Held from the 27th November to the 7th December in Bath the idea is to replicate the atmosphere and wintery appeal of the European Christmas markets. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to go to the proper European ones yet (something always conspires against us so we never get the time to go). If the European ones are anything like Bath was then I really won’t bother. It was a rather big let down. For all the atmosphere that Bath has during the day with the golden Bath stone buildings etc the markets at night really lacked any atmosphere.
You would expect a cosy feel, colourfully lit, wonderfully decorated stalls, lots of mulled wine, roasting chestnuts, carols or at least Christmassy music. Well there was some of that but mostly lots of stalls selling stuff you just don’t need.
Glad I’ve done it so I know that I needn’t bother in future.
Category: Travel
Magical Ambleside
We woke up this morning to a blanket of white snow covering everything. It was up quickly, washed, dressed and out the door for some “photoling” (Kerryn M will remember our discover of the word photoling while holidaying in Provence).
As I look outside now it is already starting to melt away but it was incredibly magical first thing this morning. Hopefully the roads will be OK by the time we head back to Bristol. Cheerio pip pip for now.
Kendal – The Lake District
The Lake District, home to Beatrix Potter. Kendal, the home of the Kendal Mint Cake used by Sir Edmund Hillary and the team as they climbed Everest. A deliciously evil sweet made of pure sugar and peppermint oil. Smells great, tastes amazing and is a great shot of energy that is lightweight to carry in your pack. Disappointingly the Kendal Mint Cake is still made here but they don’t do factory tours.
The real reason we came to Kendal however was the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. Four days of extreme mountaineering, aerial, climbing and cultural movies. After 1.5 days and 9 hours of film later we are all “movied” out. With a great selection of movies, lectures, workshops and general outdoor vibe it has been a good 2 days so far. We have found however that the age groups represented here are a lot older than we are used to at similar Australian festivals and the vibe isn’t as laid back and friendly.
We are staying in Ambleside which is about a 20 minute drive from Kendal as all accommodation had been taken in town. After watching some more movies this morning we did a walk around Kendal township, bought some mint cake, had some breakfast/lunch and then took off back to Ambleside.
This evening we have been very fortunate as the annual lantern parade was on. A whole parade of people with paper laterns lit with candles. Topped off by a fireworks display. It has been freezing all day and we are expecting a bit of a snow shower tonight. Hopefully it will be OK for tomorrows trip home.
Westonbirt Arboretum
This weekend I had my eye balls burned by too much colour! We took a drive to Westonbirt Arboretum which is basically a huge tree reserve that looks like a wild forest but was in fact all designed and planted to look wild and unruly. Again an example of everything here being groomed within an inch of its life.
We clearly had missed the most spectacular show of colour coming into Autumn but there were enough leaves still on the trees and ground to do some serious retina damage. The yellows, browns and oranges were just ridiculously fluro bright. Just fabulous, I can only imagine what they would have looked like a couple of weeks back. I’m quite partial to maple trees and they looked magnificent at Westonbirt.
In a couple of weekends time they are starting the evening walks where the trees will be lit up, carol singing, mulled hot cider and roasted chestnuts so we will bring you some more news and pictures on that in the coming weeks.
On the way home we did a bit of a detour to a Roman Villa that was advertised on the road side near Tetbury. We never did make it inside the villa (a cost of 7 pound each to see holes in the ground – ouch, no thanks) but we did see an incredible number of pheasants in the area. I’m talking at least 30 in one field alone. Pheasants always remind me of the Roald Dahl book – Danny the Champion of the World and the stuffed pheasant mum and grandad have back home. They have quite amazing colours and can run like heck (which we found out trying to get photos of the cheeky things).
Coastal Trail Series – Dorset half marathon
Steve has been doing a fair bit of running lately. Not just your average tarmac running but some serious trail running. They are maniacs over here for this stuff. Especially fell running (up, down, around, over through fells). Anyway for starters he completed the Dorset half marathon trail race this weekend and in my opinion did pretty darn well for his first ever one.
