David:

Sunday: I had an absolutely terrible night's sleep last night. I was planning to go to bed about 9:00pm, and then get up at 6:00am to work on my job application. Cathy was working on her assignment here, in the spare room, and I was watching a DVD when a huge storm hit and cut all the electricity. We lit up some candles, and Cathy wanted to play a board game. I wasn't feeling up to it, as I'd started to get a cold on Friday (someone at work had it really badly on Thursday) and I wasn't feeling very good at all. We both decided to go to sleep early.

It was a sticky hot night, and because the power was out we couldn't use the fan. I can't sleep when I'm feeling too hot, so I just lay there. This wasn't helped by the fact that I had a sore throat and couldn't breathe properly. I dozed in-and-out of sleep (I think that I only would have got a few minutes) and eventually got up to sleep on the lounge. It was cooler on the lounge, and the power came back on about 2:00am. By then I was wide awake, so I did got on the internet and stuffed around for a couple of hours. I'd taken some asprin at about 3:00am, and when I eventually went to bed I was out like a light until around 8:30am. I've been feeling pretty ordinary all day, but a good night's sleep tonight will help I hope.

I should really mention more about the storm, as there was one this afternoon that was almost as bad as the storm last night. While the storm was coming down last night, it poured rain in through the windows. We didn't realise until it was too late, and a lot of stuff got wet. The water even blew far enough across the room to wet the bed. The bed is located in the centre of the room!

Monday: I spent most of the day today laying on the lounge reading books. My body is aching all over, but at least the sore throat has gone. Hopefully I can get a good night's sleep tonight so that I feel better at work tomorrow. I don't want this bug affecting my performance at work.

I bought one of those Netguide Magazines the other day, and it had a couple of programs on the attached CD that might be really useful. One of them is called Boldchat, which is a chat client that only one person needs to have (as opposed to the way MSN Messenger works). Boldchat works from a link on either a webpage or within an email. When the person clicks on this link a window pops up, and the owner of the link is notified by a similar widow popping up at her or his end. The two parties can then chat as they would with MSN Messenger or in a chat room. This is, potentially, a great idea as the two people don't need matching software, or any software at all. I've placed an icon with the link on the main website page and also on the panel to the right. This is what is looks like:

Chat via Boldchat

I'll give it a go for a while and see if anyone uses it.

Wednesday: A huge storm hit today as I was on my way home in the bus. There were tree branches strewn across the road. The storm just finished as I stepped out of the bus, so I hardly got wet. As I was walking back from the bus stop, I saw a wheelie bin that had been blown half-way across the road.

When I got home, Cathy told me that she had a sore throat. She must have caught it off me.

Friday: I spent my work day today in a workshop about Indiginous issues. It was an excellent workshop, and the food was amazing!

Another storm hit just after the workshop, as I was getting ready to go home. I stayed in the office. The rain was so heavy that we could hardly see the offices across the road. The storm was spectacular. Like the Wednesday storm, though, it only lasted about half an hour or so.

Cathy and I went to dinner with Brett and Andrea and Grant and Penny at the Glen Hotel. We ended up chatting until about 9:00pm, but poor Cathy was suffering a bit with her sore throat.

After leaving the Glen, we went and watched Cathy's mum line dancing. Cathy's mum was really pleased to see us there. The people there were from a whole different culture from what we are used to. Neither Cathy nor I have had much to do with the country music culture (exept for the ten years I spent in a country town [when I was trying to avoid becoming too 'country']), so it was a totally different atmosphere to what we have experienced.

Here is the next UK journal entry:

Thursday 24/06/93 Essex near London 11:12 pm.

It's been a long day. We are back at the first campsite we were at when we first arrived in London and the people that work here remember us.

We saw the original King Arthur's round table today, and in the same town (in a large cathedral) was the grave of Jane Austin the famous writer who died on July 18th 1817 aged 41. I can't remember the name of the town off hand; I'll ask Monique when she returns from the showers. (Winchester)

We went to visit Monique's uncle Jim at a friend of his house. We had a good afternoon and talked for six hours. He seems a nice fellow with some interesting experiences under his belt.

It's a bit sad to have finished our trip through the UK; in our four weeks of driving we covered 4,300 miles through some of the narrowest and windiest roads I've ever driven on. We have stayed in the windiest of campsites, driven through the foggiest of moors, and have been rained on by, maybe not the wettest of rains, but still rained on.

We will be taking back 'Old Smokey' in the morning. It will be like parting with a friend. It's been a good car and hasn't let us down once even though we have driven some hilly miles in it.

