Emsworth to Warblington

A coastal walk from Emsworth to Warblington on a cold, rainy and miserable day. It is a good thing that there were still pretty things to look at regardless of the weather. Unfortunately there were not very good photo opportunities along the cosat without the sunshine. We did walk past a little forest, looks very mystical could almost picture the little knomes running around with the fairies flying above them.


We got to Warblington and I took some pics of an old "fort". All that's left is one tower so it's not really much of a fort anymore. Unfortunately the tower is on private property so you can only look at it from far.

Kingdom of Fife

St Andrew was the main stop in the tour to Fife and my first impression was the extent of its golfing influence. The first thing we did upon arrival was drive across the fairway of St Andrews Old Course. There is actually a public road access - you just have to make sure no one is about to take a swing before you drive across.

I went to visit St Andrews Cathedral, took lots of photos. Even though it is all in ruins, it is all very pretty. It is right on the coast line - perfect setting for a cathedral. Before it was destroyed it was the largest religious building in Britain.

There is only one tower left in the cathedral that is fully in tact - went up the tight spiral staircase all the way to the top and got a beautiful view of St Andrew. It's a good thing that the tower isn't very busy trying to fit two people going in opposite directions on that staircase would be scary.

St Andrews University is the University that Prince William attended, he went to the University and started studying Art History, somehow he managed to come out with a Geography dgree instead. I am not 100% sure but it seems as if the University is made up of various builings for different faculties. This is a pic of the back of one of them.

After seeing the cathedral and passing a University building I made my way to St Andrews Castle. Under the castle are old tunnels that were used for mining. I went a little way into the tunnel but decided not to go all the way cos they were closing for lunch and I was running out of time. The tunnel was very small though - I was on my haunches and as you can see in the pic my head was nearly touching the ceiling.

The next part of the tour was all the way to the East Neuk (nook) of Scotland to a small fishing village called Crail. Very quaint but just a little too small and out of the way for my liking.

Last but certainly not least is the Forth Rail Bridge. Every tour I have been on here in Scotland has mentioned how amazing this bridge is but somehow Bill was the first tour guide who managed to get through to me how special it is. It was built in the 1980's and contains 8 million

rivets compared to the Eiffel Tower which contains 2.5 million rivets. Even today it is a monster bridge so you can imagine that the fact that it was built in the 1980's just makes it even more amazing.

Cats

Alan and I decided to get a bit of culture - all we discovered is that we are obviously lacking in the area. We got tickets for Cats - it must be good, its just been running for like ever. Well to cut a long story we short we decided to go for a pint during interval and we did not return to see the second act. WAY boring, the singing was good - loved some of the costumes but really what is Cats about anyways?

The second act was performed at baroque bar and starred the all famous stars Alan Dewar and Heather Young. I must say I think it was of Oscar winning standard.

Glasgow

I have heard many rumours that the city of Glasgow is not much to see and I would have to say that I definitely would not consider it one of the best. Its not really as bad as people say though. I arrived in Glasgow and started off by just mooching around wandering in and out of shops. You would never believe what I found ... Nelson Mandela Place, he really seems to be mentioned all over the place. I then decided to attempt finding tourist information to see if there were things I could do. It wasn't all that much help and I just resorted to doing the hop on hop off bus tour.



Most places I have been to so far have quite a few different companies running these tours - I guess the fact that Glasgow only has one company also implies that there is not much to see. I managed to get a student discount of £2 because when I asked for the price the guy asked if I was a student and instead of saying no I just asked if I was allowed to be. He smiled and organised me a student ticket. Its nice to know that I can still pass for a student. The tour starts in George Square outside the City Chambers. At the top of the City Chambers is a mini statue of liberty - the guide said the building is older than America's statue so Glasgow had the first statue of liberty.



I then went to St Mungo Museum - it is a religious museum and was a little dull to be honest. They were having an African exhibition though which was a little interesting. They had some artifacts from SA - pulling at my heart strings I suppose. While I was there I also took pics of the glasgow Cathedral, with the Glasgow light posts in front.



I have also recently been introduced to "Dr Who" a British Sci-fi series, about a "Doctor" who is a time traveller fighting all the evils in the universe. He travels in a blue police box because apparently there was a time that these police boxes were very common - good disguise. They are not common anymore though so when I saw this police box I figured that the "Doctor" must have been wandering around in Glasgow. I didn't see him though.



My next stop was Peoples Place and the winter garden. Its also not really all that amazing but I wanted to get off and take pictures of the fountain outside. The fountain has Queen Elizabeth at the top, in the middle it has a soldier that represents each part of UK - England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and then at the bottom they have statues representing the people of the common wealth countries - Canada, Australia, India and South Africa. It is quite cute how they tried to portray the people in the statues. Got a pic of me in front of the SA statue. Unfortunately the sun was behind the fountain so not very clear but hope you can kinda see it.



The winter garden is basically a green house with a garden and a little coffee shop. It is just a little garden but I loved the idea to have a garden like that with a nice place to have tea and coffee. Also had benches inside so there were people just sitting on the benches reading. I had taken my pics so I just grabbed some Ice Cream and went outside to wait for the next bus.



We then headed to the Science Centre and the Armadillo - you would never guess why it is called the Armadillo. ;) I just took a snap shot in motion and got off at the next stop to look around the SV Glenlee also known as The Tall Ship.

