Driving Through Northern Ireland

We arrived in Belfast just before midday and hired our car from Europcar. What an experience it was driving on Irish Roads but at least we never got totally lost or had a crash. We drove into Belfast from the airport and found Paddy’s Palace where we were staying. After unloading the car we went into town to the city hall where they were holding a continental market and got a bite to eat – this is where Heather bought her Spanish Doughnut seen here at the door to our temporary abode.

First full day in Northern Ireland and we headed out of Belfast to catch all the natural sights of the country. This proved to be quite interesting as we did not find any signs indicating the speed limit so instead we went extra slow to ensure no fines. One of my favourite sights was Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. It was a bit of a walk to get there and the bridge was a little wobbly but if anyone froze from fear there was a dude who would walk onto the bridge to fetch them. I on the other hand was trigger happy and was taking photos as I crossed – good thing I didn’t lose my camera.

Now tell us do, what do you think of this pic? It is actually the ruins of the Dunseverick Castle a real big castle – don’t you agree? We had to stop and take a pic of the HUGE ruins.

Next up was Giants Causeway, which must be one of the main sights since the route we travelled is called the Causeway Coastal Route, and there was two gift shops here as well. Pretty impressive stuff. The Causeway has all these different rock formations that have been given very appropriate names. We took a photo of each of them, a bit of a treasure hunt, see if you can spot them.

^ The Camel

^ The Chimney Tops

^ The Organ

^ The Giant's Boot

Don't be concerned if you don't know the other woman in the Giant's Boot pic. We didn't know her either but after spending 10 min trying to ask her to move and drop subtle hints we settled for taking the pic with her in it as well.

^ The Granny (up on the hill in the back)

^ The Wishing Chair

Luckily we made the ruins of the Dunluce Castle just before closing time and thoroughly enjoyed roaming around this old castle.

Last day in Belfast and up early to pack up and get ready to head through to Dublin. But before we left we had to get a pic of Queens University – it is just up the road from Paddy’s Palace and is just such a beautiful building, like out of a movie.

Finally we started our way back to the airport but had to stop to put in petrol. We must have looked like complete idiots as we attempted this new venture without the help of a petrol jockey. We put the pump into the petrol tank but not properly and when we pressed the leaver petrol squirted back out at us. It took about 3 attempts till we finally realised that we had to push the pump with a little more force to get it in the tank properly. At least we finally managed, but must have been a funny site. lol

Big Bus Company

Mom is now with me and I can officially do some London site seeing without feeling too lonely. ;) Site seeing is exactly what we did. We got tickets for a hop-on-hop-off bus tour and literally spent the WHOLE day hopping-on and hopping-off…hence the name. Heeheehee. Since mom and I did this all together I decided that we had to ‘blog’ it together as well.

We started our tour at Green Park and the first time we hopped off was at Trafalgar Square where “Heather HAD TO MAKE A PHONE CALL” joke joke. But we just had to take a pic at the call box. We also had some dude take a photo of Heather and I together in front of the fountain as firstly, it was too cold to go for a swim and secondly it is illegal to swim there now.

We have included quite a few pics of Trafalgar Square, I was hoping to see a green Square because they apparently laid grass two days before to promote a greener England. It was published in the Metro but I wonder if it was some new type of ‘April Fools’.

Pigeons can still be seen at The Square even though it is now apparently also illegal to feed them and we did see a few people throwing bread crumbs down for them.

Our next stop on our journey was going to be Big Ben but we managed to catch a multi-language bus instead of getting back onto a live commentary bus. We got some earphones and started listening to recorded commentary which we both found really confusing and off putting so we just got off at the next stop to wait for another bus. This is where we saw the horse guards which landed up being a cool stop to make even though it was an accident.

I managed to get Heather to pose with a few of the guards and I also managed to get into a few of the pics. It was while we were here that we bought tickets to see the Trooping the Colour. I am really looking forward to this event, it will take place just after I get back to Heather after having been in Wales.

While at the Horse Guards there was a guard who was just marching up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down , up and down ... this tiny little strech. Was really funny and I took a video clip of it will try email it but not sure if its too big. Mom says it was probably sentry duty - imagine getting paid to do that all day.

Now off to Big Ben as originally planned. We arrived just in time to hear Big Ben strike 12 and I discovered that my watch was exactly 5 min fast. The gong always makes me think of a ‘war cry’ we sang in Netball when the other team scored - “Ding dong, ding dong something went wrong, don’t get uptight, it will come right.”

^ Houses of Parliment

After getting off the bus at the London Eye, we made a boo boo again and got onto a bus that missed a number of the stops, so our next stop turned out to be Buckingham Palace. Well, as you can see in the attached photo, I had to unlock the gates to allow Heather to enter my palace.

Back at the starting point, Green Park, and we had to change buses to start the route again and fill in the gaps that we missed earlier. We got ourselves a hot dog with everything on it – won’t do that again. Took a pic of London Eye as we drove past and got off at St Pauls Cathedral, where mom nearly got arrested. lol

I had to take a photo inside the Cathedral - totally unaware that photo’s are not allowed to be taken inside. It is not the best of shots but when you think it is probably one of a kind I suppose it will have to do.

Last stop and we were TOTALLY ready to go home was our Thames River Cruise from Tower Millennium Pier to Westminster Pier. Unfortunately it was raining so we were forced inside but not before getting a pic of Tower Bridge with one of OUR busses in the centre.