Had to exchange the new beard trimmer I bought the other day. The new one works well but I'm getting sick of nothing working when we buy them. Everything we get at the moment seems to either break or not work in the first place! Luckily we have been able to get most things replaced so we haven't lost a lot of money, but you still loose a lot of time getting things replaced. The mallet we bought for the tent pegs is falling to bits. These sorts of things can be very annoying at times.

11:38 pm.

David:

Sunday: Not long before Cathy and I got together (almost two years ago) I took her to a friend's birthday party down the coast. I have known this friend of mine, Des, since my late teens. Cathy only got to meet Des, and his partner Vic, that one time, and then they headed off overseas. They came back a few months ago, but we hadn't got around to catching up until today. We got up early and drove down the coast to see them both before Vic headed off to work. It was excellent to see them after so long, but a shame that we couldn't spend more time with them. Des and Vic also have their own website (click here to visit it).

After visit Des and Vic, Cathy and I went for a bit of a surf. The wind had picked up though, and the waves weren't very good. We went for a walk to Surfers Paradise afterwards, stopping to have some gelato. We bumped into Matt and Jo from acrobatics as we were walking back to the car.

Monday: A woman from Norway sent me a message today from my website. I will have to respond this weekend (the only time I get a chance to answer my emails nowadays). Taking a look at her website (click here to see it), I found out that she was originally from Australia. It was interesting to briefly look through her website (I'll have a better look this weekend). The page showing pictures of her family, progressing from her childhood to her grandchildren, was particularly interesting. I always find it facinating to see people's personal websites.

Saturday: Time to relax; it's a long weekend ... not really! Cathy has an assignment to do and I have to work on my job application. Even though I am working in the position I have at the moment, it is only temporary until they go through the whole recruitment and selection process before placing someone into the position permanently. I am enjoying the job very much, so I am going to do my best to get the it. I admit to being worried that someone with many more years of experience in the area will apply and I will miss out on the job.

Here is the next entry from my UK journal:

Wednesday 23/06/93 Near Portsmouth. 9:23 pm.

So far the new tent seems to be going well, although we had no wind or rain to test it last night.

We visited the small castle near where we slept last night. This one was one of two we visited today built by Henry VIII; busy man wasn't he.

The best parts of the day were the visits we made to two pet shops. The first one we visited before we took a tape tour of an old merchants house (13th century). This pet shop had many different animals you don't usually see in your local pet store; e.g., chinchillas, chipmunks (both white and brown with stripes, the later were really tame and would grab your finger with their little paws and nibble your finger nail), an assortment of lizards and snakes, and (much to Monique's discomfort) they had two giant tarantulas for sale for ?35 each. Imagine spending ?35 ($70 Australian) on a big hairy spider.

The second pet shop we visited was advertised as the ultimate pet shop … and it was. They had the usual different animals here, but the biggest attraction for us was two brothers we made friends with there. Their names were Bubble and Squeek and they were South American Marmoset Monkeys.

These little fellas (and it was very obvious that they were fellas) were the most intelligent looking animals I think I've ever seen close up. If you can imagine a squirrel with a human face and eyes then you've got these two. At one stage we were letting them feel our hats as we leaned towards the cage, and they would peer under the hat at our eyes. They would look you in the eyes and tilt their heads from side to side trying to work you out; you almost felt like you were the ones in the cage with them looking in at you. They also like looking through the lenses of Monique's sun glasses. These two were not for sale but you can buy them from breeders over here. I want one!

One thing I almost forgot was that Monique managed to get her finger bitten (drew blood) by a hamster … HA, HA, HA luck it wasn't a tarantula (editing note 24/01/04: Our relationship was obviously going pretty poorly by this time).

We also visited Portchester Castle, which had a very high keep with timber floors and large dining halls. One of the floors was above an extremely tall hall making for uncomfortable thoughts of coming crashing through the floor into the hall below. We saw a real fool in the car park who made a few silly comments and had a drugged out smile you could just step on. He gave me a stupid wave as he drove off so I blew him a kiss.

10:03 pm.

David: Well this is my first weekly (rather than daily) entry, so I have created a new system. I'll write entries as per the days of the week.

Tuesday: This was my first day back at trampolining after the Christmas break. It is funny how you can improve sometimes after you've taken a short break. I was planning on taking my time before getting back to the more complicated (for me!) skills. After a warm up, though, I felt like doing a backflip and just kept going. I ended up spending much of the night doing backflips.

Today was also Cathy's first day at work in her new job. She was a bit nervious at first, but it seems that the people there really like her. I'm not surprised.

