England - the land of horses, forests and manners.

We took a couple of days off between travels with friends and visited the New Forest. This isn't technically all forest - the old word 'forest' means hunting ground. It was originally a hunting ground for King William 1. Today it's a park of sorts, where horses, donkeys and cows are free to roam everywhere - on the roads, in people's gardens and in the woods. Nearly every house in the towns has a cattle grid or a closed gate over the driveways to keep the animals out.

Most of the ponies are fairly tame and some are really friendly. Of course, they're mostly New Forest ponies. They release stallions with pure New Forest blood and I think they sell off the foals each year. There were some beautiful looking animals.

This foal was so cute!

There were many houses with newly thatched roofs. Check out how intricate the thatch work is!

I love the way each house in a town has a name - Five Oaks, Acorn Cottage, Japonica Cottage etc. They're usually called cottages, even though they are large houses.

We went for a couple of walks in the forest. It was lovely.

Getting friendly with the locals....

England is so horsey - it almost seems unsurprising to see a horse and cart on the road!

One thing we've noticed about England is how polite everyone is. People always say hello when we pass on walking tracks and everyone is really friendly. They can take politeness to extremes though. Check out these two signs we saw in our travels.

When we travel, we usually do our laundry in bathroom basins and hang it up in the bathroom to dry overnight. Our bathrooms often look like a second-hand clothes shop but it gets the job done!

Suddenly, with England's terrible weather, we had trouble drying our clothes. I had to resort to using the hair dryer!

 At last it was time to meet up with David and Fran, our friends from New York. David and John did business together for many years and they are the reason we decided to come to England. They were attending a wedding and wanted to do some walking on the South Downs Way and this is where we joined them.

We warmed up on our first afternoon with a short walk to the nearby town of Steyning. I love the town sign. The town sign had us baffled but I'm sure there's a good reason for it!

We also found a couple of towns in the next few days with this street name!

Finally it was time to head out on the first day of our two-day walk.

The tracks led us largely through farmland. The rolling hills provided beautiful views. (Thanks to David for some of these photos!)

We walked past all sorts of farms and saw just about every type of farmed animal there is. The free-range pig farm we passed was quite fascinating.

The piglets wandered everywhere and were really funny. These ones would approach John then turn around and run away. I'm quite sure I heard them go "wee, wee, wee all the way home!"

The wildflowers were lovely. It was great to see poppies again!

As we walked the clouds got darker and darker....

About half an hour before our planned lunch stop, the heavens opened. We had coats but we got completely drenched. We made it to the pub looking forward to the open fire they had advertised but it wasn't lit. We ate a warm meal but had no intention of keeping on walking in the pouring rain so we grabbed a taxi and went to our B & B that was booked for that night. 

We were met by the rudest owner we've ever come across. She made it quite clear that we were too early - we weren't supposed to arrive until 4pm. The rooms weren't ready and we were obviously hugely inconveniencing her. She finally said she would get the rooms ready "in due course" and allowed us to sit in our wet clothes until they were ready! As you can imagine, the showers were fantastic when we finally got them!

Fran had a bruised toe so she decided to give the next day's walking a miss. She received a similar treatment from our landlady when she asked if she could stay a bit later so she headed out exploring while David, John and I walked the track. The weather was a lot better!

We found many blackberries along the track and they were pretty good. I don't know how they manage to keep the blackberries under control here - they only line the paths and don't seem to invade the paddocks like they do at home. I wish I knew what their secret was!

Finally, after a 13 mile day, we finished our walk. Our accommodation that night was fantastic! It was at a winery and the rooms looked out over the vineyards.

I hadn't realised that the winery made sparkling wine - awesome! We had a wonderful tour of the vineyard and sampled the goods. What a wonderful way to finish the day.

We had yet another fabulous meal in the local pub then the next day we said goodbye to David and Fran. We had had such a great time with them!

