The Rest of the Clan

Well we are home from our 'Excellent Adventure' and we want to thank you all for coming on the journey with us. By all your emails and blog comments we know you have enjoyed the journey.

We have added 3 more entries as our 'finale', feel free to still comment on the entries.

If you remember, we showed you the 'Black Sheep of the Family' on our 'You Know You Are In Ireland When . . . ' entry a while back so now as our parting 'holiday snap' we just wanted to show you the rest of the clan :-)



HERE'S TO GREAT HOLIDAY'S

Flawless Life Beyond Comparison

We saw the above caption on posters quite a number of times on our tour to the Great Wall. We are not quite sure what they are comparing their life to, but we couldn't help making the comparison to Australian life.

In case you are wondering, no we were not in the country when we took these photo's they were taken right in Central Beijing.

Maybe, it's that you won't get the RSPCA coming around and hassling you for selling live Scorpians that are skewered and ready to eat. Yes they were still alive and kicking but obviously not the sea horses. You can click on the photo to see it in detail.



Or the health department telling you you can't cook on the sidewalk, amongst the car fumes.



Maybe it's that the crush of people and the volume of smog was overwhelming at times.



Unlike when we had to convert to Pounds and Euro's our Aussie dollar went a long way in China so we got to stay in a nice hotel.



But we still couldn't drink the water.



And who needs a car when a bike will do.



You are really only limited by your imagination as to what you can transport around. We took this picture because the guy in the white shirt on the right side of the photo was talking on his mobile / cell phone only moments before, in stark modern contrast to the old bicyle he is riding. You can just see him putting the phone back into his pocket if you click on the picture.



And China's 'One Child Policy' was really instigated because you couldn't fit any more kids on the scooter. (this was a very common site)



We now leave urban China and move to rural China and you are left in no doubt to their culture, the Chinese have it in spades!

To walk on the Great Wall of China was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.



The Chinese are an amazingly industrous people. When the Wall was built there were only 5 million people in China and 1 million were working on the wall. As you can see from this photo the wall was high and steep in place, an amazing feat!



We went to the Summer Palace which covered an enormous area, and in case you think that this is a 'dull picture' we have to blame it on the smog again, it was prevalent even in the country!



We visited Temples, Ming Tombs and Palaces and the paintings on all the structures were wonderful.




And to top it all off we went to the Chinese Acrobats on our last night and we were amazed. to say the least.
Again we were not supposed to take photo's but we couldn't help ourselves, but we did buy a DVD of the performance at half time. :-)



An amazing show.



So hopefully you now know why we say that China was amazing and overwhelming, but we wouldn't have missed it for the world. But it did make us appreciate that Australia is the most wonderful country in the World, so we have returned to paradise. :-)

You know you are in England when...

Well England had it's own individuality and amusing moments.

You know you are in England when it's not a taxi stand, it's a que of barges on a canal.



The English are so polite even when it come to requesting how you park.



And you know you are in England when the Romans made it to the Bath before you.

Although the Romans took advantage of the natural thermal spring and created these baths in Bath, they still stayed in working order into the 19th Century.



But best of all . . . . you know you are in England when it's only the cost of a local call for Jessica to keep in touch. :-)



Well China is the last but not least entry . . . watch this space for that one, we hope it will be well worth the wait.

Know Where You Walk

We were unable to update our blog while we were in China due to the internet 'iron curtain' which was frustrating as we had SO MUCH to say about our China experience. But now that we are home we can wrap up our final entries. In the 5 weeks we were travelling we had so many 'know where you walk' moments with the amount of history that surrounded us at times.

Hilary had one of those moments when she went out to take a photo of the Hotel we had stayed in the night before in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

It was situated on an T-intersection and on one corner was a church that was established in 1238. Then this is the old tudor hotel we stayed in that is over 400 years old.



On the last corner was the house that William Shakespeare lived in for 19 years and died in only 4 years after writing his last play.



But when it comes to being surrounded by history we think that the burial tombs we were able to walk into in Ireland took the cake.

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They are older than the Pyramids and it was quite an experience to walk through the passageway and view the burial chamber and stone drawings. Once a year at the Summer Solstice is the only time that the sun shines through the front flat capstone and illuminates the chamber, it is such a sort after event that they run a lottery each year for a chance to be there.

Brilliant Brighton

The night before we went to London we spent in Brighton. All three of us agreed we wish we had a week there. However considering that we have had to nearly triple our Aussie Dollar to get pounds one night was our limit this time.

It was the nicest and most quaint seaside town we have visited on the trip. The highlight was the famous Brighton Pier which made you felt you had gone back in time. You could just imagine the Victorians walking along with their bowler hats and parasols.



But the thing that took our breath away was the Royal Pavillion, that was built by King George the 4th as his holiday home. Even Jess who has seen lots of Palaces and Castles by now said that it was one of the most breathtaking inside that she has seen.



We were not supposed to take photo's of the inside but I did sneak one when nobody was watching. This is only the music room, the large dining room had even a more amazing chandelier and other decor but there was so many staff there I couldn't sneak a photo, but this one will give you an idea of the granduer.

