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Sojourn Britannia

August - October 2022
We'd plannedthis trip for September 2020, but the Covid_19 pandemic put paid to that, so we're trying again now in September 2022. Read more
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  • 3countries
  • 39days
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  • Sojourn Britannia
    Day 38

    The Return Journey

    October 3, 2022 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Return journeys are funny things. Some people can't wait to get home, while others don't want to go back at all. Me? A little ambivalent. Part of me wants to keep on going. Part of me wants to returm home. It's been such an intense 38 days that it is somewhat challenging to just stop all of a sudden. My brain is still on go.

    We are doing pretty well especially given that we've just completed a 22 hour flight and are now doing a 3 hour train trip from Sydney. We need to be home to receive some deliveries tomorrow otherwise we would have stayed over night in Sydney and slept. As it is, we'll have a post 1am arrival in Newcastle. But it is what it is. Travelling has its challenges as only travellers will fully undertand. There are lots of times where aceptance of a situation is your only way through and your only link to sanity.

    Actually, our flight went better than what I thought it would. Definitely better than the same flight over to the UK. I am wondering whether the difference is that we flew out out of London in the later morning and so had many hours of daylight to fly in before getting tired and hunkering down later in the night. Whereas we flew out of Sydney a month ago in the late afternoon just before sunset, into the dark, but full of adrenalin.

    Personally, apart from Typhoid Mary sittiing across the aisle from me who coughed from London to Singapore and would not wear a mask, my flight was pretty good, as far as you can call long-haul flights good. I spent the time reading a whole book, Travels with Epicurus - Meditations from a Greek Island on the Pleasures of Old Age by Daniel Klein, watching the remaining six episodes of The Gilded Age starring Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon, a catty gossipy 1850s New York high society story in dresses, bonnets, parlours and balls, eating and sleeping, or more properly called when flying, napping.

    I now have aches and pains in my body in places that I did not know existed. We are both pooped physically, but emotionally, we're in a good place, happy that we have undertaken this odyssey, having talked a lot about us during its course, laughed a lot, and looked out for each other every day.

    I am sitting on the train now as I write this last footprint. It still feels a bit weird, a bit foreign to be back here, but that will melt away pretty quickly I think and in the meantime, I can look forward to us sleeping in our own bed, having our own shower and bath back again, having tasted of the delights of world travel in an adventure that neither of us will ever forget. At the end of a very long day, it is good to be going home.    Read more

  • Sojourn Britannia
    Day 36

    Goodbye London

    October 1, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Today has been a funny day. it was a day we did not expect. Due to strike action, we can not get a Tube out to Heathrow and so have booked an Uber driver, Gabor, to take us out there at 3.30pm. We've got a night at the Hilton and will have to be at Terminal 3 tomorrow morning about 5ish.

    So, today was a take it easy day. Not too much energy. Check out of the hotel at midday, ask them to look after our bags until 3.30 when Gabor arrives.

    In the morning, it was out for a proper brekky, which frankly, surprised us both. Mostly, we've just been having coffee and a plain croissant, or Chris, a pain au chocolat. But today, we wanted eggs. We walked a bit trying to find something nice, aside from the franchises, and eventually happened upon Dolci, a small affair, run by hot baristas and a wonderfully personable female waiter, and whose internal wall is covered in blooms with some neon signs. We both had eggs how we like them, mine, I must say, was an objet d'art, the way it looked in its rasberry-coloured bearnaise sauce. The coffees, probably the best we've had in the UK. So, thank you Dolci, Earl's Court Road.

    After brekky, a stroll though Holland Park. Lots of people enjoying themselves, either walking, riding, chatting, sitting or playing sport out on the field. Back to the Hotel to have a nap, which surprisingly, we both fell into immediately. I think it shows how tired we are.

    Then, after checkout, a Tube to Victoria Station where we had chips and a beer and watched the people below in their hundreds navigate the train system in the middle of the strike action.

    Then back to the Hotel where Gabor picked us up and drove us through a nasty traffic snarl that added on at least twenty minutes to the journey. We tipped him of course. Stupidly, I allowed my phone to slip from my leg onto the floor and Gabor drove off with it. After contacting him via the Uber app, he had to navigate the traffic and dropped it back to me out the front of the Hotel. He didn't want to take it, but I tipped him a second time.

