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Avoiding the heat EU tour
  • Bec Moon
  • Phill Moon
Sep 2023 – Jan 2024

Avoiding the heat EU tour

A 127-day adventure by Bec & Phill Read more
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  • Avoiding the heat EU tour

    The final hoorah!

    November 16, 2023 in Ireland ⋅ 🌙 7 °C

    It was quite a chilly in Tilly this morning, but we got up and made our way to King House Tea Rooms, for some delicious breakfast. After we were fuelled we headed on our big drive inland across the country. Along the way we stopped at a petrol station to vacuum Tilly's carpet before we eventually arrived at our main attraction of today which was Newgrange.

    Newgrange is a prehistoric monument located on a rise overlooking the River Boyne, it is a passage tomb built during the Neolithic Period, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. It had a exhibition at the information centre before we jumped on a mini bus to take us to the tomb. It was super cool and otherworldly walking into the central cavern.

    After we finished up at Newgrange we headed towards our accommodation for the night, it took us 45 minutes to get there to find it was closed. So we found a different place, booked online and drove just under an hour to find out we couldn't get in the gate. After trying to call and emailing them we decided to park the van and walk in and use the showers and washing machine while we waited.

    After a while a lovely gentleman arrived to give us access and we finished off the laundry, headed to Tilly to give her a pre-clean before tomorrow, and drank some hot chocolate before heading to bed.

    Step count: 11k    Read more

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    Back to the shoelace express

    November 17, 2023 in Ireland ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    This morning we said goodbye to our transient 3rd member of the trip: Tillie. We gave her a clean, both inside and out and drove back to the airport where we waited patiently to hand over the keys. Eventually the man came to collect her and we headed off to the bus to take us into the centre of Dublin. (It felt quite strange to go to an airport without dropping off, picking up, or boarding a plane...)

    In 30 minutes we found ourselves in the middle of the city, near our accommodation. Even though it was much too early to check in we headed over in the hopes that we could drop off our bags. Fortune smiled upon us! As it turned out, our room was already ready, so we could head straight up! We have much more space than a campervan, which is great. But the building is part of the main drag and so is very noisy. Sleeping will be interesting tonight.

    Once we got ourselves set up, we headed to a falafel place for lunch which was delicious. It was then time to start off Dublin strong with a trip to the Guinness storehouse! The two of us walked over with only some minor distractions and before we knew it, we were inside!

    Unsurprisingly, our tour followed a similar thread to the Heineken museum where they taught us the manufacturing process. It also ended with us up at the top of the storehouse a UFO looking building with 360° views of Dublin, with a pint of Guinness!

    On our way home we wandered the streets looking at stores before retiring for the night.

    Here's hoping for a midnight curfew!

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    A taste of Dublin

    November 18, 2023 in Ireland ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

    Well our night's sleep was pretty horrible, with the club music stopping at ~2am and highlights such as someone knocking and bashing on doors in our hallways at some godforsaken time, as well as the fire alarm going off for a few moments... Great stuff.

    Today we got to start the day by taking a cruise in the amphibious WWII DUKW vehicle. The tour drove us around the city centre, where the guide told us many different facts about the city and its people. We then donned some life jackets and the engineering marvel drove headfirst into the canal. Fortunately we floated, no leaks or anything! After a while of jetting up and down the canal, we rolled back onto land and went to our drop off point.

    Up next was a coffee stop, then a trip to the nearby "Little Museum of Dublin" which was a fantastic museum in a Georgian townhouse. The tour guide was very entertaining and gave us a rundown of Ireland over the last ~200,000 years (hint: for ~199,000) years not much happened.

    While we were in the neighbourhood, we then decided to visit the famous Trinity college, which was indeed very impressive! Inside the college they also have the famous Book of Kells, a 9th century manuscript, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament. It was pretty cool for more Jesus stuff. At the collage there was also "The Long Room" which is an extra famous library, considered one of the most beautiful in the world. We can definitely agree with that now!

    With the collage behind us, we were getting quite hungry so we went and got some lunch/early dinner before the next saga to our day, the Irish Whiskey Museum! It was another guided tour, this time (unsurprisingly) focusing on the glorious creation and journey of the "water of life" as part of Ireland's history. The host was a very excitable Irish fella with a lot to say. The tour was great and finished with 3 different whiskeys. Depending on which one of us you ask, you may hear different opinions!