London - Vibrant, Regal, Clean and Crowded

We are in Helsinki at the moment on our way to Bejing.... Just finished our England leg of the trip with just under 48 hours in London. Jessica was our local tour guide and in one afternoon she managed to show us Parliament House, Big Ben, Green Park, Westminister Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Queen's Horse Guard house, 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, London Bridge, Eye of London, the Thames River, Trafalgar Square and Regents Park. Lucky for us she knew her way around.

Here is Big Ben and they are right, it is BIG. The darkish clouds in the sky is weather that had been threatening to rain for days but we managed to miss all the bad weather even though there were serious floods in the regions we went through. Really fortunate that none of our sightseeing plans were affected by weather in Germany, Ireland or England.



This is the tower of London, where the crown jewels are kept and where Henry the 8th beheaded one (at least) of his unwanted wives.



The last evening Hilary and I went to Picadilly Circus and Soho on our own while Jessica caught up with her flat mates and work mates for her last Friday night in London. Picadilly was vibrant and amazing, most of all the crush of people was even overwhelming at times.

We'd been told that London was dirty and grimy but even in the seedier places of Soho, we didn't come away with that impression. We also never saw any rubbish or litter in the underground (tube).

Britain - Picture postcard perfect

Well we have only been in Britain for three days and where we have been so far has been picture postcard perfect and we just wanted to share the photo's with you.



In the next one look for the house covered in a creeper on the other river bank.



This photo was from our favorite village so far called Bibury in The Cotswolds.



Another little old cottage from The Cotswolds



We are now in Bath and took this photo yesterday of Pulteney Bridge & Weir.

You know you are in Ireland when...

The road signs are in gaelic





As well as the radio station and when you go to the servo they are all talking in gaelic

You also know you are in Ireland when its not such a long way to Tipperary after all…



You definitely are in Ireland when the football teams playing this weekend are Tipperary vs Limerick and they are playing in Killarney

When an irish pub looks like this (and not a fake one at our local shopping centres)



But best of all, you definitely know you are in Ireland when door signs say this..



p.s.

By the way, we found the black sheep of the family



Now we are off to England, keep smiling everyone and keep those blog comments and emails coming! :-)

Natural beauty here as well

We've been enjoying many aspects of Ireland and most of the ones we've shown have been castles, cathedrals and other man made structures but today as we made it to the very top of Ireland (we could just see Scotland), we got to enjoy the completely natural beauty of the Giant's Causeway and the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge from the mainland to a small island.

This bridge was created by fisherman originally about 350 years ago. They built the bridge to get closer to the migrating salmon that came through the area each year. The bridge still gets put across every summer and taken down every winter.



Here you can see Hilary in the red windbreaker and Tony in the grey one. Hilary has always claimed to be afraid of heights but after making it across this bridge she's decided she can't say that anymore.



The rocks below are part of the Giant's Causeway. These rocks were formed around 60 million years ago by a large flow of lava into the valley. The lava was able to cool quite slowly thus forming the mostly hexagonal shapes. There are about 40,000 of these rock formations in a small bay. This formation is likened to how mud can dry with geometric shapes, it was an amazing landscape!!!

Best day ever

Our son Davis, when he was much younger, described the day TV was invented as his "best day ever".... So, as a long time fan, and drinker of Guinness, you can imagine how wonderful it was for me to have a pint of Guinness with Hilary and Jessica at the Gravity bar on the top of the Guinness storehouse museum.

It was the best pint of Guinness i've ever had and the setting and company couldn't have been better!!!

Bottoms up!

Ruined and regal castles

We are now in the middle of castle country still in the southern part of Ireland and enjoying having Jessica share this experience with us. The most dominating from a landscape perspective is the Rock of Cashel, it is high on a hillside and has a very Camelot sort of look to it.



When you are walking around the Rock (Camelot Castle), you definitely have an "if only these walls could talk feeling"... The info about the Castle suggested that St Patrick spoke at the cathedral within the castle walls. The audio visual presentation that was part of the tour highlighted what a varied past life the castle has had.



The most impressive / regal castle is the one at Kilkenney which has only recently been restored to it's former glory. This castle was owned for many centuries by the Butler family who were involved in the wine trade and also counsel to several past english Kings.

Irish countryside, perfect one day, awesome the next

We've been working our way around the southern part of Ireland and up the western coast. Yesterday we did the Kerry Peninsula and today we did the Dingle Peninsula. The scenery is ruggedly beautiful, we really felt like we were in the back of beyond at times. When you can see no other sign of habitation except for 3 sheep, you know you are a long way off the beaten track.



At the start of our way around the Kerry peninsula we stopped for lunch at a small coastal town called Kinsale. This is one of the places we could have easily stayed at a lot longer. We were lucky to get there on the day of their farmer's market which had great and colourful stalls. The town is a set of narrow streets with colourful shops. The footpath was only 18 inches wide in many places and the streets were all one way because of how narrow they were.



Here is a view along the coast of the Kerry peninsula.



The Dingle peninsula today was more mountainous and home to more sights of historical significance. We saw a fort that dated to around 200 b.c. The amount of rock in the fields meant they didn't have to go far to get raw materials for the walls that were everywhere.