Nothing is forever: Two Aussie's travel the world
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Like with most things our time in England must come to an end; That end is the 11th of July; Tomorrow in fact. For those who have followed along through my posts I hope I have brought you something of value and some idea of how amazing this trip, our first to England, has been for us. We are currently in Oxford although head to Heathrow Airport tomorrow for a flight to Finland after a month in England. It's an odd feeling really; Sadness at leaving this amazing country behind and excitement at the prospect of seeing my brother @tarazkp and his wife and child, my niece. I thought that to round out the England leg of our vacation I'd simply post a few photos with a very brief description below. Yes, I know I am rarely brief but I'll try. Scroll on if you wish...
The quote at the start of this post is quite relevant I think, for a couple of reasons: "The end of the beginning" is certainly correct as this first trip to England will certainly not be our last, it 's just the beginning, and secondly it's a quote by one of Britain's most influential and celebrated people, Sir Winston Churchill.
My wife, Faith, taken in Boscastle, Cornwall. The contrast of greens and blues captured my heart early on in England. Everywhere we looked was a beautiful vista...My wife makes any photo beautiful in my eyes though :)
Just outside of Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, William Shakspeare's birthplace. The cottage in the background is where Anne Hathaway lived and was courted by Shakspeare. He married her when he was at the age of eighteen. He was six years his senior.
A little friend who thought it would be cool to sit on my shoulder for a while. This was taken in the butterfly house at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.
London, taken at Buckingham Palace. The soldiers guarding the Queens residence are actively serving soldiers, not just ceremonial. As you can imagine they take their duties very seriously. The pomp and ceremony surrounding everything they do is incredible.
Bovington Tank Museum, Dorset; The world's largest tank museum. This is a Tiger II army tank built by the German's in World War Two. This was the most feared tank in the entire war being a heavily armoured and armed beast of a thing. This tank was responsible for many victories. Bovington and Lulworth army camp's is where much of the army's armoured training takes place to this day.
We met this guy in the tank museum, a former tank commander, who was on a day out with his grandson. This guy spent years inside a Centurion tank on many deployments. We chatted for an hour or so and he explained the type of tank he commanded (which was on display) and then went our separate ways. Surprising who one meets.
This is the London Eye. Most people have probably seen it featured in various movies set in London. It's instantly recognisable as one of those intrinsically London-ish landmarks!
Chedworth Roman Villa, Gloucestershire. Britain has a close tie with the Roman's since their initial invasion and then occupation for some 400 years. Dotted all over Britain are the remnants of their life here. This shows a mosaic floor and the small pillars suspending it. Hot air was vented into the room in this way. The first heated flooring! There's a new archeological dig happening there this month to uncover more treasures.
Clovelly, Devon. This lovely little town clings to steep hillside and has this lovely little harbour at the bottom. The entire town permits no vehicles and is unique in that it's privately owned by one family and has been for a long long time.
Inside Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire. Faith's reflection is in a really clever cross-shaped water feature within the cathedral. Also note the white origami birds which is an exhibition currently running within the cathedral. Salisbury Cathedral also holds Britain's best-preserved copy of the Magna Carta which is why we visited in the first place. I wanted to see it. Unfortunately no photography is permitted so you'll have to google it. It's worth doing too as the Magna Carta is one of the most influential document ever.
Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset. This was England's second most richest Abbey which is probably one of the reason's it was looted and destroyed in King Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries after he broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the mid 1500's. It was completely destroyed as you can see. It is also famed as being the resting place for King Arthur's bones. The Abbey is about 1200 years old.
The abbey must have been spectacular before it was destroyed. Here's Faith doing her best to hold up the remaining parts. There were many buildings on the site originally and people from all over the known world made pilgrimage's there. It's last Abbot, Richard Whiting, was hanged on Glastonbury Tor during the Dissolution thanks to good old Henry the Eighth the most notorious of England's kings.
Kightshayes, Tiverton, Devon. This Gothic Revival country house and gardens was one of the best we visited. Owned by the Heathcote-Amory family who are famous for lace production which is obviously where all the money comes from! The gardens and house were simply stunning!
Tintagel Castle, Cornwall. Built by Richard 1st Earl of Cornwall int he 13th century the site covers the mainland and a small island adding to the castle's fortification. It's ruins now but if you look closely you will see some of the ancient stonework that made up the castle. The castle is linked to the legend of King Arthur however there is no factual information to back that up. It was a very cool place though.
Old Wardour Castle, Tisbury, Wiltshire. One of England's best preserved castle ruins this castle has a brutal past. It was caught up in the Civil War between the Parliamentary forces and the Royalists. It suffered two sieges and was destroyed in the second, by complete accident, by the owner who was trying to win it back from the Parliamentary forces.