    So here we are. In the Hilton Hotel at Heathrow, sitting in their bar, having a beer, awaiting some food, and processing that this trip is now all over.

    A few things for those interested. I had always put off coming to Europe in my 30s because I was then still single, not out, lonely and had always thought that when the time came, I would come here with someone special rather than doing it by myself. In this trip, that set of thoughts and the rationale behind them has come true and become real. Chris is with me, we have seen places and had experiences that we never dreamed possible for us, and we're still talking. Actually, Chris and I travel very well together. As in life, so on holiday.

    Some miscellaneous thoughts:
    * the arrows on the road pointing back to the other side seem to me to be pretty useless or ignored;
    * crossing large intersections in the car, there are no lane markings as you go around, so it's a bit of a free for all;
    * I still haven't worked out where to walk having tried the left and the right to no apparent joy;
    * people queueing at an intersection waiting for the little green man always go before the green man appears (a sixth sense?);
    * this sceptered isle is full of vaping shops and barbers;
    * kids are vaping as a way to look cool in the way we smoked in my day to look cool;
    * there is still a lot of smoking in the UK and it's pretty easy to cop a lung full just by walking down the street;
    * driving in cities in a rental is not my idea of fun; * driving in Surrey and West Sussex where the roads are narrow and all the locals are cock-sure is not my idea of fun;
    * I've enjoyed local lagers wherever we have gone;
    * the UK is drowning in franchises, not as many indpendent businesses as in Australia;
    * I've never seen so many pubs in my life as in the UK - you only have to look up and there's a pub.

    It's been a big thing for me. I feel very much at home in the UK. In many ways, it feels like coming home. Having grown up on British tv and music, and having the Westminster system of responsible government, this place does not feel foreign to me. Scotland has a wonderful sensibility that I want to see and experience again. Regional cities have their own personalities that are quite apparent. And London. Well, London has an energy that is magical.

    I will never forget this wonderful trip and I hope to relive many of the memories as I re-read this blog in the coming years. And to you who have come along for the ride, I thank you and hope that you enjoyed it.    Read more

  • Sojourn Britannia
    Day 35

    London Coda 3 - Natural History Museum

    September 30, 2022 in England ⋅ 🌧 14 °C

    We slept in. It was a good thing. We needed the rest. However, not five minutes up and about, we both received the same message from Qantas that our flight home would be delayed by twelve hours and that we would ultimately fly out of Heathrow not tomorrow evening (Saturday), but Sunday morning at 8.40. Three to four hours at the airport before the flight home immediately meant that we would need to stay a night in the airport hotel. So, off to Cafe Nero at Earl's Court we went to provide coffee and croissants while we organised accommodation. Thank goodness for the internet and smart phones. To complicate things, there will be industrial action starting that day which means that there will be no Tube out to the Heathrow. We would have to Uber it. So, we organised that too.

    That left us with a lovely day ahead to do something new and nice. So, we decided we would go to the Natural History Museum, that extraordinary building in the heart of London built in the 1850s. If the building did not have any exhibits in it, you would still go, just to see the building. It is exquisite in different coloured brick work, tiles, and carved animals adorning every column, every floor piece, every section. There are stone animals everywhere you look. The floor is tiled in the best Roman fashion, the ceilings are painted in the best 'great house' fashion. It is a masterpiece of architecture and true beauty.

    The collection is probably urivalled anywhere in the world. The vast and cavernous grand hall at the entrance has the skeleton of a blue whale hanging down over you, while at the top of a grand stair case which goes right and left at its apex sits a white marble over-sized Charles Darwin, looking out over the proceedings as if he were some deity.

    In fact, there is a clear and unmistakable reference to religion and great cathedrals in this building. Grand arches not aisles, vast halls not naves, huge galleries not transepts, statues of scientists not saints. There is a quote by one of the scientists, I think it might have been Richard Owen, the guy who thought up the whole idea for this place, that this building was to be "a cathedral to science". So, it's no mistake or coincidence.