We had the afternoon to fill in while we waited for our plane so we got a lot of computer work done then went for a walk up a nearby hill. We climbed over stiles and walked along tracks where beautiful trees arched overhead. It was a great way to end the trip.

Overall, England was fantastic - but I have to be honest and say the weather was horrible. If this is summer then what is the rest of the year like? It's a truly stunning place to visit but we wouldn't want to live here!

Toodlepip!

Heather and John

Sweet as Cande in England

Hello again from wintery England! The reason we travelled to England was to met up with some friends. We had met Cande (pronounced Candy) on a previous holiday in Indonesia and had kept in touch. One thing led to another and we ended up arranging to meet in England, two years after we first met. How cool!

We picked Cande up from a train and drove straight to a cider brewery. No point mucking around! We had fun tasting different ciders and brandies. Afterwards we walked to the top of a small hill on the property. The lone tree with a swing at the top of the hill was striking. You can see that the weather hadn't improved.

We also found our first whitewashed cottage with a thatched roof. I adore these houses.

We had a huge first night in a fantastic pub. We had great rooms and met a fun guy who we ended up having dinner with. Cande held up well considering her jetlag must have been bad.

The next day we drove to the Bodmin Moor. This place is famous for its eerie open spaces and the mythical "Beast of Bodmin Moor". We stayed in the Jamaican Inn, an ancient stone inn with its fair share of mysteries and murders. It's supposed to be haunted. The inn is also the setting for a Daphne du Maurier novel and an Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. It looked very dark and eerie indeed.

In keeping with the theme, the weather was grey, wet and misty. We wanted to walk to a local hill called Brown Willy, just so we could laugh about the name, but we were told not to go because the mist was rolling in and to be out on the moor in the mist is a terrible and dangerous thing. (Try saying that last part in a creepy and mysterious voice, like you're giving a warning!)

The only place we could safely walk was along a road to a nearby lake which is supposed to be the place where the arm of The Lady of the Lake ("draped in white samite") rose up out of the water to hand King Arthur the sword Excalibur.

So the three of us set out in the rain and mist to find the legendary lake.....

After sloshing through puddles and climbing down a muddy farm track, we found it.

But wait - what's that? Oh my goodness - it's Excalibur rising up out of the lake!!!

The next day we drove to a town near Padstow. We hired bikes and rode along The Camel Trail. This is a rail trail, an old railway line that has been converted to a bike and walking track. It was fantastic!

We had a ball riding through the lush green forests. We saw waterfalls and had lots of laughs along the way.

The highlight was stopping for lunch at a gorgeous cafe. We had Cream Tea, which is what we call Devonshire Tea - huge homemade scones with jam and lashings of clotted cream. We fell in love with clotted cream. It's so thick! Here's John trying to get it off the spoon and onto the scone!

That night was our special night that John had planned months ago - dinner at Rick Stein's restaurant in Padstow. It's largely a seafood restaurant and I'm not a seafood fan but there were other options and it was wonderful. We all shared an amazing desert at the end too.

Rick's restaurant from the outside.

Padstow was soooo full of tourists! There was only one cash machine and we had to queue to get money. Rick has put this place on the map. He also had Rick Stein's cafe, Rick Stein's fish and chips, Rick Stein's cooking school..... this list goes on.

The roads were really narrow and I felt sorry for the motorhome driver who accidentally turned into the centre of the town then had to navigate his way out!

Many of the pubs and shops were gorgeous.

Europeans have a real dog culture. Dogs go everywhere with their owners - into shops and pubs as well as hotel rooms and anywhere the owners go on holidays. The better restaurants don't seem to allow them but they're about the only places that seem to place restrictions. It's weird to see so many dogs around. I must say, they are usually really well behaved, much better than ours.

John had an interesting experience with the English medical system here when he found he had picked up a skin infection. There is an allocation in the free system for visitors and he got completely sorted without paying anything. The only catch was you had to visit the medical centre closest to your hotel. Considering we were staying in a different town each night we didn't think this would matter but apparently it does!