    And if that wasn't enough for today, we then went to the bar of a fancy hotel which served some great cocktails. This is because one of Bec's bosses very, very kindly gave us a voucher to go there!

    After getting sauced up in this upper class establishment, we then started heading in the general direction of our accommodation, but we got caught in a horrible trap and found ourselves in a wine bar... So once we had a glass of wine (and accompanying cheeses, of course!) We managed to find the door out and made our way back to our beds.

    Fingers crossed for a good sleep tonight.

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    In roast we trust

    November 19, 2023 in Ireland ⋅ 🌬 12 °C

    After another atrocious sleep, thanks to the walls made of paper. We went for a quick walk, grabbed some supplies for lunch and a coffee and headed back to the hotel for some planning.

    As we're supposed to check out of here tomorrow, we realised we should do another solid day of planning as we had nothing figured out at all. After a few hours we had another day in Dublin booked with a day trip tomorrow - and a flight and accommodation to London. We enjoyed some lunch and while researching we realised it was the Lord's day, meaning the day of roasts!

    We walked 30 minutes to a carvery called The 51 bar, where Phill enjoyed a roast beef with all the trimmings and I enjoyed a roast turkey while we enjoyed a beverage and watched some soccer on the television.

    After stuffing ourselves silly and enjoying an apple pie dessert we rolled ourselves back to our accommodation before going for a late night walk to Lidl (which has fun Viking ruins under the floor) for supplies for tomorrow.

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    An Irish Goodbye

    November 20, 2023 in Northern Ireland ⋅ 🌙 8 °C

    Today we decided to take a day trip to the UK - I mean, Northern Ireland. We got up nice and early for a bus from Dublin to Dunluce castle where we stopped shortly before heading to the Giants Causeway.

    The Giants Causeway was amazing, strange hexagonal columns that formed 50 million years ago when pooling lava touched the sea and cooled down. We spent a good amount of time here where we did a little hike where a part of the path was blocked off due to landslides.

    We then headed to the 'dark Hedges' which is a road of trees planted in the 18th century and which now cross over at the top creating an archway.

    We ended the day in Belfast where we enjoyed a pint at a pub and the Christmas markets at city hall.

    The tour guide today was very fun and also explained a lot about the history of Ireland/ Northern Ireland and "The troubles"

    When we finally got back to Dublin we enjoyed some Chinese for dinner before preparing for our flight tomorrow!

    Seeya in London

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    Prison break

    November 21, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    This morning we departed Ireland early, after some no show buses we managed to make it to the airport for a very quick flight to London.

    Once we arrived we had to catch yet another bus to the city centre as we flew into Stansted as it was cheaper. Once we arrived we walked around and explored some parts of the city before eating some 5 guys and heading to our bnb.

    We ventured back out again, checked out a mini Christmas market and enjoyed some mulled beverages before heading to the headline of today, the theatre! Where we enjoyed The book of Mormon.

    We both thoroughly enjoyed the show, we didn't know what we were expecting but it definitely exceeded expectations.

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    Nothin' like a nice cuppa tea

    November 22, 2023 in England ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    This morning we woke up feeling spoilt since we were able to sleep through the night without using earplugs and praying! We got up in our own time and made ourselves a hot drink and had some biscuits, a good start to English cuisine!

    We then started wandering towards our main activity for the day. While doing so we stumbled across many famous London landmarks, first was Picadilly square and the national gallery. Then we found ourselves walking down The Mall, past the Royal Society and out the front of some place called Buckingham Palace. Not sure what goes on there, but they have a bunch of people with pipe cleaner hats.

    After a while we made our way to the Victoria coach station to board a high tea bus! This classic London double decker was to tour us around the city while we sat and enjoyed a high tea. It was excellent. We saw many more places, too many to mention. We were also lucky enough to be up on the top floor. And with only the two of us for a booth for four!

    Eventually the bus trip came to an end, we rose to the challenge and polished off all of the sweets and sandwiches with a few cups of tea to help. We waddled out of the bus and towards our next destination, Winter Wonderland a Christmas market in Hyde Park.

    This market was the biggest we've seen by far (not that there have been many other ones to compare to...) It had dozens of food stalls, as well as rides and random junk for people to buy.

