Originally posted from London as a single page, this update was split into multiple parts (see related articles) for the sake of reducing the loading time due to the images involved…

Currently in Londontown, and specifically, Camberwell - home of Lian - a friend of mine through a mailing list online. We’ve been doing the tourist thing, except with the benefit of a guide around the city and we’ve seen a lot of the stuff we wanted to. In fact, probably way more than we ever would have otherwise, which has been great. There were a few concerns as to whether we were going to meet up or not, given she was in the USA at the time of last week’s attacks, but we stalled our arrival to London and all worked out in the end.

Speaking of last week’s attacks, it was a very surreal experience to hear it all beaming live through the BBC radio in the car. We had just been flicking between stations and there was a very confused presenter saying “um, it seems that a plane has just gone into the World Trade Centre” and then, of course, the whole drama unfolded over the next couple of hours.

In a weird way though, it was at least good for us that we were in an English speaking country and had the benefit of the radio since if it had happened while we were in Spain, we’d have been oblivious to the whole thing. Not that being unaware would have made the attacks any less tragic, but we could at least comprehend what everyone in the street was talking about.

In other airline news, we also found out through the websites of the newspapers back home that Ansett had collapsed. For the benefit of those non-Aussies on the list, Ansett was the second biggest airline in Australia. When we bought the tickets, we could have bought either through the OneWorld Alliance, of which Qantas is a member airline, or through the Star Alliance, of which Ansett is a member airline. Luckily for us, we did not choose the latter, or else we’d be having all manner of fun and games getting home right about now…

Onto less morale-sucking topics, we’ve been around a lot of the UK in the car, clocking up just over 2600 miles in the short time we’ve been here. Since the last update, we went all the way past Loch Ness to Inverness (alas, no monster sightings), and then swung back down the other coast, into Wales where we explored a castle in the pouring rain, and tented in the freezing cold. We went to the town in Wales with the longest town name in the world (abbreviated to Llanfair PG in the atlas) and then back into England, down to the Land’s End area where we checked out pretty impressive prehistoric monuments. We highly recommend going to Lanyon’s Quoit and Men-an-tol which are both free to the public and easily accessible. The latter involved a walk of about 1600m round trip but this was offset by the fact that there were blackberry bushes everywhere and we gorged ourselves on the ripe fruit. Yum! Also recommend going to Chysauster which is the ruins of a 4000 year old Cornish village on a steep mountain. You need a site guidebook though, or else it makes no sense, and even though they are for sale, if you ask nicely, you might be able to get a loan of one for free.

From there to Stonehenge, which was actually much larger than what we thought it would be. Both of us had read countless tales of how people went there and it was really small, and the guidebooks we had were backing up those claims also. When we got there though, and handed over our money, it was really quite interesting to listen to the audio tour (well, except for the bit where they got a little theatrical and had shepherds telling tales) and to look over the site. One thing that seems a little stupid is that the English Heritage group (who run the site) are trying to install a tunnel so that the roads can be removed and people can see it as the ancient people who built it saw it. This seems rather wrong to us, since it is very close to the road at the moment and those that cannot afford the entry fee (£3.90/£3.20 adult/student) can at least drive past and see it from pretty close. By building a tunnel, that opportunity is removed and another historical monument is removed from the public free glimpse, like so much of the rest of the UK.

Ranting about the state of the ruins and what the English Heritage group is doing to them aside, it’s been really quite interesting in the last couple of weeks, checking out what the convicts left behind when they were sent to Australia from England. Really reinforces the view that they got the better deal since the weather here is bloody miserable, and the food is horribly lard-soaked. Highlight of the culinary offerings so far has to be the deep-fried half pizza. Basically, get a pizza (a pretty oily sort of food anyway) and cut it in half. Drop one half into batter and then into hot oil for a few moments until you have a lovely greasy oily battered deep-fried pizza. A mere £1.50 with a servings of greasy deep-fried chips thrown in as well. Not willing to try it, we can only boggle at the mind that dreamed this evil meal up…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001