The main river in Glasgow is the River Clyde and there is a saying used by the Glaswegians that Glasgow made the River Clyde but the River Clyde made Glasgow. The reason for this is that the River Clyde was made deeper and wider than it was naturally (Glasgow made the River), but the growth of Glasgow was due to the ability to produce sailing ship and it was the river that made that possible (the River made Glasgow).

Anyways I had a look around the Glenlee - it was a cargo ship but in an attempt to scare off pirates they painted black squares along the sides to make it appear as if they ship was armed.

Finally the University of Glasgow - beautiful building. I just think of RAU/UJ and wonder how cool it must be to go into such a beautiful old building for lectures everyday instead of a dull grey monstrosity. Again you can see one of Glasgows street lights in the foreground.

Littlehampton Beach Walk

Spent the afternoon walking along the beach in Littlehampton, it is a mix between a pebble and sand beach and as the sun was setting the colours in the sky were just beautiful. I just included some of my pretty pics.

Midhurst/Chichester

Cowdray Castle in Midhurst is in an ideal setting, flowing stream in front, surrounded by green fields and trees. It is just unfortunate that it was destroyed in a fire. The interesting thing is that the castle was designed so that the kitchen was separated from the rest of the castle. This was done to protect the rest of the castle from damage in the event of a fire from the kitchen. The irony is that the fire actually started in the courtyard where some repairs were being done - the wood shavings on the floor caught alight with the oil lamps around. The entire castle was destroyed except for the kitchen.

The tower by the kitchen is also still in tact so we had the opportunity to go up the tower and see the amazing view from the top. The legend regarding the castle is that a curse was placed on the family when they accepted a gift (an abbey up on St Annes hill) from the king, it was said that the family line would be destryed by fire and water.

While the castle was burning down the last male in the family line was away on holiday and decided to go river rafting where he drowned... spooky.

In one of the rooms at the bottom of the castle, they have a display of a man who looked after the wine. The room is kept dark and it lights up with a voiceover when the sensor picks up movement. Since it was in complete darkness I walked up slowly peering inside, unsure if it was open to the public. The sensor detected me and it all lit up - I got the fright of my life so I included a pic depicting my scare. Not too sure acting is my strength, but you might be able to see the scary face of the dude in the background.

The area around the castle is now used for a rugby field and cricket field and one of the little houses there has a bunch of cricketers in their garden so I took a pic. I thought it was really cute.


We then made our way to Chichester - looked at the Cathedral and walked around the old city - following the roman walls that once surrounded what was once a roman city. The wall doesnt look real high from this pic but that is because it is taken from inside the city walls, on the other side it is real high.

In the centre of the old city is this clock structure thing - can't remember what they call it. I think it looks quite funky.

We didn't stay in Chichester too long cos we had to head back to Littlehampton to get a spot in the pub to watch the rugby. Watching SA beat England in the final of the Rugby World Cup was good, at the end of the game the pub went pretty silent. Was almost freaky but it was fun. Vicki and I were sporting our SA rugby shirts - the manager nearly walked away with our dinner cos of that.

Moscow Circus

YAY!!! The circus is in town. Thalia and I headed out for a night of clowns, trapeze and human canon balls. All so exciting. From the moment of arrival I felt like a little kid again and the smell of candy floss was just awesome. There quite a few really cool acts but unfortunately no photo's were allowed. :( Some of the things they can do is just so baffling. Have no idea how they do it - LOTS of practice, one of my favourites was a really impressivre juggler dude. Anyways was a good time but was wierd not having any animals.

Natural History Museum

Natural History Museum is such a beautiful building it is almost worth it just to see what it looks like. The first thing you see when you walk in the door is a BIG dinosaur skeleton, I think that the dinosaurs is a favourite for the kids. Most of my pics did not come out properly because it was just too dark and my flash does not have a big enough range. I still managed to include a pic of dino teeth - I put a 1 pound coin next to it to give an idea of size, head shot of a skeleton and an impression of the most adorable little baby dinos.

The big question about the dinosaurs has always been, "How did the dinosaurs become extinct?" I have included a couple of illustrated possibilties. While I was there I read that the T-REx would probably kill himself if he tripped while running. This made me think, and my personal opinion is that all the T-rex's died from tripping - then the herbivores got overpopulated, ran out of food and died - leaving the remaining carnivores to kill each other off. It's a stretch but I think it is more plausible then the ones to follow.

After the dino's I headed to seek the origin of the homosapien. I was amazed to read how many similarities we have with chimps and gorillas. To summarise we are all just a bunch of monkeys, and this explains the stupid behaviour of humans everywhere - for some its more regular than others.

One of my favourite sights was seeing the trunk section from a giant sequoia, this specific tree was over 1300 years old before it was felled. Really awesome, to imagine a tree with a trunk that size - WOW!!

As I was leaving the whole Darwin Theory area I saw these cool moldings in fron of the windows made out of a type of mesh wire. Looked pretty cool.

I then headed off the the bugs and earth floors. The bugs were ok but all the earth stuff was my favourite. I regret leaving it till last cos I was tired so I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I could of. It was still really cool. Unfortunately it was generally too dark for pics but I did take one of good ol' Atlas with the world on his shoulders. I even got a chance to experience a simulated earthquake. Pretty cool.