    We slid down an icy hill in an inflatable tyre and then went in a refrigerated tent that contained heaps of carved ice sculptures in the style of Norse mythology, they were amazing!

    Later on we went into an ice bar that was -10°C, fortunately that was also in a refrigerated tent and the outside temperature was much warmer than that.

    Bec also managed to find herself a food item which she had been praying to find while in the UK: A slice of roast beef with gravy and veggies wrapped in a flat Yorkshire pudding... It was delicious and just goes to show how far science has come.

    After we had exhausted ourselves (and our wallets) we wandered back to our apartment for the night.

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    Horsing around

    November 23, 2023 in England ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    This morning we were blessed with having to wait around the apartment while a plumber fixed the owner's sink and washing machine.

    Eventually we were able to leave and start the day by checking out the National Gallery, which as a nice surprise was free to enter. We didn't spend too much time there but we were able to see many famous paintings (such as Van Gogh, Monet, and Rembrandt.) Most importantly though, we were able to see the painting of Venus which contains the legendary Monty Python foot!

    After our cultural journey, we walked towards Big Ben, stopping to greet the horses at the Horse Guard Parade, and walking past Downing Street to see the politicians doing nothing, like usual.

    The two of us agree that Big Ben looks a lot better in person, the clock tower is massive and its Gothic style looks amazing. The tower along with all of Westminster is extremely impressive!

    After taking in the sights we headed to Churchill's War Rooms, an underground bunker where he and many other people spent most of their time coordinating the war efforts. We spent quite a while there as we were given an audio tour and there were many things to look at, including many rooms left in their exact state as they were the day after the war ended.

    Once we resurfaced from the bunker, we then visited some book stores and headed in the direction of home to do some planning for later in the week.

    The two of us eventually emerged looking for some dinner, where we got a pomme staple: Mash, gravy, and sausages/ a pie. It was great, served with mustard that clears out your sinuses! After that we walked around the city a bit more until we returned for the night.

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    I also eat beef

    November 24, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌙 3 °C

    Today we took a walk down some more streets named after monopoly locations before ending up at the Tower of London.

    We began the visit with a tour from a Yeoman aka a 'beefeater' he was a entertaining fellow who gave us a thorough understanding on the history of different areas of the castle and it's ground and without sparing any of the bloody details. We perused the crown jewels, the weapons and armour museum in the white tower and stopped for a chat to one of the tower ravens.

    After spending a few hours back in time we headed across Tower Bridge before checking out Borough Market - which was insanely busy so we decided to skip the market food and made our way to the Twinnings store.

    We sampled some teas then headed to our accommodation before for a very very late lunch.

    We found an app similar to uber eats where businesses list mystery bags of food that haven't sold throughout the day for a very reduced price. So we decided to try this for dinner, we got a mystery bag and it didn't contain food poisoning! It had a baguette sandwich and two pastries.

    Phill was in the mood for more history so we made our way to the cinema where we watched Napoleon. The movie was good, though they didn't leave much room for a sequel. After a short and cold walk back to our apartment, we washed some clothes in the sink and did some more planning.

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    A walk through history

    November 25, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 2 °C

    Today we headed to The British Museum to see all the artefacts that the British stole. Objects that we should have been able to see in our previous countries - Greece in particular.

    It felt like the museum was originally a casino, there were no windows or clocks and that's how we happened to have spent 4.5 hours inside. Definitely nothing to do with Phill's reading speed...

    We saw all the things we wanted, including the Rosetta stone, the missing statue from the Erechtheion, with a special mention of Egyptian mummies.

    After the museum we were both brain dead and starving, so we headed homebound with a detour at Tesco to buy lunch/dinner which we enjoyed before heading out for a late night shop and planning our next week.

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    Talk tomorrow

    November 26, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 9 °C

    Today started as the most quiet day that we've had in quite a while. We went out to get breakfast using the amazing app that lets us buy food about to be tossed by cafes. After that we spent the rest of the morning cleaning the flat in preparation for leaving tomorrow.

    Once the cleaning was complete, we went for a walk to go see King's Cross station and to get our daily exercise.

    Once we got back home we rested for a while before going to pick up none other than Andrew from the train station! Then it was time for our favourite: Sunday Roast.

    After the roast we hit up lots of bars and spent the rest of the night emptying our wallets, this was posted before we got home - so hopefully we are as enthusiastic tomorrow as we are right now 😅

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    New wheels

    November 27, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

    After surviving the shenanigans of last night, we checked out of our accommodation and got ourselves a nice and hardy English breakfast.