    Chris and I enjoyed the parts of the exhibtion that we looked through: central hall, birds, minerals, the Vault where precious stones are kept (and no mention of monetary worth made at all), and marine life including the great whales. There is a model of a blue whale in this exhibit that I swear I find it hard to believe that it is true to size. Its length took up the whole gallery. Its girth was wider than a B Double truck, about two storeys high. The scientists tell us that the Blue Whale was and remains the largest creature ever to have inhabited the earth.

    We stopped by the cafe to replenish and get off our feet, then had a cursory look through the dinosaur exhibit, but lots of people, plenty of screaming kids, not really our scene. Then off to the Museum shop for the obligatory touristy things that are always fun to purchase and that can only only be purchased in situ.

    Lunch back in Earl's Court, a nap, and then dinner back down in the High Street, just some KFC tonight, but perched up in the window watching passers-by scurrying along in the London rain, the streets shiny and refelctive and romantic. This was our last 'free' night in London and the UK. I loved it. It's been a wonderful day together and a lovely evening.    Read more

  • Sojourn Britannia
    Day 34

    London Coda 1 and 2

    September 29, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Getting to London from Bristol was more challenging then what we thought. I had not been looking forward to driving in London itself, as we had planned to drop off our rental car at Euston - St Pancras' Station, but that ended up not being too difficult at all, to my surprise. I thought I would be all sweat and tears, and dings, and bumps, and prangs and all things imagninable vehicularly horrific. Well, it wasn't. Between Chris and the GPS, we managed to get through the traffic, drop the car off with no dings, and catch our first black London cab to our hotel in Earl's Court/Kensington.

    No, the challenge was on the M4 on the way to London. You see somewhere the London side of Swindon where we stopped for a coffee and bathroom break, we encountered the mother of all traffic snarles. We ground to a halt, and so did all the other traffic ahead of us, behind us and adjacent us, and we just sat there for about 30-40 minutes, as still as the Ancient Mariner's ship in his becalmed sea, not knowing what was going on. Eventaully, we did start crawling, starting and stopping, and learned that a lorrie had caught fire. When we passed it, there was nothing left of it at all.

    Our hotel, although pokey as hell (I am writing this footprint with my keyboard on one corner of the bed, is located centrally, just around the corner from the Tube station and all the shops. It's lovely down there, epecially at night. We had a good pub meal at The Drayton Arms, a drink, and breathed in London air again, a treat we were not expecting to do again this trip. We watched another episode of the new season of Locke and Key and slept pretty well although we were both beset by lots of dreams.

    Today, we set out late and headed over to St Pauls Cathedral. I took a tour while Chris coffee-ed in a nearby Cafe Nero and finished reading some poetry.

    St Pauls is hard to describe without overdoing the superlatives. It is massive, cavernous, beautiful, airy, clean, ornate, ancient and welcoming. I paid 20 quid to do a half-hour highlights tour, but the old guy, Allan, was a bit garrulous and spent too long at the front door, so the half hour went for 45 minutes.

    After the completion of the tour, I took myself around the inside, photographing here and there. Finally, given that other people, including old ladies and babies were going up to the outside of Christopher Wren's dome to the open elements, I thought I should go up too.

    Readers of this travel blog may recall that I struggle with vertigo somewhat these days, but I spoke assertively to myself in the manner of, "oh come on Stuart, you can do this for goodness sake" and answered the lady at the doorway when she asked was I okay with stairs in the affirmative and up I trotted all 376 stairs. One wide-ish timber spiral stair-case later, one set of labyrinthine dungeon-like stone corridors, and then three or four very narrow stone spiral stair-cases later, I emerged to my great relief out into the air, high above London, my legs already a bit wobbly from the climb. The girl at the top of the stairs said, "you made it", to which I answered, "yes, and now I have to deal with a bit of a fear of heights'. She was immediately concerned.

    I stepped out cautiously on to the deck and tried to look out rather than down. I slowed my breathing in order to slow my heart-rate and eventually began to settle. It was never really bad, just present enough to make me feel physically uncomfortable. I started my way around the dome, when all of a sudden, the girl at the top of the stairs came to me to make sure I was okay and to offer to take me to a "taster" of the even higher second tier of viewing platforms. She led me to a metal staircase with a small landing on top and led me up it and allowed me to hold on to the railings. I looked out and down, and although I felt the effects of stress on my body, I stayed there while she talked to me reassuringly, and took in the sights of London. Incredible!