The next day we were ready for a big adventure - coasteering! Coasteering is basically playing along a coastline, jumping into the water and climbing along cliffs. This had all sounded marvellous when we were booking it but in the bad weather it suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea! Nonetheless, we soldiered on - and had a ball.

First we kitted up in so many layers we could barely walk! We started with wetsuits then followed with booties, buoyancy vests, ID t-shirts and helmets. It was raining while we did this but then the skies cleared a bit for us. We then shuffled our way to the start of the session where we learnt how to jump in safely and how to climb out on rocks when the waves are lifting you up and down. Then we began.....

The first plunge was the hardest - straight into that cold water. It was a shock at first but none of us really noticed the cold after that as we kept moving and had other challenges on our mind!

These photos are all from the company that we went coasteering with. It's often hard to tell who is who when we all have the same gear on and there are so many layers that body shapes are lost. I hope I've got these right!

We started off with smaller jumps and worked up to bigger ones. Cande takes a leap here.

Then John had a go from a bit higher up.

Here's me at my highest limit. I woossed out after this level but John and Cande kept going through to the highest jump.

Here's Cande in video action!

John takes the plunge from up higher.

A lot of the photos weren't very good as they had water on the lens but this one was a great photo of a guy that was on his third coasteering trip and it shows the height that John and Cande were jumping from.

I loved climbing along the cliff. We weren't far above the water so if we lost our grip we just fell in!

My favourite part though was when we went through a cave. I was pitch black inside and we bumped our way through as the tide pulled us back and forth through some quite narrow spaces. The cave has been used by smugglers over many years so it had a bit of extra excitement to it. It was awesome!

Cold but happy, we finished up and drove to a fantastic pub on the Dartmoor. It was called, unsurprisingly, the Dartmoor Inn. Our room was fantastic!

After a much appreciated hot shower we had a fantastic meal in the pub. We got on so well with the staff there hat we ended up playing Coin Against the Wall until the wee hours. What a day!

The next day dawned overcast and cold again and we set out to explore the moor. We found ancient stone circles and mysterious stone pillars on the windswept moor.

In one small town we walked across a 700 year old bridge. I've never seen a bridge like this before.

We found a great pub for lunch miles from anywhere in the middle of the moor. Like most pubs like this, there is a load of history associated with it. This fire is supposed to have been burning non-stop for 200 years. It was only smouldering when we were there.

Again, the food was fantastic and the servings were huge!

Of course, there had to be Dartmoor ponies running around on the moor outside.

We headed to Salisbury to show Cande this wonderful town. I've been here three times now and it's still such an amazing place. The history there is incredible! We had to have dinner at the Haunch of Venison, a 700 year old pub with crooked floors and ramshackle stairs. Remember this Mum, Dad, Courtney and Connor?

We were up bright and early to beat the crowds to Stonehenge the next day. They've improved the surroundings since we last visited and now the road that ran right beside it has been removed.

Stonehenge attracts all kinds. These modern-day Kiwi Druids carried out some sort of ceremony there. I'm not sure how effective it would be when people aren't usually allowed inside the actual stone circles.

I was really impressed by the new visitor centre. A couple of huge screens showed how Stonehenge has changed over the centuries. Construction of the circular bank began in 3000 BC. Sometime after that, wooden poles were erected. 1000 years later the smaller stones were brought in from Wales and the larger stones that we are all familiar with were brought in around 1500 BC. 200 years after that, some of the stones were rearranged. The stone construction that we all know is actually only a part of a much larger area that was sacred to people for millennia. It's strange how it was special for so long yet nobody really knows now what it was for.

This is how Stonehenge might have looked 4000 years ago.

For a bit of more recent history we checked out the amazing Salisbury Cathedral and some of the wonderful medieval architecture around the town.

And that was the end of our five days with Cande. We sure packed a lot in! We had a ball and it was so great to catch up with our old friend.

Are we a bit puffy around the eyes or what? Tough girl that Cande. Til next time!

Heather