^ Not quite a Mediteranean cruise but here we are.

Birthday Celebration

Ok, so I was really not looking forward to my birthday this year - without all you wonderful people around it just didn't feel right to be getting one year older. I did have my moms visit to look forward to though. I must say that having mom around has been absolutely fabulous. So I had to document her arrival in the UK.

So after fetching mom from the airport sat morning we got to spend the weekend together and even though my birthday was on mon we pretended it was sun and had a good ol' South African braai, with boerewors and biltong and even some Wonderboom. The weather was suprisingly beautiful even though it had been threatening to be a dreadfully miserable and rainy day. Below you can see mom and daughter reunited.

Then of course what is a birthday without presents? I definitely felt VERY spoiled and special. Thanks to all my wonderful friends. As you can see in the pic I did not know where to start, I was majorly overwhelmed - but no complaints. I ma scared to list all the wonderful things I got cos you might all decide that I am too spoiled and I might not get anything next year. ;)

I really had a great birthday and can not thank all of you enough for all the thoughts and best wishes that you sent. A special thanks to Glen and Colleen for letting me use their place for the braai.

I have also included a bunch of random photo's of all the peeps at the braai for you to have a look at. I thought it might be boring with just me and me mum in the pics.

^ Mom, Vicki and I

^ Mom, Rebecca and James

^ Steve testing the braai

^ Shirli, Steve and Colleen

^ Glen and Sean

^ Jon

My cupboard and wardrobe are now nicely decorated. :)

Isle of Wight

Ok so while all of you were making breakfast for your mothers on mothers day, ha ha, Thalia and I were getting on a bus for a day tour of the Isle of Wight. The first time that I went on a ferry - so now I can officially say that I believe in ferries. They say seeing is believing. ;)

The weather was absolutely horrible so our trip over had us trapped indoors trying to take interesting photos through the windows. Needless to say the photos did not end up being interesting at all and hence I did not include any of them.

On the left is a picture of St. Mildred's Church in Whippingham on the Isle of Wight. At this stage the weather was still miserable but I went out and had a look anyways braving the rain. Unfortunately it just started raining harder andf I got drenched. Queen Victoria apparently loved the Isle of Wight - she kinda saw it as a lovely get away from the madness of everyday life. This is the church she would attend and she had her own entrance and the service would start after she arrived. Obviously everyone has to wait for the Queen.

Next stop was a little town called Godshill - it has a little church on top of the hill. The town is also known for its thatch roof houses. It is a very beautiful, very little town. They also have a toy museum but we didn't really have enough time in the town to really explore in the museum so we just walked around the town. The photo below left has the thatch houses in the foreground and peeping up behind you can see the main tower of the church on top of the hill.

After our exploration of Godshill we went off to Shanklin which is on the coast. By this stage the sun had shown its face and I was beginning to dry out. It was our lunch stop so after a bit of shopping Thalia and I headed off for a place to eat - after all the cold weather we were very much hungry. Stopped in at a little pub called Crab Inn (below). Really good sandwiches. Yum!

Our last stop of the day was the needles. The needles are very far out and even though we walked all the way to the view point (we managed to take long way round) our photos did not do them much justice. I decided to include a photo of a little model of the needles that was outside of one of the little shops. It is pretty accurate, in shape and colour but maybe not quite as white though. The postcards show them quite well and it looks like they have snow on them cos of their white colour but its just rock.


Finally we got back on the ferry and headed back to London. The trip back was much more pleasant and we actually spent most of it on the outer deck but as we neared London the weather got worse and by the end of the ferry ride it was raining again. Below is a pic of us pulling out of Isle of Wight. Pretty little place.

Burley/Bournemouth

Trip out to a little town called Burley with Colleen, Glen and Kirsten. Burley is a bit of a "witchy" town for lack of a better word. It is a stunning little town and when I say little I mean little. It's by the New Forest and they have a place you can hire bicyles and go on cycle routes - kinda made me think of the Blair Witch Project.

All the little shops focus on a witch theme but the best one was "A Coven of Witches" - there stuff was really cool but I avoided spending all my money by constantly reminding myself that whatever I buy I have to get back to SA somehow. The pic below is a pic of the shop and below it is a pic of "The Sorcerers Apprentice Gift Shop" - really cool name but not quite as cool as the first one.

After browsing through the two shops we decided to settle on some lunch at The Burley Inn, I just thought this pic was really mystical and cool, it would be a lovely place to have a meal outside but the weather was not quite appropriate for outside dining. ;)

We basically spent the morning walking through the main street of Burley which is probably even shorter than Pilgrims Rest then we headed off to Bournemouth. Bournemouth is a coastal town with sandy beaches (apparently sandy beaches are rare here, most are pebbles). Bournemouth was unplanned but also a great experience.

We took a walk along the peer and then along the beach road which was a bit of an uphill - good fresh air pumped into our lungs.

View from the peer.

View of the peer.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Bournemouth was the festival type feel that it had - it was like walking into a movie that was set in a carnival. Yeah it might look like rides from Gold Reef City but it somehow had a very movie type feel. Like a typical American carnival. Really wierd especially since I have never been to an American carnival ... I think.

All in all the day was a good relaxing day filled with fresh air and new sights.