    We then said goodbye to Andy and walked off some of our breakfast before killing some time at a cool underground cafe.

    In the arvo we caught a train to the outer suburbs and picked up our next 3rd member of the team: Bartholomew II. He is larger than we wanted, as we got a free upgrade as the car we booked wasn't available. Face reveal tomorrow!

    Our next destination was the city of Cambridge. We're very glad we left from an outer London suburb as it was an ordeal to get on the motorway and heading in the right direction. Eventually we were and the rest of the drive went well.

    We arrived and checked in at our accommodation as it was becoming dark (at 3:45pm...) After getting comfortable we went for a long walk and got ourselves some dinner and spent the rest of the night watching random UK television.

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    Feeling educated

    November 28, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌙 1 °C

    This morning we got up relatively early to go and explore Cambridge, we were first distracted by a breakfast buffet which was adequate.

    After eating too much food we went for a walk to a nearby industrial area and stumbled across a HQ of a company that Phill has been playing their games for years.

    We then drove into the heart of Cambridge to explore the town centre... Only to drive out of the heart of Cambridge to find a parking lot. Eventually we found one and walked back into the centre.

    The city itself is beautiful, with many buildings with lovely facades. The most impressive being the ones of the world renown Cambridge University. A very pleasant town indeed! After exploring the town we headed back to Bartholomew II (we may have forgotten to take a photo... So the face reveal has been postponed until tomorrow.)

    Our next destination was unplanned but welcome, we finally got to go back to the burger chain that has been etched in our mind for years: Wendy's! It was great, probably good that we don't have them in Aus.

    Once we filled up on an early dinner, we got back on the road and went to our next town as well as University for the day! The University of Nottingham, which is where our accommodation is for the next two nights. We got in as it was dark but once we checked in we went for a long walk around their huge campus. While the walk was chilly (3°C), it was a very still night so it was very pleasant to walk in.

    We end the night washing clothes again as we have access to a free machine!

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    Merry men

    November 29, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ -1 °C

    Today we finally encountered our first sub 0 temperatures. It got down to -3° last night and by 10am when we started on our hour long walk into Nottingham it was a toastie -1°.

    Our gear held up quite well and we had no issues with the cold at all, although it's not even winter yet so we'll see how we go!

    We enjoyed crunching on the icy leaves and grass and made our way to Nottingham castle and a Robin hood statue. After our chilly morning walk we decided to stop in at a cafe - and oh boy did we stumble across a good one. A cat cafe!!

    We enjoyed a hot beverage and just before we were about to get up and leave a cat named Popcorn jumped up on Bec's lap and fell asleep, so naturally we stayed another 30 minutes before we left to go explore under the city.

    Nottingham has the UK's largest network of caves - over 800 are hidden beneath its streets. So we soaked up the extraordinary atmosphere of the ancient caves carved deep beneath Nottingham’s in the attraction 'City of caves' which had a WW2 air raid shelters and a medieval tannery. 

    From here we fuelled up with a baked spud which was delicious before checking out ANOTHER Christmas market, this one was a respectable size and when we had enough of smelling the delicious food stalls we headed on the hour trek back to our uni accommodation. But midway back we came across The Haunted Museum, so we obviously popped out heads in.

    After checking out some very spooky items and potentially getting haunted we finally made our way back to enjoy some warm soup for dinner while planning some next steps

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    War of the roses

    November 30, 2023 in England ⋅ ☀️ 3 °C

    We said goodbye to the University of Nottingham this morning and scrapped off the ice on Bartholomew || and headed towards York.

    Along we way we encountered our very first snow! There was patches of it dusted around some of the towns we passed by, on the roofs of houses and in gutters where the sun hadn't hit yet. There was even a 5 minute period of the drive where it was falling and hitting the windshield, that was very exciting!

    York was a very pretty 'little' city with some very fun streets and markets. My favourite being Shambles, a 14th-century timber-framed structures overhung this landmark road, once home to many butcher shops, but now houses quirky food and nick-nack shops.

    After freezing out fingers off eating some (delicious) loaded fries we explored a bit more before heading into a hot chocolate store to warm up the soul and help Bec get feeling back into 2 of her fingers.