    After that, I went back down to the inital landing and waked around it and even out to the edge to touch the small columns and to take some pics. This was successful. Then it was time to go back down. I did not want to keep Chris waiting for too long. The only trouble was, the moment I descended abour three steps of the stone spiral-case, I felt wobbly and frightened. I scrambled back up, let some others go before me, and thought, "shit, how the hell am I going to get back down"? Well, all that castle work in other cities came in handy. I managed it by gripping the rail, never stopping and just turning my foot each step so that it fit on the stairs without hanging over the edge. And down I went. That's when I counted the steps.

    Safely back on cathedra firma, I bolted down into the huge crypt in order to see a few famous graves: Horation Nelson, the Duke of wellington, Lord Montgomery of Africa. Florence Nightgale was down there too, but the Cathedral shop called and I did want to buy a souvenir and get to Chris, so I abandoned Florence for two fridge magnets, and set off to find Chris.

    After another round of coffees, we headed for Covent Garden, there to have some lunch and to buy me a cologne from the very shop, Bloom Perfumery, where Chris bought his a month ago. Sarah remembered us and was once again, extremely helpful. I am quite proud of my self for getting up on to St Paul's Cathedral dome. And yes, I would do it again. A relaxing evening awaits and we can both say, this first day of a London coda was most pleasant.    Read more

  • Sojourn Britannia
    Day 32

    Bristol Museum

    September 27, 2022 in England ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    Today was our last day in Bristol, and in many ways, the last day of our trip. Bristol is the last 'new' place we have been to. Yes, we are having three days back in London before flying home, but for both of us that feels more like a coda than something new. A time to decompress, a time to process, a time to relax and gather energy for our journey home.

    So, today was a day we decided would be a day without plans. The only thing we did decide beforehand was to have breakfast/coffee at Cafe Revival "Bristol's Oldest Coffee House". Three floors of coffee antiquity. A pleasant experience with a decidely good coffee.

    During breakfast, we decided we would walk slowly up the hill to see the University sector and the city's justly renowned Museum and Gallery. We walked up the Christmas stairs - there are specially named stairs all ove the place in the UK - and on toward the University.

    The Uni's tower has to be seen to be believed. It is called Wills Tower after its benefactor. More about him and his brother later. Today however, there were Uni staff picketing out the front for better pay conditions, so even though we were not staff going to work, we did not cross their picket line out of respect, even though I was keen to go in and see the interior of this behemoth.

    The tower is enormous. It can be seen as a bastion of academia all over the city. Pale white sand-stone, highly ornamented and chunky. Yes, chunky. It is a big, wide, heavy edifice that towers into the sky.

    Adjacent the University is the Museum and Gallery, also benefiting from the Wills' family. You'll know the Willses. They are the tobacco people, W. D. & H. O. Wills. They made their money from vast tobacco plantations worked by slaves. They even kept their slaves working a few decades after slavery was abolished and criminalised in the UK in 1833.

    The Museum is housed in a purpose built grand Edwardian building replete with sandstone on the outside and marble and arches and galleries on the inside. It is a beautiful and remarkable building. And it was built on the misery of other human beings. Bristol Museum owns this horror up front in its first gallery. It states it loud and clear and declares modern-day discomfort with such a past and asks today's patrons how they feel about this as they proceed through.

    Surrounding the Museum's acknowledgment is a massive art work called Black Lives Matter, and the statues of former slavers toppled in the town by today's youth, with paint tins on their heads and spattered with paint.

    We did not look at the whole museum. Chris had a look at some Japanese ceramics, a special exhibition, while I looked at the Museum's dinosaur collection. Particularly interesting was the whole icthyosaur fossil in situ, and the life-size cast of the front leg of a Portugeuse dinosaur called a Camarasurus. I am sorry I did not take pic of me standing next to the leg as it would have given some sense of size. This leg was at least three times the size of me. Extraordinary.

    After that, we came together to look at the Gallery. Bristol's collection has some old masters as well as a wonderful collection of different art works throughout the different ages. Of particlular interest to me was a fabulous image of a handsome knight almost bewitched by a lady on a horse. The picture is called La Belle Dame Sans Merci and was painted by Frank Dicksee who died in the year Mum and Dad were born, 1928. Keats wrote a poem of the same name, a poem I used to teach to senior High School students, and the inpsiration for Dicksee's painting. The knight doesn't come off very well at the end of the poetic narrative, and our lady without mercy, is an example of a femme fatale.

