. It was odd seeing quite a few Maori artefacts amongst the collection. One wonders how they were acquired etc. I mean it’s nice that other people get to enjoy them, but there can be quite a lot of feeling mixed up in these things.

All in all a lovely stay in Oxford. Nice watching Andy Murray win at Wimbledon too.

And then it was time to leave London and head towards Oxford. Canals again came to the rescue in avoiding traffic. We decided to split our journey to Oxford, 110km or something was a bit longer than we wanted to do in one day, so we headed to Cookham (68 km).

I would guess that for all but 10km we were completely off road and on canals. There were a few spots where the road was little more than a very bumpy dirt track, but still, got there in the end – and with no punctures.

We used AirBnB for the evening and were happy with the place we stayed. Headed out for pizza for the evening, yum.

The next day, we continued on to Oxford

There were a surprising number of “bridleway” paths (for horses) on our route. Planning these things on Google Maps you can never be quite sure what you’re going to end up with sometimes ;)

As we arrived into Oxford, slowing coming up a small hill, we heard a loud BANG! Never a particularly good sound to hear on a bike. The rear wheel had completely deflated and the cause was obvious (ruptured tyre wall)

We were super lucky that it happened in Oxford. Anywhere else in the preceding 50km would have been a pain, as there really wasn’t anywhere to get a replacement, and I didn’t have anything for patching up a tyre.. In the event, it was a short 10 minute walk to the nearest bike shop, where I bought a replacement tyre, this one with Kevlar walls.. I think the tyres that were originally on the bike were great, but, more designed for road cycling around, rather than long-distance touring. Still, it only cost us an hour or so, and then we were on to see my cousin Catherine.

London. It’s a great town, so much going on, a very lively place. There was a little bit of apprehension in the air around Brexit. Maybe not that much will change, but it’s likely some value will be lost in the housing market, and likely that some jobs will move to mainland Europe. Still, we’ll see.

Maaike and I ended up spending a week in London. We did quite a lot of walking. It’s funny, usually I take the tube in London, but walking around gives such a different perspective on the place. I recommend it!

We walked to the Tate modern from Hackney. Nice walk through parks, with the buildings becoming ever grander. Decent graffiti work on Brick Lane. After being in Colombia we knew some artists and had an idea of what to look out for. I was particularly happy when I saw the “City of Ronzo” plaque.

We passed the Tower of London. I had left my hat in The Netherlands, as A) I didn’t think they got sun in the UK, and B) I thought I’d have my bike helmet on most of the time. But then sun did come out, so up went the hood on my rain jacket. I melt when exposed too long to the sun ;)

We met up with my friend Declan. He invited us to come sailing, and would totally have loved to, but timing just was a little too tight this trip. He and his partner Heather may come biking with us in Wales, which would be most excellent.

Also met up with two friends off the boat to Antarctica – Clare & Alex. Alex, whom I’m forever indebted to for pointing me to the OSMAnd+ App for Open Street Maps on Android. It’s what we’re using to navigate on the bike, and every single other country we’ve been in! I brought the scones & clotted cream, and Clare cooked up an Iranian cuisine feast. It was lovely to see them again, Clare showed us around her allotment (city vegetable garden). You can get them for a max of 10 years, and you have to look after them or you lose your rights. Clare also took us for a bimble around central London, to Buckhingam Palace and up the mall to Downing street. We also went to comedy in the Leicester Square theatre – I had tears of laughter, brilliant.

We had a quick catch up with more cousins in Chelsea, and took the “Boris Bikes” back to Hackney. It was my first time on a city bike scheme, but it worked very well I must say.

Finally a walk across to Highgate to see my Uncle Anthony & family. A really lovely evening there. Anthony cooked mackerel with gooseberry sauce! Apparently a classic English dish. I’ve certainly never had it before, but damn it was tasty! I think we might need to compile a recipe book after this trip – we’ve had some extremely good dishes!

Oh – App tip from my brother Chris. “Moovit“. It’s really amazing! It just seems to know about timetabling and location information for all public transport! At least, it has so far (Dublin, London and Oxford). It was super handy getting back across London at night, knowing which busses to get, how long to take them for etc. Brilliant.

We arrived off the boat at 6am. Full of a nasty head cold. The first day was to Braintree to see my first cousin once removed (Charles Mason) and his wife Harsha. It was a nice start to the ride, little lane ways and quiet roads, at least once we were away from the main heavy traffic from the boat.

One of the first stops was for coffee, and, my personal favourite, clotted cream and jam. A perfect start to the day. I’m going to have to see if I can source clotted cream in New Zealand.

Anyway – onwards towards Braintree, and to the scary part of the day – and possibly of the trip. So, the method for navigating was to go to Google, put in points A and B, and then tell it to take you there by bike. Now, Google routed us along the A12. I knew that A roads are main roads (one below motorways), but I thought Google would have better sense. The A12 is like a motorway, in that it has a lot of fast moving heavy traffic, but it is worse than a motorway, in that it doesn’t have a hard shoulder. Dutifully following Google’s instructions (we’ve given our navigation voice a persona – Betty), Betty brought us down onto the A12, and I trusted her. Maaike had better sense and after about 500m on the A12 told me in no uncertain terms that we were getting off this road NOW. Good call. We walked down the A12 for about 2km until we found a field that we were able to exit through and get back onto a sane road. Since then, I get Google to give us the basic route, and then take a close look to see if there are smaller routes / better alternatives.

Made it to Braintree, and had a lovely evening with Charles & Harsha. Charles does a lot of cycling and gave us excellent route information for getting to London.

For the trip to London, we hardly saw cars as we were on disused railway lines and canals for most of the way, far nicer than that awful A12 business. We did stop at a pub (the Black Bull), and I must say, Maaike and I were both very disappointed in the level of service. I think we’re just completely spoiled in NZ where there is a really excellent service culture. The owners were pretty grumpy, the filter coffee watery, and they didn’t even hold the heavy double doors while I was carrying the coffee out. I dunno, it sounds trivial or that I’m spoiled, and maybe I am, but in NZ it really feels that wherever you’re stopping the people are generally pleased to see you and happy to help.

Anyway, ra ra ra, on to London, down alongside the canals of the Lee Valley and in to Hackney central where my cousin Thomas lives. We were able to get about 2km from Thomas before we had to venture onto actual roads. I was surprised and happy to see how far you can get in London on these sneaky cycle routes.

When we got to Thomas’ flat I was a little nervous of where we’d put the bike, even though he said he had somewhere for it! In the event, we did shuffle it into the bike room and it fit perfectly. Very happy to be in Hackney and see Thomas again. Perfect.