    Heading back to the car we detoured to see a castle and snack on a chip butty.

    We made our way to our accommodation where we relaxed and went to watch The Nun 2, when we realised we hadn't watched the first Nun movie.

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    Blue Stig

    December 1, 2023 in England ⋅ ⛅ -3 °C

    This morning started off early as we were off to a race track! The alarm went off before the sun started to rise (which isn't saying much since it rises at about 8am currently.) We got our stuff ready and hopped in the frosty car and warmed it up.

    It was a short drive to the track, which is fortunate because it wasn't too obvious where it was. Eventually we got there though and signed in, ready to do some laps!

    Trouble was that it was -3°C and the track was frozen with patches of black ice... Eventually they started driving the cars around the track in an effort to warm the track up a bit. It must have worked well enough because after an hour and half they finally started putting civilians on the track.

    After a bit more waiting Phill found himself sitting in the driver's seat of an Aston Martin V8 Vantage. While it took a minute to get used to its gearbox, eventually he was on the track and putting the petal to the metal (as much as he could when it was still sub zero and icy.) The track was good, about a mile long with some interesting turns! As quickly as it started, it was all over and back to waiting for the next car! (I only stalled it a couple times -- oops)

    Next up was the one he was most excited for: the Lamborghini Gallardo! A 560 HP 5.2-liter V10 BEAST. I've never felt anything quite like putting the pedal down on that car. Three laps went by in the blink of an eye. The saddest part was getting stuck behind a slower driver... Putting the foot down in those straights though... Wow.

    The third and final car that I took out for a test drive was the Caterham 7, a super lightweight sports car typically sold as a kit. While only a drop in the bucket in terms of power compared to the other two cars, the half-ton Caterham was great to drive. Since you were so close to the road the apparent speed you felt was still really quick! It was missing creature comforts like power steering... Or a proper seat... But who needs those anyway! The laps were great, it was probably the most fun of the three cars to drive just because of how raw the car felt, and the feedback it gave as you drove.

    Last up for the day was a hot lap in a BMW for the both of us with a racing driver. I didn't realise i could get away with corners like that in those conditions! The guy was able to rip through the track while casually discussing his driving methods as well as all of the places he's raced in (his personal favourite being Bathurst!)

    As we were walking back to the car the sun finally came out and started defrosting the track.

    All in all it was a fantastic time out, thank you very much to Dad, Michelle, Tom, Steph, Jenny, Nan, and Pop for the birthday present!!

    There was no way to top that, so after we defrosted in the car we went to a local town and walked around to get our step count back up, before heading back to the hotel and watching another movie.

    The night ended with us getting dinner via the app we used to get cheap food about to be thrown out... This time was a huge haul!

    Step count: 11.3k

    PS. The greggs haul was actually only 5aud, not 10! Insane

    PPS. We got a professional photographer pack for the cars, still waiting for them to come in the email    Read more

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    Snow angels

    December 2, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ -1 °C

    We left our highway side accommodation this morning and made our way to Knaresborough, a very cute historical town not far from where we were staying.

    After wandering around the picturesque streets, attending the local Christmas market and exploring another castle we made our way to the main attraction: Mother Shipton's Cave. This cave is apparently England's oldest visitor attraction, open since 1630. We learnt of the story of prophetess Mother Shipton and the magical Petrifying Well, a unique geological phenomenon with cascading water turning objects to stone. Seeing the things stringed up on the well petrified but also frozen due to the temperature was amazing.

    We then drove north to our next stop - Newcastle, this drive was one of the most fun so far because it was snowing!! The scenery as we drove was just shrouded in mist and whiteness, it was beautiful.

    Once we got to our accommodation we checked in, and did what any other adult would do - run into the yard and play in the snow.

    Once our fingers had gone past the point of freezing we walked to the nearest servo for a meal deal dinner, came back and relaxed.

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    Alnwick Beef Wellington

    December 3, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ -1 °C

    After our buffet breakfast we scrapped off the snow from Bartholomew || and headed to The Alnwick Garden. The gardens had an expansive network of formal gardens with a cascading central fountain - all if which was covered in snow. But the main reason for the visit was the Poison Garden!

    Though small, UK's deadliest Garden is filled exclusively with around 100 toxic, intoxicating, and narcotic plants. The boundaries of the Poison Garden are kept behind black iron gates, only open on guided tours where we learnt about different plants and the effects they have on humans.

