Edinburgh Re-visited

On Friday afternoon Nathan and I caught the train up to Edinburgh - even though the train goes fast it is still a 5 hour journey!!  We had our laptop to watch movies on but it didn't work too well when we are sharing an ear piece each - with the load noise of the train drowning out any sound we could hear from our singular ear piece.
On Saturday we headed to the Palace of Holyroodhouse which is the Queen's official residence in Scotland.  Holyrood Abbey was founded in 1128 and Holyrood Palace has been serving as the official residence of Kings and Queens of Scots since the 15th century.  We weren't allowed to take any photos inside the palace but I have some of the gardens and the ruins of the Abbey. 

Ruins of Holyrood Abbey to the right

After out tour around the palace we caught a bus out to the harbour where the royal yacht Britannia is moored.  We were able to take a tour through the boat and it was amazing.  As the Queen felt very relaxed on board there are lots of family photographs that are unposed and it was neat seeing a different side to the royal family.  Britannia was launched in 1953 and for over 44 years she served the Royal Family, travelling over one million miles to become the most famous ship in the world.   She was built with the dual role of becoming a hospital ship if needed.

On the sun deck of Britannia

Lounge room

After a day of royality it was back to our apartment to change into warmer clothes in preparation for the evening show of the Military Tattoo staged at Edinburgh Castle.  The show was fantastic, with the castle used to project images and lighting effects, and the fireworks at the end were a highlight to finish off the show. No military band from NZ performed, but there were representatives from Australia, USA and Norway - which has compulsory military consignment for one year.

Sunday was a lazy day with wandering around the royal mile, doing a spot of shopping around grass market, walking through princess gardens and meeting up with Alex for a late lunch.  From here it was back to the apartment to collect our stuff and head to the train station.  On our way back we travelled first class and had loads of seat space as well as getting served sandwiches, drinks and cakes.  A nice way to cap off a good weekend. 

Nath looking bored on the way home

Devon and Cornwall

Last weekend we had a lovely picturesque weekend in the surf capital of England - Cornwall. On our way down to the Cornwall region we spent a night in Weymouth which is in Devon. In Weymouth we met up with Nath's parents, sister and niece, who had flown to the UK for Nath's 30th birthday. From Weymouth we travelled to Abbotsbury where we had lunch with some relatives of Nath's family that he had never met before.

We spent the night in Torquay which was much bigger than we were expecting and had a lovely built up area of restaurants around the harbour.  Here we went out for dinner to celebrate Kylie’s birthday.

The following day we drove through Dartmoor National Park where we pulled over to look at wild horses, and drove through some fairly narrow country lanes. We arrived at Polperro which is a lovely fishing village.  Here we treated ourselves to cream tea and boy I piled on the clotted cream!

That night we stayed in Penzance which is a bit grotty compared to other villages along the coastline.  We had a tacky carvery for dinner which is very popular with the English.  Carvery is just a fancy word for buffet.  We got a selection of 3 roast meats then helped ourselves to veges, Yorkshire puds and gravy.  It was nice to have some vege even though we didn’t know how long they had been out for.
The next day was action packed with a morning trip to Lands End.  On our way we saw a sign for Minnack Theatre so we detoured to check it out.  It’s a really cool theatre carved out of the cliff face, with the audience looking down on the stage and beyond that out to sea.  The theatre can seat 700 and when we were there a local company were rehearsing a play.  The most popular play is Pirates of Penzance.  From the theatre we may our way to Lands End which was disappointing.  Firstly, having to pay £5 for car parking, then having to pay to have your photo taken with the lands end sign.  As usual the Brits know how to do tacky as there were arcade rooms and a 4D cinema!  Way to ruin the moment England.  We back tracked to Mt St Michael which wasn’t open earlier in the morning.  Unfortunately the tides weren’t in our favour and we had to take a boat trip out to the Island Castle/fortress.  When the tide is low you are able to walk out to the castle.  From here we wanted to go to St Ives but we couldn’t find car parking anywhere.  We were driving around and getting caught in one way systems with narrow roads lined with hoards of people. At one point we had to reverse back and try to get out of there.  It was crazy.  After the stress of St Ives we stopped at a Cornish Cider farm and relaxed with free samples and a pint of cider. 

We stayed the night in the cutest little village of St Agnes.  We walked around the village in 5min flat!!  Maybe not that quickly, but there were a couple of take away shops and a local pub, where we stayed upstairs, and not much else.    

Next day our first stop was Padstow where we made sure to keep an eye out for park and ride signs and not make the same mistake as St Ives.  Again this was another very picturesque fishing village with loads of pasty shops and chippies.  Our last stop on our Southern Roadie was Tintagel Castle.  This castle was built right on the edge of the cliff and must have been freezing in winter.  We were there in summer on a reasonably warm day but at the top of the castle the wind picked up and it was quite cold.  Bollocks to living there 200 years ago! 

We have 3 days back in London before our next trip – to Edinburgh where we have tickets to the Military tattoo.

Olympic games

I have really enjoyed gettting out and seeing as many Olympic events as I could.  I went down to Tower Bridge to see the Olympic torch arrive via the river on the royal barge Gloriana. Our Olympic events started off in Manchester where we watched the NZ mens team play football against Egypt at Old Trafford.  It was awesome to be able to support NZ and the team played really well drawing 1-1.  The end of the game was very intense as Egypt was trying everything to score a winner.  We also watched Brazil play Belarus afterward.  Good entertainment value for £20.

Next up was Hockey at the Olympic park. This was our only event at the actual Olympic site so we were really lucky to get tickets as this allowed us entrance to the park as well as the hockey stadium. We watched womens matches - Australia play South Africa followed by eventual gold medal winners Netherlands play South Korea.  After the hockey we walked around the park, taking in the athletics stadium, velodrome, swimming cube, bbc studio and park live where we watched live streaming of other events taking place.  We were just in time to see NZ win a bronze medal  in the rowing.

Beach Volleyball was our third event.  A temporary stadium was built in Horse Guards parade which was rather incredible.  The buildings in the background made a stunning back drop and added something to the venue. The games we watched were of a high standard as it was the mens quarter finals.  Germany beat Brazil while the Netherlands beat Italy.

Our last event was the womens football final where USA was playing Japan.  We went to a packed out Wembley where we made history by being the biggest ever audience to watch a womens football game (80,203!). The games was really intense with huge support for both teams.  USA ended up winning 2-1.  Afterwards I was a bit gutted the game was finished as it meant I had no more Olympic events to go to. 

Nathan, Aaron and myself also spent an afternoon at Kiwi House which is a support base for Kiwi fans to go along and watch NZ coverage, drink NZ beers and have a NZ bbq.  Little did we know but the day we had planned to go was the day the rowing medalists were coming down to thank and mingle with Kiwi supporters.  We scored big time with autogrpahs and photos of the athletes.  Later on during the Olympic campaign one of the bbq gas cylinders exlpoded causing a fire to break out and forced the closure of Kiwi House for a few days. 
I hope this is not the only Olympic Games I get to watch.