In our travels, either together or individually, we have been to the UK many times. We are blessed with having friends, old & new, in many different parts of the country. So, we always enjoy coming back for just one more visit – though I’m not sure how many times we’ve said that!

On this trip, we have managed to catch up with a few mad walkers, ie ex-Vierdaagse participants, travellers – not gypsies, but people who love to travel, family and still had time to do some more exploring. We have managed to travel around the UK, from Hemel Hempstead to Wiltshire to Blackpool & Glasgow, before crossing the country to travel through Yorkshire & Norfolk and finish up in London.

We departed Vancouver on Tuesday and arrived at Heathrow on Wednesday, having lost a few hours somewhere along the way. We landed in Terminal 5 and then walked, and walked, and walked… to Terminal 2 maybe (?) to get our luggage, then it was onto the Courtesy Bus to pick up our car.  Yee-haa, we got an upgrade… to a Dacia Sandero! What were we going to get before the upgrade? Our car has 3 cylinders and 1000cc’s of “raw” power! But the luggage fits, it gets us where we want to go and is extremely economical at 51 miles per gallon!

Our first stop for this trip was Hemel Hempstead and catching up with our friends, the Van Geenes. Nick first met Robin in 1998, which was when he “walked” his first Vierdaagse in Nijmegen. Rob, like Nick has Dutch heritage, is ex-Military, has a wife who enjoys cross-stitch and they both love to travel. Over the years, we have hosted them in Australia and they have hosted us in the UK and they still like us!! 

We went down into Hemel Hempstead, to the Old Town, to rediscover the delights of an old town that had its first Charter from Henry VIII and has managed to keep some of its original Tudor features, like the half-timbered buildings. We have brought some Aussie sunshine, for which the Poms were very grateful. We were also taken for a drive through some of the local roads, with high hedges on both sides which limits visibility – And the Poms drive at full speed along these lanes!

As mentioned previously, MJ is into Geocaching and she wanted to find a few caches, so Rob & Linda took us up to Ashridge Estate, so we could go hunting. They were intrigued by Geocaching, but soon got into the spirit of things. Who knows, we may have introduced some people to Geocaching!

From Hemel, we meandered towards Wiltshire. We made a stop for coffee at Pangbourne. Why? I hear you asking… in 2014, we bought our 2nd-hand Motorhome (“Oscar”) from a small family run business in the countryside. Despite everything, we stayed good friends with them, visiting and staying when in the area, so we were happy to see that, not only were they still in business after COVID, but they were going from strength to strength.Instead of Dad and 2 sons, they now have a much larger staff for sales, maintenance and cleaning of caravans & Motorhomes. It was also lovely to see Dexter, who we met 10 years ago as a young puppy.

From Pangbourne, it was off to Calne in Wiltshire, to catch up with a friend from HUBB-UK. When we went to HUBB-UK in 2014, we met a number of names that Nick was very familiar with in the Adventure Motorbike Travel World, from his pre-trip research. One particular Blog that he had read was by “The Wrinklies”, so we were happy to finally meet Colin & Dee Masters, and we saw them again in 2019, when we returned for another HUBB-UK. Sadly, since then, Colin is no longer with us but we had a wonderful couple of days with Dee. And she had the fun of introducing us to a new part of Wiltshire.  We had a lovely morning exploring around the Caen Hill Locks, which is a series of locks on the Kennet & Avon Canal. At this location, there are 16 locks which form the steepest part at Caen Hill, but they are part of a long section of 29 locks with a rise of 237 ft (72.24m) over 2 miles (3.2km) with a 1-in-44 gradient. This all sounds good but when you consider that it was built in 1810, then it becomes even more amazing!

As we had been driving towards Calne a couple of days after Mid-Summer, we saw lots of evidence of the celebrations and plenty of visitors were still in the area. After visiting Caen Hill, we drove through Avebury, with a plan to visit the smaller Standing Stones but there were still too many Druid-ish tourists and no parking. So instead, we just enjoyed a drive through the countryside.

From Calne, it was time to head north, to visit some more friends and a new location – Blackpool! We met Stephen & Janet in 2016 when we were in Croatia and have stayed in touch with them. As we hadn’t been to Blackpool or that area before, we were keen to explore. Stephen & Janet live only a block back from the sea, north of Blackpool and we really enjoyed walking along the coast. There had been a lot of very good restoration work along the coast and it is easy walking. We had a day in Blackpool, with a visit to the Ballroom – I still couldn’t get Nick to dance! We also visited the Lancaster Canal, near Garstang and did some gentle walking and lunch at a local pub, “Th’Owd Tithe Barn” – it’s a new building, dating from 1710, & it was a post-medieval tithe barn for storing grain and corn.

On the way home, we did a quick detour to Morecombe, to see a memorial to Eric Morecombe which was put in place in 1999. Eric Morecombe was born in Morecombe and took the name of his birth town as his stage name. When you look at the statue, you will automatically start humming (or singing) “Give me sunshine…”!

We have allowed ourselves a couple of days to jump over the border and finally, we will visit Glasgow.  When looking for accommodation, with parking for a car, it was really expensive! So we started looking a bit further afield. We ended up with accommodation booked south of Loch Lomond, in an old house that sat in the middle of countryside and farming land. After driving from Glasgow, on a small & narrow B-road, Nick didn’t like the idea of driving back into Glasgow, so we went to Balloch and caught the train into Glasgow.  As we were planning on visiting the Riverside Museum, we were able to get off the train at Partick and walk down to the museum (Free Entry). We would describe this museum as a Transport and Lifestyle Museum – there were lots of different displays of different types of transport – trains, motorbikes, bicycles, cars, trams & buses, as well as having from streetscapes from 19th Century and the 60’s. It was interesting to look at the difference in clothes and toys.