    After our fabulous time at the Museum and Gallery, we headed back down the Christmas Stairs and went to Cabot Circus, a large shopping mall, there to do a bit of clothes shopping. Portuguese explorer Sebastien Cabot launched his trip to find the New World from Bristol and was partly funded by the city. We both picked up a few bargains and then headed to the Mercure Clayton Hotel for a drink and a chat about processing our trip. This building used to the Everard Print Works. The Hotel has protected the original facade, an art nouveau design. It is something quite special.

    Dinner and a restful night back at the hotel where we write these footprints before leaving Bristol tomorrow morning and commencing our UK trip coda.    Read more

  • Sojourn Britannia
    Day 31

    Romans, Georgians and Jane Austen

    September 26, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Today, we were up early and ready to drive to Bath. It's not far from Bristol, maybe 50 minutes by car, so we had a leisurely drive, only challenged by finding the right place to park and how to pay for it. We did not get this last part quite correct and ended up with a £50 fine which I have disputed on good grounds. I await the verdict.

    Bath is amazing. What a day! We had an 11am walking tour of the city already booked and we met our fabulous guide, Charlotte, from Newcastle upon Tyne, in the square, just along from the Pump Room at the front door of Bath Abbey.

    Charlotte's tour took us around the outside of the Abbey to a statue of Blodad, a mythical king of Britain who supposedly found the healing properties of the spring waters that come up through the earth in Bath. It was a great story; leprosy, herd of pigs, mud, waters, healing, bang let's build a city here.

    From here we saw the Pulteney Bridge, one of four in Europe, that has shops either side of it. It actually looks better from the side rather than down it, as you wouldn't even know you were crossing a bridge by going over it. It just looks like the street either side of it. But from the side, it is beautiful arched stone bridge. The River Avon runs underneath and is just lovely to watch.

    Our tour then took us into the heart of the old city to look at different architecture, especially by a fellow called John Wood, then ultimately up to the Circus, the famous circle of homes around a park. Wood set all manner of Masonic emblems into the layout. The centre of the little wood in the middle of the Circus allows a single clap to be echoed in a magical way so that it comes back almost as loud as when it went forth. I tried it and gained the approbation of the nodding participants of our tour who were clearly impressed with my echo adroitness.

    Just around from the Circus, we went to the even more famous Royal Crescent. Its Georgian mansions stand tall in a majestic semi-circle, seeming to say, "You dare knock on my door, Urchin? Be off with you." The Royal Crescent is always used for movies set in Bath so you've probably seen it in some of the Jane Austen adaptations. We walked back down to the city via the special gravel path that the Georgian high society requested so they would have an easier way back down the hill to the city. It is exactly where Captain Wentworth proposed to Anne Elliot in Austen's novel Persuasion which I only just re-read prior to our coming to the UK. In fact, the recent movie filmed the proposal on the actual gravel path here in Bath. And I was standing on it. So touristy! But pretty cool huh.

    Our guided tour was over but for one last look at at an Austenian place of interest. In Trim Street, Jane Austen and family lived as their last base in Bath. Apparently, she did not like the city. Too noisy, too rambunctious. Still, it was nice to see where she lived for a while.

    After our tour ended, our ticket price included the Roman Baths. Now I have to say that I was not prepared to be as blown away by the Roman Bath as I was. Its antiquity goes back to Roman Britain, Britannia, and it was used by the Romans as not only a major bath house, but its adjacent temple to Sulis Minerva served as part of their religion too. The Temple is gone, but the bath remains in all its Roman glory.

    You step out firrst up on the upper floor, a surrounding walkway, and gaze down upon it beneath you. All around you are statues of Roman emperors, starting with Julius Caesar, not quite an emperor, and ending down the other end of this vast rectangle with Hadrian and Constantine.

