Swanage

This is Swanage, the second beach that I went to in two days. I believe that these two days were the entire two days of Summer in England this year, and also happened to coincide with Bank Holiday weekend, therefore, even though this was about 5.30pm, the beaches were quite busy. This beach was a lot nicer than the one at Southend-on-Sea, but still too cold for my liking!

The row of huts that you can see along the bottom of the second photo are actually private beach huts, some of which are privately owned and some of which you can rent. They apparently cost about £30 000 to buy, despite not having electricity (they have a gas BBQ kind of thing I believe).

You can also see in the photo where we had dinner. It's a pub called The Mowlem, and we ate overlooking the water. It's the raised building at the end of the beach in the second photo.

If you open the next photo up to its full size, you can actually see the Isle of Wight. You can sort of see the white cliffs in the middle of the ocean. I'm not sure if that's the best visibility you can get, but it was still impressive to see.

Corfe Castle

Once we left Poole Quay, we headed over to the village of Corfe Castle. The village is home, surprisingly, to Corfe Castle. Whodathunkit? Unfortunately the keep of the castle is currently surrounded by scaffolding in order to do some repairs. Apparently, a random Japanese tourist was hit by a falling brick, and they may or may not have been killed.



Corfe Castle is home, so I'm told, to the best cream tea in the region. Unfortunately we weren't able to sample it on this visit, as it was Bank Holiday weekend and the cafe was packed, and they'd run out of scones. Sad panda :(

We recovered from this disappointment, however, and took a stroll through the streets. When I say streets, you need to understand that even with my short-ass stature, I could lay across the road and probably touch the buildings on either side of it. It's truly awesome to look up the street and see these huge stone buildings towering over you.


I believe that this may be the widest street in the village, which isn't really that wide. So you see my point!

The village of Corfe Castle is also home to the smallest town hall in all of England.

The oldest pub in Corfe Castle is the Fox Inn, which has been in operation since 1568.

Free house doesn't actually mean free house by the way, it just means that the pub is free to serve whichever beer it likes, as it is not tied to one particular brewery.

Having said what I did earlier about the roads, it's absolutely nothing on the road that we used to head out of the village. I don't have photos of it, as if I'd raised my arm and my elbow went somewhere near the open window, I'd have been stung by stinging nettles. We were in a Citroen, which thankfully had these cool wing mirrors that folded in at the push of a button. I say thankfully, as the foliage that was built up on the side of the road was so close that had I spat out the window, it would have bounced straight back at me. It's exactly the kind of winding country road that we Aussies imagine England is full of, and I wasn't disappointed. And can I just say, it was as much fun reversing down the road for over 100m just to allows someone to pass, as it was going forwards (although the sudden stop as we came around a corner and came face to face with the front of a 4WD was not so fun)!

How to get to France

This is one way to get to France - take a HUGE ferry. They have the normal cruise-ship shaped ferry that takes cars, and the super cat thingie (sorry Matt, not up with the technical terms) that looks like a supersize Quicksilver boat.

Basically they head out of Poole Quay, past the Isle of Wight (visible from Brownsea Island), and on towards France.

A few other random features of Poole Quay:

* It has a massive horizontal drill happening for oil. The rig is located on an island owned by BP, which they estimate to be using for a few more years yet. It's quite possible that the rig holds the record for the longest horizontal drill, yet it's also just as possible that I made that up.

* Poole Quay is also home to the Sunseeker factory, makers of luxury cruise boats/ships/whatever. Their starting price per metre is more than I will make in a year, before tax. Sorry Matt, no photos!

Brownsea Island

Last Sunday, after going to Southend-on-Sea and Wickford the day before, we decided to head to another beach, this time at the opposite end of the spectrum. Where Southend has the amusement park and caters to the average Joe, Swanage is a touch more swanky.

Before getting to Swanage however, we took a cruise from Poole Quay (home of the world's second largest land-locked port, only smaller than Sydney Harbour) to Brownsea Island. After a short cruise past yachts and canoes, we arrived at Brownsea, which looked to have a few old buildings on it. I know, shock, it's England and the buildings are old, but give me a break. In actual fact, Brownsea Island is the very place that the scouting community began. Way back when, 100 years ago to be exact, Lord Baden-Powell took about 20 or so boys camping on the island. He felt that boys needed to be taught survival skills, and wanted to found an organisation that would be able to teach them. These days he'd no doubt be labelled some nasty names for taking 20 boys to a secluded island on his own, but there you have it, the scouts were formed. There is a statue of him on the island, and they have just had celebrations marking the centenary of scouts there as well.