Tavistock, Devon. This was one of the many amazing meals we ate! This particular one was at The Whitchurch, a lovely little country pub. The meal in the foreground was mine, a pie. So good! You'll note a nice little drop of the amber fluid in the background. :)
Dyrham Park, South Gloucestershire. This 17th century mansion is nestled within a deer park, hence the deer's in the image. We had not intended to come here however were told about it by another tourist and made the effort for which we were grateful. The grounds, (deer park) formal gardens and mansion are simply spectacular.
Durdle Door, Dorset. I'm going to finish up with this one. It pretty much speaks for itself I think. This is on the Jurassic Coast and we hiked for long way over the cliffs, the Coastal Path. It was odd because not too far away is the Lulworth army camp as mentioned above and on the day we were there they were live firing 50 calibre machine guns. It was odd to be surrounded by this lovely scenery and then hear (quite loudly) the machine gun fire. I didn't mind much, made me miss my guns a bit though.
Our journey in England has been an amazing experience and the images are a tiny snippet of what we saw and did. I have around 4000 photo's all up and have found many things that I want to learn more about, research and explore. We'll be back here someday, hopefully soon, but for now we need to turn our attention to our next destination, Finland...And family.
Thanks for following on our England journey, hopefully you have found something of value in my posts.
Faith & Galen x
The Gothic Revival country house looks amazing and the nature is beautiful. A full month passed like two weeks and I am glad you enjoyed every moment of it :)
Thanks @hanen, we're actually pretty happy with how the time passed and we don't feel it went too quickly. We would have liked another month of three but we're ready to get over to Finland because I need a cuddle of my little niece! :)
Great synopsis of your trip so far. My favorites along the way were of Tintagel Castle and of course the food!
I'm really looking forward to any posts you do while visiting your brother. I follow you both and after reading both of your posts on a regular basis I feel like I'm getting to "know" you both and I'm exited for y'alls reunion. That sounds weird, doesn't it? Lol
Hey mate, thanks for your comment. I have so many bloody pictures it's hard to pick out a few only but I wanted to demonstrate the diversity of what we did here however looking back at the post I'm not sure I did that. I could post for the next 2 years about this month-long trip and probably will although I need to do a lot more research.
I know you follow both our posts which is interesting I guess because we post about completely different things. We're looking forward to being in Finland, seeing my brother and his wife and of course my niece. I actually have another brother, sister in-law and niece there also. Seriously. It should be a good trip and @tarazkp's wife messaged me today that the weather looks pretty-much perfect for our stay.
Thanks for following us mate, it's not strange that you feel you are getting to know us as we both tend to write with a great deal of honesty and passion, albeit about different things.
It's hard to believe that your time there went to quickly! I'm glad you had fun. I enjoyed looking at the pictures. Have a safe trip to Finland!
The time travelled at the speed it needed to to get me from there to here...
Thanks for the safe journey wishes. If I never post again then you’ll know my plane went down. I’m sure @tarazkp will do a great post about it though!
Ha ha, how very pragmatic of you. I should have expected nothing less. :D
I don't like to joke about planes going down. I haven't caught up on my feed, but hopefully there's a post from you in there.
This is cool :)
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We will have a bit of a change of pace for you so you can wind down and get back to work ;)
Was that a swear word you just mentioned...”work”...What is that?!
Yeah, I got a couple of shots at that pond thing. It was perfectly still so great for reflection shots. If only I had your photography skills. You would have got some awesome images here man! Shooting in Salisbury Carherdral was so hard as there were so many bloody people in there! This was a rare one and I waited ages to get it.
Looking for a change of pace for sure. Can’t wait to meet that little one too! We’re going to do another little vid tomorrow night to send her, a “see you tomorrow” one. :)
Loved following along with the posts, you two did and saw so much with heaps of history lessons thrown is as well. Great photos and stories that’ll become fond memories for you both I’m sure.
Salisbury cathedral photos is my personal fav, great use of the reflection 👌
Thanks mate, I’m certainly no great photographer but the memories are essentially for us only so it doesn’t matter. The hardest thing here is the number of people at tourist attractions like Salisbury Cathedral. There’s a constant stream of humanity everywhere you go in places like that. I have a strong distaste to having strangers in my photos. :)
Just amazing mate and as you say, it's not goodbye, but till we see you again. What a rich and fulfilling holliday with so much learnt and so much to be taken with you and again thank you for the tour that the rest of us got to take with you guys.
Now off to see family with much needed family time ahead, man I'm excited for you. Enjoy
You got a 32.54% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @galenkp!