Back in Henley

We have arrived back in Henley, 1500 miles after we last left. Since my last post, we have been to Winchester, Salisbury, Dorchester and Stonehenge. We stayed at a B+B at Winchester for two nights. They had a pool which was heated, but not enough for my taste (too cold). It was on a farm so I got a few photos of the animals. There were three dogs, lots of sheep and 2 geese. We found the geese loitering in the carpark late at night. They were hilarious. They were just standing there, right in the middle of this carpark - necks extended upwards and alert. When I went into the field the next morning to get a photo, one of them kept half-charging me. The sheep are quite different - If you have a look over at my Picasa Web Album (http://picasaweb.google.com/stewart.james.webb/) you can see that they have brown/black faces. I have grown very fond of the sheep, and I now want one for next christmas (We can sell the Lawnmower to get the money - genius!)
We went to Dorchester to go Zorbing (correction, for me to go Zorbing). Zorbing is an activity where one is harnessed into or put in with water into a ball 1 meter in diameter which is encased by another, 2.5m ball which is inflated. One is then rolled down a hill for 20 seconds or so. It was great fun - I had to go with water because you needed 2 people to go harnessed. The experience was amazing - Imagine a waterslide where you slide forward and back as well, but you can't see the bends so you don't know when you are going to be upended. It was cold when I got out though, in fact it was very cold, yet very warm also today. We seem to have had the best luck in the world with the weather here - when we were in Ireland, it did not rain once! Rather, it was sunshine all the way. It has also only rained briefly once or twice over here in England. We have been incredibly lucky.
I think I'm beginning to suffer from ABC syndrome (no not Australian-Born-Chinese). It's Another Bloody Church. We have seen about 5 or 6 so far and each one has a special reason for going to. We went to Winchester Cathedral, where they filmed the blood on the wall scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We also went to Salisbury Cathedral, although thankfully it was at night and it was closed (phew!). It was very big though. It astonishes me about how grand these old churches are, and yet modern buildings are nowhere near as epic as these churches even with advances in technology.
When we were heading back to Henley we stopped off at the one and only Stonehenge. It was good, but there were WAAAAY to many people. Fortunately there were a few good photo spots and I ended up with a few really good pictures.
Tomorrow we will be going to lunch with relatives, then off to London later in the week.

On the Move again

We have arrived in Winchester after having travelled all the way from Ireland. We have crossed 3 countries in 1 day! - North Ireland, South ireland and Wales. We are staying here for a night before returning to Henley. I can promise a big post then with photos and details on what has happened - for now, I have to go. We are going to see windchester Cathedral then meeting up with someone.
P.S. - Hopefully I will be going zorbing tomorrow!

Update from Ireland

Tonight is our last night in Ireland - we are going back to Wales. It has been a pretty good time. I preferred Belfast to Dublin, but this is a personal opinion. The people we have been staying with are wonderful - they have been so generous and hospitable! I have gifts coming out my ears and they are still flowing in by the truckload...

I am in the process of compiling a Ireland album on Picasa Web Albums - for those who missed it before my gallery is available at http://picasaweb.google.com/stewart.james.webb

I have been sick over the past few days - the night we had at the hotel was awful. I was up almost all night with a fever and sore throat. The throat has persisted over the past few days but is fading slowly. I'm pretty sure that the fever has gone as well. Nonetheless, I still went out to go sightseeing. 

On Sunday we went to Carrick Fergus Castle (I can't remember exactly what it was called). It is the most intact Norman castle in the world. It was cool - there was archery! The next day we went to the Giant's Causeway and a local Waterfall. The waterfall was picture perfect and the causeway was amazing. Almost all the stones there were hexagonal. When I get home I'll put together a photo stitch I made. See the photos at my gallery. ^^^

Ireland

We have arrived in Ireland, and are currently in a rather posh hotel in Belfast. We spent yesterday in Dublin. I wasn't overly impressed but it was okay. We went to the Guinness Storehouse today and shopped like mad (To all visiting readers, I have a cat called guinness because he is black all over except for a few white hairs in his chest). Best purchase - metal plaque of a Toucan riding a dart while balancing two glasses of guinness on it's beak - Aim for a Guinness!
I tried some guinness - it tasted mostly like other beers except slightly different. The white foam on the top makes a glass harder to spill which is a plus. The exhibition was very good - it gave a detailed look at how guinness was made, exported and, most importantly some would say, enjoyed. There was a great exhibit on the cartoon advertising that was used in earlier years (see what toucan do! - My Goodness, My Guinness!) Look these up as they are great ads (I still have the 'Guinness is good fooor you' tune running laps around my head)
I think I may have had a bit too much guinness as I have a guinness-flavoured sore throat, if that makes any sense.