    We then frolicked in the snow and made a snowman named Ralph.

    As we left we decided to detour and check out Edlingham Castle, 14th-century riverside ruins of a fortified manor house. This was STUNNING we had the ruins to ourselves, and they were covered in snow. After climbing places that told us not to and a few more snowball fights we headed to Greggs to pick up another mystery bag!

    The bag was again full of goodies and more than enough for dinner. A bargain for the £3.5 we paid for it!

    The night ended with us getting our steps up by walking around the hotel for a while, and then watching Gordon Ramsay yell at poor restaurant owners.

    We are sad as the weather forecast is for rain for the next week, as opposed to snow. So today will likely be the end of our winter wonderland for at least a little while.

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    New old castle

    December 4, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 6 °C

    This morning started in the most devastating way possible, we opened the curtains to see all of our beautiful snow gone and replaced by rain. We consoled ourselves with a hot drink in bed, and then braved the rain to get to the car so that we could head into the centre of Newcastle.

    While there we sent some more of our less used clothes back to Aus to regain some space in our backpacks.

    A short walk away was the aptly named Newcastle castle. An old castle from 1177 which was built by Henry II. Originally there was an older motte and bailey style castle. But it was demolished to build the new castle!

    Unfortunately we didn't have the time to explore the inside of the castle, so we had to make do with walking around the outside of it. It was impressively tall, and had a cool fortified gatehouse nearby called the Black Gate. Good stuff!

    We were then in need of a coffee, so we did the unthinkable and stopped at Gregg's and paid full price for some coffees! Fortunately they were nice and didn't let us down. We'll continue shopping there in the future.

    After this we fought pass all the people to get back to the car and made our way to our dinner date with Ros, Mark and of course Bailey! We had a great time, it was lovely to be able to sit and chat and even better because there was a delicious dinner involved!!

    Eventually the night wrapped up and we braved the elements one last time to get back to the hotel, where we ended the night getting a few more steps in before going to bed.

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    Fish 'n castles

    December 5, 2023 in England ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    Today we left early and set off to Bamburgh Castle. This 11th century castle was a former Royal Palace, Norman stronghold, crown residence, and has now been recreated by the engineer William Armstrong (who helped design and build Spitfires).

    The castle spans across 9 acres of land and was absolutely stunning, we took our time exploring the staterooms, armoury, dungeon as well as the aviation museum on the grounds.

    After too much time at the castle we decided to drive to the next town over, Seahouses. Where we enjoyed our first UK fish and chips by the beach. Between us we had Haddock and chips, battered spam, a pickled egg, and a chip butty.

    Once we got back to the accommodation we spent the night booking our next few stays, and we realised we only have under a week of accommodation not booked! Which means our trip is so close to coming to an end 😭

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    Roman around the countryside

    December 6, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 2 °C

    This morning we said goodbye to our Newcastle accommodation and headed east towards the great northern wall, none other than Hadrian's Wall! We picked around the middle of the wall as there was a Roman fort and museum there, but once we got there we found out that it was closed... It was very sad to see.

    Fortunately for us, today was the first day of blue skies and sun in England that we've had in a while, so we decided to walk part of the wall. It was a toasty 4°C and the sun was shining brightly and there wasn't a breeze. We walked past Roman ruins, sheep, frozen mud and puddles for about 45 minutes until we decided to turn around and start heading back. It was very peaceful, and a lovely way of getting our daily steps in. Thanks Emperor Hadrian for such a lovely wall, I'm sure that it was effective at keeping the Picts out!

    After making our way back to the car, we drove to a nearby town to grab a coffee and a scone, then bought some supplies for the evening and got back on our way to head to our accommodation.

    The road had us go between the Lake District and North Pennines nature preserve, which was a beautiful drive. The hills and mountains loomed in the distance, and the tops were all still covered in snow. We're hoping we get a chance to come back up and explore some of the area before we head too far south!

    Eventually we made it to the town near our accommodation and stopped briefly at the Lidl to grab some more groceries before heading to our dingy little hut.

    Did I say say dingy little hut? I meant to say castle!!! (Or at least, part of one.) It was pitch black when we pulled in so we have no clue what our accommodation looks like. I'm sure we'll have photos to share tomorrow.