    Ultimately, you make your way down various stairs and through various rooms with museum treasures and explanations down to the level where the Romans would walk into the water. You can't bathe in it today, but the water is very warm and bubbles up from a natural spring from rain that fell ten thousand years ago. You can see the natural spring and you can see the engineering prowess of the Romans to have it pumped through into the bath and some of the heat into sauna-type rooms. Simply amazing. I must say the Roman Baths are not just very clever, they are also very beautiful to look at. I ended up buying a water-colour of them in the shop.

    A quick look through the Abbey followed. Beautiful, old, interesting, lots of people just sitting around in there looking and thinking. The vaulted ceilings, a vanilla coloured light spectacular. Angel statues playing musical instruments. Lunch in a Bath cafe called Rosarios, then home to Bristol where we had a walk, Chris had a barber's appointment, then we had a drink at the Bank Tavern, a little out of the way pub down one of the side-streets before treating ourselves tonight to our first real take-away meal since arriving, KFC. A delicious and familiar taste. A wonderful day I will never forget.    Read more

  • Sojourn Britannia
    1
    Day 30

    Bristol and The Bridge

    September 25, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Bristol is an interesting city. Right in the heart of it where we are staying, it's all shopping and franchises. There's not an independent cafe to be seen. But just head on out a bit, or catch the bus for five to ten minutes, and the franchises disappear, and people are doing bsuiness the old-fashioned way, marketing their shops so that passers-by will come in and where customer service really counts.

    Out there too, you see art galleries and museums, courts of law and lawyers' chambers, hospitals, schools, the University of Bristol, and of course, it's England after all, pubs. Walking our washing to a laundrette this afternoon, we walked 20 minutes into an inner city suburb with Franciscan friars operating a church and charity right next door to the Islamic community's base. I liked that. To be sure, it felt rougher out there, but I felt safe the whole time.

    Today was a day where we decided to try the Bristol Bus Service. We dutifully watched a YouTube vid on how to do this, how to download and use the bus app, and how to activate your ticket which you can pre-purchase. While this was all interesting and we felt we were ready, the whole thing came undone when the city put on some kind of half marathon or fun run. The streets were jammed, the buses ere running more than an hour late, and Chris and I had the wildest bus ride I've ever encountered.

    You see, we caught the bus out to Clifton. Clifton is where Bristol's famous bridge is located. This is the Clifton Suspension Bridge of well-deserved fame, engineered by that Victorian innovator and clever man, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. IK Brunel is to be found everywhere is Bristol. There are portraits and images of his bridge as well as his other great feats of engineering.

    Poor man died before his Clifton bridge could be completed. The towers either side were done, but the suspension cables that give it, and other suspension bridges, their unique look, were not in place before his untimely death by stroke in 1859, exactly 100 years before I was born. Untimely I'm not so sure about given that IK Brunel smoked 40 cigars a day and he was never seen without one in his mouth. He only slept four hours a day too, and devoted the rest of his waking hours to work. Not the healthiest lifestyle.

    Our bus ride out to the bridge was relatively uneventful. We alighted and walked to the nearest side of the bridge and took photos from grassy parklands adjacent the nearer tower. Then we walked across it. At the very middle, you can reach up and touch the suspension cables where they hang lowest in their grand upsidedown arch.

    Some of you may recall that in the last few years, I have developed a mild case of vertigo, so when I am up on these kinds of heights where I can see through to the abyss below my feet or just over the edge to the aforemoentioned abyss, my tummy turns (too much epinephrine) and my legs feel a bit wobbly (too much norepinephrine) and I experience a mild fear (limbic system upregulated and situational hypofrontality as part of a stress response). There is no rationalising my way out of it.

    But dear reader, I wasn't going to let a bit of neurological disequilibration stop me from walking across Isambard Kingdom's bridge, not when it was right in front of me. No siree! Chris was good. He was calm with me and just set a gentle pace and I stayed with him. The problem with vertigo is that you don't get to see much because looking out or looking down makes it worse, so walking across the bridge looking at my feet and the roadway is clearly not the ideal view of the vast expanse set before me from such a high up vantage.

    And what a structure! Brunel's bidge is gorgeous. It is not only an architectural marvel, it is a thing of great beauty. Each tower stands like a giant letter A, the suspension cables coming from anchorages on top and cables connected to bedrock deep in the earth on either side. It spans the River Avon and is truly majestic. I have seen the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge and I can now add a third awe-inspiring edifice to these great wonders of human ingenuity. And bridges! Who doesn't love a bridge! I love what bridges do. I love the very concept of a bridge. You're over here, and then, as if by magic, you're over there.