We are staying at a great hotel that may look average from outside but is verry nice inside. You can even use the internet on the TV (why you would want to I have no idea, but you can).
There is a wedding reception running here at the moment and the music is driving me mad. I'm going to go now, but I will try and post photos soon (this is a crappy internet terminal with no camera support)

On the Move

We have left our little cottage (see it here) and are now in Stratford-upon-Avon. This is where the famous Shakespeare buildings are. We went to see Anne Hathaway's cottage, and were reminded of Jeremy from Top Gear's car deco built around the cottage (If you haven't seen this I highly suggest you look it up, it should be on youtube)
On the way here we saw some weird things on the motorway. First off was a tank. Yes, an army tank. It was on a trailer (thankfully?) and being towed to a military depot that we saw further on. There was also a gigantic green machine that seemed to have it's own cockpit. It trundled along behind a tractor. There was also a pedestrian crossing. ACROSS A MOTORWAY. Pretty crazy.

edit: I forgot to mention there was also a steam engine train being trucked.

We are catching the ferry to Ireland tomorrow, so I'll probably post again there.

Update from Bath

I am currently at an internet Cafe in Bath. I'm using a new method to display photos - I'm uploading them to Picasa Web Albums. Hopefully this should be more reliable than before, as positioning photos in blogger is horribly difficult. Also, the files are stored on Google's servers, not mine so I don't need to worry about space issues.
The web album for Bath is located here
The Main page is here

We went to Bath today. It was pretty cool, but unfortunately I couldn't go swimming on the new rooftop spa pool - there was a 16y.o. age limit. There was another smaller, ground-level pool that I went to, but is was much smaller. We also went to Bath Abbey, and took a tour of the bell tower. It was quite interesting - the tenor bell (lowest pitch) weighs 1.1 tons. We went right to the top and got a great view of Bath. Check out the photos at Picasa Web Albums!

Windsor Castle

We went to Eton and Windsor Castle yesterday. This is one of the places where the royal family lives, but I don't think that they were there when we were.

This is the Crooked House of Windsor

Eton College is one of the worlds most prestigious schools - so much so that they wear TAILCOATS there.

I found this whole building that was just a toilet block

I'd post more photos but the rest are mostly generic castle photos. Anyway I have to scale them down to put on the blog and that takes time.

We are off to Oxford today, and we are leaving our little house. But we will be returning, later in the week. We are off to Frome after this. I am not sure if I will be able to get on the internet there so the next post may not be for a while.

We're here

Hooray. We have finally landed, after 2 flights (8 and 12 hours respectively). We were surprised to find Richard (my cousin) at the airport. After picking up our hire car (A Citroën C4) he directed us to Henley and to our home for the first few days. We are staying with his parents, Jane and Chris. The house has a very english garden. Here is the view from my room

There is a LOT of green in england.

I realised last night that I had been awake for nearly 42 hours with only 3 hours of sleep in between. Must have been the coffee. Anyway, we all had a nice sleep last night, although Mum and Dad were awake and kicking at 3 AM. I haven't really experienced any jetlag - the only bad thing about the flight was that it was boring. I endured 20 hours with only about 4 movies worth watching (Iron Man [that was so good i saw it twice], The Happening [pretty good, slightly creepy], The Forbidden Kingom [meh], and Indiana Jones 4 [*insert theme music here*]) and a few TV shows.

Photos

We found this at KL Airport. I know Toblerone has a strong presence in the aviary scene, but never before have I seen a freaking Toblerone ferris wheel.

Toblerone Much?

We got a few good shots of Germany. Heres one I touched up a bit so you could actually see what I was shooting:

Amsterdam, I think

The descent into england was creepy. Here is what we could see out of the window.

That was all we could see. I have never seen more clouds than this in my entire life.

I believe that we are going to Windsor Castle today. I hope to get some photos to upload.

Arrival in KL

I have just arrived at KL. We leave for england in about 3 hours. I must be quick, as I'm on a public terminal. I will upload photos as soon as I find a PC with a USB port.

England

Well I'm off to England next week. It should be fun, and It's nice to have a break. Especially when you miss the last 3 days of school.

We're going to England and Scotland, 1 part to see relatives, 3 parts for a break. If it's good enough I might go back for the London Olympics in 2012 for a gap year. I'll try and get to an Internet Cafe and get some photos up to the blog. I'll also try to include some daily events.