    Once we got in and situated, we put together one of the few appropriate meals when you're in a castle: a charcuterie board! (And if you're looking at the photo, NO we didn't eat it all, there's plenty for tomorrow... And potentially the next day.)

    We spent the rest of the evening doing some more planning for our trip before heading to our much upgraded bed!

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    Royal respite

    December 7, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    I believe today marked the start of some very boring updates, dear readers!

    We awoke in our castle, enjoyed some tea and some freshly baked bread which was dropped off by our lovely bnb host, drank some more tea before heading out for a walk to see our castle grounds and the adjourning small town of Hornby.

    Our accommodation is buildings attached to the main keep of the castle - so we aren't staying in a castle per se, but it's close enough.

    After doing 2 laps of the 'quaint' (tiny) town we decided we needed to find a walking path if we even wanted to consider hitting our 10k step goal, so we found a public path that took us through some private farms before turning around and getting absolutely drenched in the rain.

    We made our way back after hitting the step goal and enjoyed watching Shaun of the Dean before finishing off the charcuterie leftovers from yesterday.

    Step count: 11.6k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    3

    Just the one swan actually...

    December 8, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

    Today was our day to explore part of the UK's lake district. We had a coffee and left for the hour drive into the hills.

    First up was the nice little town of Ambleside. This town contains a 17th century house built on a bridge over a river to avoid the town's land tax. Very cheeky!

    After walking around the town for a little while, we continued up the road to the lakeside town of Keswick, where we took a walk to Friars Crag, a view that overlooks the lake. It was lovely and peaceful, and considering the rainy weather, we had great visibility of the lake.

    After another coffee the next stop was Aira Force Waterfall, an impressively big waterfall. While it was a lovely area with a great view, it was also annoyingly busy considering the time of year and the weather, so we didn't spend too long there.

    Finally, on the way back to our accommodation, we took a lovely road that was on the edge of the lake Ullswater. At some points the lake was only a few metres from the road. It was very impressive! (And lucky that the road hasn't flooded...)

    Once we were home we relaxed a while before making up the third and final charcuterie leftovers for dinner while watching the legendary movie: Hot Fuzz!

    Step count: 10.1k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    11

    A broken streak

    December 9, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

    This morning started off slow, listening to the rain pouring while we had our morning drinks. Eventually we decided to go and check out a nearby town and its large antiques (/junk) collection, we were in there for quite a while, the store had many interesting things, some of it even for good prices! With backpack space in mind we decided not to get anything.

    With the weather having a temporary pause in showers, we saw that the town of Ingleton also had a waterfall trail, so we drove over there in the hope of seeing it. To our disappointment we realised that it was going to cost £10 each for the privilege of hiking the 3 miles round trip. (Which we definitely weren't prepared for anyway)

    Instead we walked around the town centre for a little while before deciding that we would head back to the castle (you know, our current accommodation!) and walk to the local pub for a late lunch/early dinner.

    We got back to the rain and wind back in full force, and waited a bit to see if it would let up... Which it didn't. So we donned our wet weather gear and walked to the local pub. Which was a 400 metre walk from the castle.

    After eating a nice meal, having a pint, and listening to the locals talk about... Well we're not quite sure... We again braved the weather to head back to the accommodation (no afternoon walk for us without getting blown away or drowned)

    We spent the rest of the afternoon resting since there wasn't much else we could do. At one point the roof sprang a leak which we had to deal with using pots and pans. Other than that it was a mostly uneventful evening!

    Step count: 7.7k
    The first day that we haven't hit at least 10,000 steps. It was bound to happen with the weather getting worse. 96 days in a row. Not a bad innings!    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    1

    A day of travel

    December 10, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌬 9 °C

    We said fair well to our castle accommodation this morning and set out towards Manchester, where we had a bit of a walk around and lunch before heading the rest of the way to Birmingham.

    We made a little detour to Walsall and stopped to see the house Bec's mum lived in when she was a child!

    We got to Birmingham and parked in a questionable car park before checking in to our high tech hotel, no key cards here! Just use your phone to call the elevator, unlock the door and control the lights.

    We headed out for a quick walk, grabbed a meal deal (sandwich, chips and soda) for dinner and headed back to watch a Christmas movie.

    All in all it was a pretty quiet day because there was quite a bit of travel involved, but at least we managed to hit our step goal again!

    Step count: 10.6k    Read more

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