    We went into the visitor's centre on the other side and had a good look around and read all the important information about Brunel himself, how he did it, and how it was finsished after he died, as well as some interesting tid bits about the bridge's place in local life over the years.

    Coffee at a local Clifton cafe and then the bus ride from hell back to the city. A fifteen to twenty minutes ride typically. But today, with this half marathon/fun run thingy, the streets were jammed, and the bus was forced to stop multiple times. Our driver, a man from up north and with the most wonderful 'Time Bandits' accent, was cheerful and very clever as he wove this giant behemoth through tiny narrow streets, parked in on both sides, and forcing his way through the middle in places, otherwise we'd still be there. How he didn't take off a dozen side-mirrors from parked cars I'll never know. It was a magnificent feat and everybody on the bus was clearly impressed and thankful for such a ride to be in the hands of so skilfull a manoeuvre-er.

    A drink at the hotel bar and dinner in again tonight, a walk in the park, and we're off on a day trip tomorrow to a city I have read about in Jane Austen's novels all my life.    Read more

  • Sojourn Britannia
    11
    Day 29

    A Travel Day

    September 24, 2022 in England ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Today was our reluctant farewell to Inverness and to Scotland. I must say, Scotland has utterly seduced me. I like the feel of the place, the sensibilities of its people, its look, its clean air, its history, its friendliness and easy-goingness. It's such a shallow observation and may even be a wee bit presumptuous, but Scotland felt less worried than England, less harried. I would like to see it again and more of it.

    Our flight down to Bristol was well-organised, comfortable and carefree, which let's face it, is exactly how you want flights to be. We flew south over the mountains that were presumably the Cairngorms, which looked absolutely amazing from 30,000 feet, then down between Edinburgh and Glasgow, thence over Wales and down ino the West where mountanis gave way to fields and where we ultimately aimed for Bristol, a large energetic city of 467,000 people.

    We are here for four days. We will take it easy now and just see a few things. Bristol was a major port in the past for the processing of African slaves to the Carribean. I easily recall the news at home in 2020 when young people toppled a statue here of Edward Colston, a slaver, into Bristol Harbour. We might pop along and see Colston's plinth. It's great that cities and societies are coming to terms with the past and the evils of Empire. We have the same ongoing conversation in Australia. And so we should.

    After a lovely dinner in our hotel bar, we went for a post-prandial in Castle Park, Bristol's version of Hyde Park, and took a few pics. There is the amazing ruin of St Peter's Church, orginally built in the early 1100s, rebuilt in the 15th century, but bombed by the Nazis in WWII in the blitz of Bristol. The city burghers have protected it as a ruin as a memorial to those who died in the Blitz here in this city. The Park and the river are beautiful and both are full of people sitting around talking and laughing. It's a lovely feel. Hello Bristol 🙂    Read more

  • Sojourn Britannia
    11
    Day 28

    Inverness

    September 23, 2022 in Scotland ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    Inverness is a beautiful mid-size town. The River Ness runs through it on its way to nearby Loch Ness. There are bridges, churches, steeples, town halls, blue plaques of historical significance, cobbled streeets, lots of tourists, pubs, inns and taverns wherever you look, restaurants, cafes, shops and arcades. And out further where the locals live, their homes and livelihoods.

    I mentioned in my previous footprint that we did not leave enough time for Inverness and that this was a mistake. In truth, there is a lot of really good stuff to see here and surrounding, but we were not in any shape to avail oursselves of it. The day of travelling here was one of two days planned, then to pack up and head off, relinquish the car and fly south again. It was simply beyond us, and we had to admit to ourselves that we could not keep going the way we had been. Something had to give.

    Thus, we have changed our plans for the final week of our UK Sojourn. We have abandoned Cornwall this time, and will extend our stay in Bristol by one day, then head back to London to stay three nights in a comfortable hotel to decompress and ready ourselves for the long and rather arduous flight back home. We are comfortable with our decision and feeling the better for it already.

    I post here a few pics of the beautiful Inverness. If you get a chance to come here one day, you should take it.    Read more

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