Back to Aus

Oct 31 to Nov 2nd
All that remained was one of our few days "off" when we just sorted and repacked our cases and did more washing courtesy of our good friends Margaret and Tony who had put us up (put up with us for the last 3 days of our marathon trip.
The return trip was close to 48 hours with probably a total of 1 Hour of occasional naps.





Here we are in the Emirate's A380 on the 14 Hour Dubai to Sydney leg. I'm showing the strain already!












I did like the entertainment system with over 2,000 'channels' of content including this view from a TV camera on the tail fin. Pretty impressive on take off and landing.

"And as the sun sinks slowly in the west" we say goodbye, and see you next time.
Actually this could have been one of the several sunrises.

It's been fun doing the blog, but the software is truly horrible, we will use something else next time.

Beaulieu

Oct 29th - mostly fine and cool

We decided to go to Beaulieu the home of the National Motor museum and the Montague family.
The museum is simply phenomenal with cars and motorbikes which must be worth literally billions.

Loved this 4Ltr Bentley all set up for the Le Mans race.



And of course Malcolm Campbell's Bluebird with at least 4 other land speed record cars

Yes I lied again, YASH (Yet Another Stately Home). The Montegue's still live there but many of the rooms are open to visitors.

We also visited the remains of the Abbey in the grounds - that dates back to 1203








Finally we drove to Buckler's Hard where many of Nelson's ships were built - it's also on the estate and has changed little since 1750 or so.
And that should end (almost) the last Blog {:-))

Isle of Wight and Osbourne

28th Oct - Showers but not on us.
We are now in Hamble and decided to go to the Isle of Wight from Southampton via the car ferry which takes 200 cars and "anything that can get under a motorway bridge".
It takes about an hour each way and it is reasonably priced so it's possible to take the car for just day trip.








Once there we visited Osborne house 'holiday home' of Queen Victoria. Yes I know I promised no more stately homes. I guess I lied!



Having seen the movie 'The young Victoria" a lot of it was filmed there - it seemed quite familiar and very interesting. After lunch in the restaurant (Leek and potato soup and my all time favourite individual treacle tarts and clotted cream!) we tried to go to the park at the Needles but ran out of time.

Despite the fairly gloomy day there were plenty of boats sailing on Southampton water.

Arundel (Part 2) - Not

27th Oct - Rain then fine

We bid good friend Janet in Worthing a fond farewell (seen here with Daughter Caroline and Betty).








Got to Arundel again, only to find that they had experienced power problems and could not let people into the castle.We could have brought a ticket for the grounds and gardens, but it turned out that the ticket could not be upgraded to one covering the apartments if the power returned
They could be upgraded to cover the keep and great hall etc. but not the apartments which is what we had come to see. Bureaucracy rules.....







So instead we stopped at Fishbourne Roman Palace near Chichester. We rather liked this partial bust of one of the first roman rulers (supposedly of all England).

Some of the mosaic floors were really wonderful

Arundel (part 1)

25th Oct - great day - cool breeze

We are saying with good friend Janet in Worthing. Just down the coast from Brighton. It was a nice day so we decided to go to Arundel (only about 20-30 mins away), even though we knew that the castle would be closed.
Betty shot this picture from the car - of this part of the castle, there is much more......


So we visited the Roman Catholic cathedral instead. This was built and paid for by one of the Duke's of Norfolk (who own the castle) in the mid-19th century.














Then we walked to the Parish church almost next door. This was quite an interesting church built before 1042, with traces of medieval wall paintings still visible on some walls.

But the really interesting thing is that there is a glass screen 1/2 way down the nave as the 'far' end is the Roman Catholic chapel joined to the castle. So the church is actually an Anglican parish church and an RC chapel under one roof! It's a long story how this happened but it must be almost unique in the world and it's probably covered somewhere on the web.

We'll be going back to Arundel on Wed on our way through to Southampton, to check out our (possibly) last castle

Findon and Cissbury ring

24th Oct - perfect weather apart from a slight cool breeze

Travelling to stay with good friend Janet in Worthing we stopped in a delightful pub for a light lunch in the village of Findon on the North side of the South downs.

The resident hound was well known to everyone and was a really Happy soul.



We then drove up an incredibly narrow lane to the South Downs and the Cissbury Ring - an Iron age enormous fort (earthworks).













Great views of the surrounding countryside down to Worthing past Portsmouth as far as the Isle of Wight.


Car parking was minimal (putting it mildly) and Herz would not be at all impressed by some of the rutted chalk and Flint tracks









A great dog walking area. Here you can see the village of Findon and a tiny part of the outer ditch of the fort,

There was a person flying a radio controlled glider on the updraft. As well as loops and rolls the breeze was so consistent that it could be held stationary for as long as he wanted. The same flight was going for at least our 45 min walk.

Haywards Heath and Brighton

22nd & 23rd Oct - Still great weather but a distinct chill in the air

Our friends Richard and Debbie kindly trusted us with their house while they went on holiday to S.Wales. Definitely "above and beyond"!

Here is their son Leo (playing?) the keyboard before they left.







And Daughter Jessica posing with her new Dolls House...












We spent a lovely 1/2 day with Martin and Mary for a great lunch and conversation in their fabulous house in North Brighton.

Mary is my 2nd Cousin once removed and very keen on family history. And they are both Academics who have travelled extensively.

They have done a most impressive job on their garden despite frequent absences overseas.

Altogether a reasonably relaxing couple of days. If only you could remove 2/3 of the road traffic and teach the British not to tailgate (10 times worse than even Canberra drivers) it would have been even more relaxing