Set in spectacular locations on the coasts of UK you can complete either a 10km, half marathon or full marathon run through mud, sand, paddocks, streams etc. Not only does it punish your body but the mental agility is paramount. Unlike tread mill or tarmac running you can tune out as you plod the miles. If you tune out here you could well end up falling off a cliff, turning an ankle or landing smack in the mud or worse, cow pooh! The idea of doing this type of running is rather exciting but to be honest, I’m too lazy! I’ll stick to swimming.
This months run was based out of the Square and Compass pub in Worth Matravers. Stunning location, fab local pub complete with South West ciders and warming fire place. I have discovered I need to take a navigation course as I thought I would walk to a spectator point to watch for Steve on the run. After about 1.5 hours of walking and no luck, I returned to the pub to find the runners coming back in. I had gone miles out the wrong way, not even heading towards the coast where they were running. How embarrassing. I did however get one cracking great walk in! Oops.
Anyway, by the time the runners got back they were covered in mud but incredibly still functioning like normal human beings (if you consider putting your body through this as normal to begin with). I must admit a few of the runners looked a rather nasty pasty grey colour which was a bit worrying but the ambulance didn’t seem to get any action so that was good.
Steve was stoked and did very well and is keen to do another. There are 7 races in this coastal series. One every month up to May 2009. If anything it is a great opportunity to see some incredible countryside locations in the UK. Watch this space for more in future I suppose.
Dartmoor
I have always imagined moorlands to be dark, ominious, slushy peat marsh like areas. This was not what we found when we went to Dartmoor National Park. Yet again we find another English space that appears to have been groomed within an inch of its life. There are Dartmoor ponies that roam free on the moorlands (which also serve as farmlands). Also roaming free are cows and sheep. Hence you need to be rather careful driving through this area as you are more than likely to round a bend to find a sheep sitting in the middle of the road.
Even though the fields and hills do remind me of a finely cared for golf course the landscape is wonderful and bizarre at the same time. The hills continue upwards, upwards and upwards in a gentle yet leg-achingly long stretch. The rock formations are spectacular and if you weren’t interested in geology, geography or topology then you will be after a visit here. I am in awe of the way the moorlands have been formed. The rocks are very similar in shape, colour and style to those used at Stonehenge. I keep meaning to do some research into this but…well there is no excuse actually.
Before heading into the moors we had stopped to get some supplies at a local bakery and butcher. So after a bit of a climb we found ourselves a nice position on a rock and did a wee fry up. The colours of the bracken and heather mixed with the green of the hills and slate grey rock looked great from our spot.
During the day we also found plastic lunchboxes hidden all around the area. It turns out that these are “mailboxes” which is a bit of a sport here in this area. Basically you can go on hunts for these mailboxes and they have a notebook, stamp pad and stamps inside of them. You leave a message in the notebook for the owner and then you stamp your book to show you have been there. I think there are actual official mailbox clues that you can download off the internet then go walking through the hills in search of them.
Back from Wales
We are back from our short break to Wales. Had a great time for my birthday. Nice and relaxing even if the weather was atrocious. Like I have said before, if you hang around waiting for the weather to get better over here, you would never travel anywhere.
Here’s a few pics from our time on the Isle of Anglesey, South Stack National Park.
An entry from Holyhead – Wales
Today we have gone from the peaceful, tranquility of countryside Bewtys Garmon, to the mountains of Snowdon where we encountered torrential rain, followed by hail, followed by sun. Next we headed for Holyhead on the Isle of Anglesey where we are currently sitting in one of the 2 internet cafes that we have found today. This is the only one of those 2 that were open! The rain has stopped, the ship is in loading on its passengers bound for “who knows where” and we did a quick trip out to South Stack to look out across the Irish Sea. How dark and ominious it looked today.
Wales – Pen y Fan
A couple of weekends ago we decided to take a drive into Wales and head for Pen y Fan. Situated in the Brecon Beacons it is the highest peak in South Wales. At 886 metres it is not quite the most challenging peak in kiwi terms but nice for a day out.