Brownsea Island is not only famous for its history with scouts. It's also home to the red squirrels. You can take a walk through the island, through their territory, and apparently you can see them roaming around, going about their normal squirrel-like business. Not so, it seems, when I'm around. We spent quite a while wandering about, in the vain hope of seeing even one measly little squirrel, but no, they all decided that they wanted to stay home out of the sun (they're probably not quite sure what sunshine is!). So it turned out to be quite a fruitless (and squirell-less) adventure to the island. There were some magnificant oak trees, but I wasn't allowed to climb them either. I'm still fascinated by the little things though, such as seeing acorns on an actual tree. Well, seeing acorns at all, really!


The hunt for the red squirrel continues...

Work

This is my new place of employment:

Southend-on-Sea

The other day we travelled across to the other side of England to Southend-on-Sea. It's a little seaside town (I don't know what gave it away!), that was packed because of a combination of sunshine, Bank Holiday weekend and the local football (soccer) derby, between Southend United and some other team who wears the same colours.

We went over there to have a look at a flat for me, which turned out to be a bit dodgy. What made it even more so was the huge police presence for the football. We asked one of them what the area was like, and got a very quick reply that it was no good.

Nevertheless, it was still interesting to see the English take on a beach, which was jam packed. We really only stayed long enough to have fish and chips for lunch and find an Essex street map for later on.

Bloomin' onion

Some of you may have seen this on Rove, but I thought it was worth posting for those who haven't.

We went to a restaurant called The Outback Steakhouse. It's an American restaurant, not only in the UK, which is Australian-themed. There were things like Cairns Calamari, Gold Coast Coconut Shrimp and Long Reach (not actually Longreach as it should be) Lamb. Funnily enough, the Long Reach Lamb actually features New Zealand lamb chops, so I guess the thinking is that it's close enough to Australia to actually be Australian...

Anywho, without even looking at the menu, there was an immediate order of a 'bloomin' onion'. I didn't really know what to expect, although I did wonder if it was the same as I'd previously seen on Rove, and sure enough it was. Because an onion that is cut and expanded to a flower shape before being battered and deep-fried is just SO Australian!!! Even the waiter couldn't explain what was Australian about it (although he did give me several funny options).



Take it straight to the pool room.

First trip to Windsor

After the visit to Privet Drive, and a side trip to 'Ye Olde Leathern Pub' (at least I think that was the name of it), we drove in to Windsor for a little sight-seeing. Although we didn't get out of the car, I did get a good glimpse of Windsor Castle, where apparently somebody (although not the Queen or any of her immediate family) was home.

It's not a great photo, I know, but it was taken through from inside the car whilst we were still moving, so I thought it was not too shabby. I'll add some other photos of Windsor Castle to my photobucket site when I have more time and I'm using my own computer.





This one is a little better, but we'd just come around a corner and we were going slower!

Harry Potter's house

It turns out that Harry Potter's house, that is the real house that was used for the exterior shots in the movies, is only about 10 minutes drive from where I'm currently staying. So, in order to strike one thing off the to-do list that my brother gave me, we went for a drive to see if we could find it. Turns out it's in a little street called "Picket Post Close", which is a street full of look-a-like houses.

Japan

I left Australia bound for the Motherland (England), via an overnight stay in Narita, Japan. Having never been to Japan before, it was certainly an experience! I stayed at the Hotel Nikko Narita, which was a lot better than I had expected for a transit hotel. I had seen pictures of it on their webpage before I left, and it looked pretty good, but recent experience of trying to judge a hotel on the basis of their pictures on a webpage left me aware that it might not live up to expectations.

However, it was quite lovely, if not educational. I have to admit being unprepared for seeing an instruction sheet beside the toilet! It was a bidet, actually, not just a toilet, but still...














I also got to sample some "Engrish" - this was a card in my room about not opening the windows because of mosquitoes and like insects, and 'In this connection, your kind understanding and cooperation would be highly appreciated."







I left Japan the next morning, after negotiating my way through check in. Not speaking any Japanese beyond a few greetings and simple phrases, it was apparently just enough to smile and point to things, and get checked in. Too easy!

For larger versions of the photos and a photo of the menu at the restaurant, click here.

The story so far...

I write this whilst sitting in a slightly cold office, calming down after the adrenalin rush caused by the escape of cat, who ran headlong into a rather large black shepherd who has a history as a cat killer. The cat survived, but alas, the lego plane which was being shown to me at the time did not. It's now in small pieces all over the floor, having been flung there in an attempt to reach said cat who was facing impending doom.

Nevertheless, I said that I would get my ass into gear and set up a travel journal, so here I am, albeit delayed somewhat from when I said it would be done. I already have photos to put up, and stories to tell, and will do so in due course.

In the meantime, this is really just a test to see how my blog will look with something posted on it. I'll get back to the rest later!