We discovered that the 100 Bus was free, so we did the scenic route, passing the Armidillo, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and ends at Queen St, Glasgow. One thing that we are noticing on this trip is that there are not as many Information Centres, which makes it difficult when traveling with someone who likes to hold a map in his hand. But we found somewhere, obtained a copy of said map before walking to the Glasgow Police Museum – very interesting and great welcome from the volunteers who were generally ex-Police. Then it was off to my first church of the trip! Yet, that’s right, we were off to Glasgow Cathedral, which is sometimes called St Mungo’s. It is the oldest Cathedral in mainland Scotland and it is also the oldest building in Glasgow. Who is St Mungo? He was also called St Kentigern and was a Celtic saint, dating from 6th Century.

The last time we were in Scotland, we wanted to visit Roslin Chapel – courtesy of “The Da Vinci Code”, but we had totally forgotten about Sundays… the Chapel was closed for a Service! So, this time we double-checked everything, pre-booked our tickets and on Friday, we detoured from our way to Whitby, and FINALLY, we got to visit Roslin Chapel. But wait… is that 2 churches in 2 days??? Nick is going into shock!

Next stop Whitby, but… we had to go down the A68, so we could get photos (and a cache) of the stones on the border. This area is called Carter’s Bar and offers an lovely outlook over both Scotland and England, depending on which direction we faced. But as we were driving there, we stopped for fuel and wanted to buy some lunch at Jedburgh, which just happened to have a museum for Mary, Queen of Scots! By the way, have I mentioned that museums in Scotland are free?! But, finally we are on our way to Whitby!

Nick first met Dave Wharton in 1988 when he brought his replica Coble “Gratitude” to Australia for the Bi-Centennial. A Coble is a type of boat that is very specific to Whitby and it is said that Captain James Cook learnt some basic sailing skills on a Coble when he was in the Whitby area. On The Saturday, there was a Coble Festival at Bridlington, which is south of Whitby, and the bonus was that Dave’s Coble “Gratitude” would be at the Festival. MJ had never seen Dave’s Coble and it would give Nick the chance to step aboard again for the first time in 36 years. Nick was able to say that he was the only Australian who has sailed a Coble from Botany Bay into Sydney Harbour.

All this tripping around is tiring, so we had planned a 3-night stop in Norfolk, to rest and do some more exploring around Norwich. It turns out that Nick’s brother, Eric, was also in Norfolk so he came  around for a visit and we had dinner at the local pub. The problem was that the England vs Denmark Quarter Final (2024 Euro Cup) game was on the TV in the pub. We were enjoying our meal when there was an almighty roar from the Bar – England managed to score a goal in the last couple of minutes of the game, equaling the score and forcing extra time. Gosh those Poms were noisy watching the game!

Into Norwich for the day, we were planning on visiting the Castle, the Museum and the Cathedral – the Castle was closed for renovations, the Museum was closed because of “Museum Monday”, but we did get to the Cathedral in time for a free tour, though both Nick’s & Eric’s eyes were starting to glaze over a bit! And we got to enjoy the convenience of using the Park & Ride in Norwich.

For our last day of relaxing in Norfolk, we found mention of a Tour of the Broads, so a quick search on the internet and we had tickets booked and we were off for a scenic boat tour around the Broads. We saw lots of birds – swans, ducks, grebes, herons & geese (Greyleg, not Canadian). We also learned that the Broads came about because, when the Vikings turned up in 9th Century, they took steps to teach the Saxons (or was it the Angles) the importance of trees and taught them how to dig peat, dry it and use it for fires, instead of cutting down trees which were seen as a vital resource for the Vikings.

A movie that Nick and I have seen is “Yesterday” which was set amongst the Broads, so we decided to do a bit of driving to find the hotel that was used in the movie. It is “The Pier Hotel” at Gorleston-on-Sea”. We also drove around Great Yarmouth enjoying some of the old buildings and the fresh sea air.

Finally, it is time to head back to Hemel Hempstead for one last night and then onto to Heathrow to return our hire car. And now… London, here we come! Accommodation in London is ridiculously expensive and cramped, so we decided to use our YHA Life membership and stayed in the YHA Oxford Street. It was a time to catch up with our nephew, Peter who has been living in London for a while, also catch up with some other friends from HUBB-UK. Pretty sure that we had seen everything there was to see in London, but MJ wanted to go back to the British Museum & the Tower of London, and we also managed to book for the Tower Bridge Experience which saw us going to the top of Tower Bridge and walk across both of the arms before going down to the Engine Room to see the old engines that were used to raise & lower the bridge. Apparently, it is free for boats to go through the Bridge! Our last day in London was cold and miserable, with rain and intermittent winds. We had booked a round-trip on a boat down to Greenwich and we got off at Greenwich to have a walk around the streets and the Market, but it was even colder there than in London! We had previously been to Greenwich and the Observatory, so we decided to head back into London, walk around some more and see if we could  find a few more caches for MJ. 16000+ steps later…

Sunday morning, our finals adventure was a London Black Cab to St Pancras Station to catch the Eurostar to Brussels, before changing to a train to Luxembourg and then catching a local train to Wasserbillig.  Now we are near Trier, staying with friends and getting ready to pick our the Motorhome and then we can explore Europe.