We found a rather quiet spot to park the car and proceeded across the fields following the way markers. With some sheep and ponies along the way, the sun shining and very few other people around it was a great start to the walk.
The thing with land in the UK is that every bit of it is owned (not unusual) but groomed within an inch of its life. What do I mean by this? Well, having come into a national park I would expect it to be unfarmed. However, that is never the case in this country. Farming was the original use of the land and even though it has national park status, continues to be used as farmland. Not that this is wrong in any way, just that we are not used to it. Imagine the Tongariro National Park being used for cattle. It would soon be destroyed. That probably also ties in with the barren nature of Pen y Fan. Although there are a few trees spotted around they are far and few between. The grass is so short it looks like a golf green.
Given all this it is a spectacular place, the views magnificent and the continual, unrelenting uphill slog refreshing yet tiring. I was very surprised that as undulating as the land looks we never seemed to get a downhill slope, we were forever walking uphill.
An hour and a half later we made it to the top. It was at this stage that we realised that while we were slogging it out over dirt paths and sheep poo, there was actually many paths leading from all angles of the mountain to the peak. All of these other paths were paved! I am kinda proud that we took the back country route, you know, stand out from the crowd, strike our own route, blah blah blah.
When we got to the top we realised that the next peak along was actually Pen y Fan (pronounced Pen e Van) so we hot footed it for another 15 minutes to get to the highest peak. Success! To be honest we thought Pen y Fan was one of the top 10 highest peaks in the UK and we were rather chuffed at how easy it was. We have since found out that it is only the highest in South Wales which kinda takes the shine off of it. Oh well, it is a good starter for the other peaks we now want to complete.
Would I recommend it? If you are after views – on a fine day, yes. When the wind picks up in the afternoon it is bitterly cold so be prepared. Although you are hot and sweaty going up, a windbreaker at the very least is good for walking around at the time to keep the chill off and especially for the walk back down.
London Open Day – Container City
It has been a bit quiet on the blog front lately. Not through lack of things to do, but in fact that we haven’t really been home that much lately.
I have plenty of movies to catch you all up on but just seem to be enjoying the extra few days of sunshine that have been provided to us lately. I believe this now brings it up to a grand total of 15 (spectacular) sunny days for summer this year!
Those of you that know me well may be aware of my long held fascination to build with strawbale. Over the last couple of years my awareness of another interesting building practice has developed – shipping containers. What this results in is a continual learning process in trying to merge these two passions together.
When the London Open Day occurred and I heard that Trinity Buoy Wharf was on the list I had to be there to see container city which has been developed in this area. This has been high on my list of sites to visit should it be possible. It turns out that Trinity Buoy Wharf is open all the time as it is a home for artists studios and their businesses which are open for entry to their customers during normal business hours.
So after driving down to Kew, taking the train into the city, catching the Docklands Light Rail then walking about 2 miles we finally arrived at midday. It was a rather long trek but well worth it.
They have developed the container city in 3 stages which clearly shows the design changes they went through as they improved from experience.
The first stage was the stock standard shipping container, stacked one on one. The doors have been left rough and ready and just welded open to help create the balcony. This design is meant to show the raw concept with no attempt at hiding what they are.
The second stage was where the design firm decided to get a bit more funky, stacking at different angles, use of vibrant colours (a bit garish in my opinion for everyday living) and with this build there was greater structural requirements needed. It was stated during the day that this was a very difficult build with all the angles as it made putting the internal services in (i.e. water, electricity) very difficult. The person providing information on the site said that given the choice again, they wouldn’t repeat this design.
The third build they are up to looks fantastic however it hasn’t really left a lot of obvious traces to show the shipping containers. They have removed the container doors, put on verandahs that run around the front and interior of the buildings. It does look fabulous but I think it is starting to look too mainstream, too generic. We have plenty of these non-descript, bland buildings already available.