Friday: Instead of going to gymnastics on Thursday, I decided to go to acrobatics on Friday. Cathy is still going to gymnastics, but we go together to trampolining and acrobatics. I much prefer acrobatics to gymnastics. One of the main reasons is that I'm not really built for gymnastics. I weight nearly 100kg, and the impact of landing out of some of the skills would not be good for my joints. On the other hand, Cathy and I can use large the weight difference between us to advantage with acrobatics. She is not that much more than half my weight, which makes it easier for me to lift her. Even so, we were both a little sore from the skills we were doing last night. I will have to remember to take the digital camera on a Friday night to get some photos.

Saturday: I've spent most of this morning replying to emails and paying bills. I've also been working on a job application for the job I am already working in. The position is only temporary at the moment, and I have to apply for it again at the end of this month. I hope that I get it, as I'm really enjoying working there.

Here is the next of the UK journal entries:

Tuesday 22/06/93 in a cave near the Isle Of Whight. 8:14 pm.

When we got up this morning our tent was starting to bend the same way the last one was, so we took it back to another Black's Camping Store and informed them that this style of tent was no good. We ended up getting a different style of tent in a better quality with thicker material and stronger poles. I hope this one works out alright as it is the fifth tent we've had since coming to England. So far it seems alright, even though the site we are on at the moment is rock and we couldn't get the pegs into the ground properly.

From the entrance of the tent where I'm sitting now I can see out on the past the Isle of Whight. The water is at low tide at the moment but when high tide comes it will be only 15-20 meters away from us.

I can see sailing boats on the water, and a while ago we saw a very large ferry (almost the size of a cruise liner) go past close to us, the bay must be very deeply dredged.

We spent ages looking for some burial mounds and a stone circle called Winterborne Abbas, only to find a very small circle of nine stones hidden on the side of the road.

As we came to the first town in New Forest we saw quite a number of wild horses wandering the streets. All the forest (and it's very large by English standards) is full of wild horses, and after walking through the forest and a lot of smelly mud we found a wild doe, which was quite a sight as I got within a hundred meters of her and I had my binoculars ready for a good view of her as she grazed then ran a bit when she saw me trying to get too close. There is another spot in the forest where you can view some semi wild deer. There were quite a few deer here, and as we looked around a black cat befriended us. As we were patting the cat, we discovered it had a tick on the side of its head. It was quite content to let me pick it up and pull the tick out without a hint of fuss. It followed us for a little while before going about it's own business (probably chasing the heaps of rabbits that are around here).

At the campsite we are at now there is a castle near the water. We will visit it in the morning. It opens at 10am. The castle is about a hundred meters from us and on the other side of it are two seaplanes, a small one and the other very large.

10:51 pm.

David: I have been trying to keep this blog up every day, but it has been a struggle with my new job. I'm usually doing overtime most days, and then by the time I get the bus home and then go to the gym there's not much time to write before I go to bed. I also need to spend some time with my lovely girlfriend. It is not so much the daily entries that take time; it is the entries for my trip journals that are time-consuming.

I've decided to post to this blog once a week now. I will write it early each Saturday morning, before Cathy wakes up. She usually gets up an hour or two after me, so I should have plenty of time. I will write about the whole week.

This will also give me more time to answer the much neglected email stockpile. I've got many social emails at the moment that I need to pay some attention to.

The page counter for this blog indicates that there are some people visiting here regularly. I imagine that these are friends who are visiting to find out what we have been up to. I hope you continue to check the page even though the entries will be weekly rather than daily. It is nice to know that people are interested in what we are doing.

I know that I've written this before, but we would love to read about what our friends are up to (especially the ones we don't get to see as often as we would like), so if you have a blog or a website (or are interested in starting one) then please leave the URL on the message board (or email it to me).

As for today, we managed to finish a large project at work. It was a bit of a rush, especially with they fellow who hurt himself on Friday being off work, but we got it done. It was great to be part of getting this project running.

We thought that our budgie Chloe was a bit sick today, but it must have just been the heat. She seems fine now.

Here's the next of the UK journal entries:

Monday 21/06/93 Somewhere near Exiter (it's sunny) 10:01 pm.

It's just starting to get dark again, so I am writing by torch light once more. It has been an interesting day even though we didn't visit many things.

Our first stop was the most interesting. We found the entry path toward Holliggye Fogu (in use between 200 BC - 400 BC for unknown purposes) on an estate in the middle of nowhere. There was about a mile walk from the road. On the way, we met two goats who we managed to befriend and untangle their chains, before a quick walk to the site.

On arrival we could see a narrow set of stairs descending down beneath the grass paddock and as we reached the bottom to the door of the tunnel it was obvious we would have to use our torches. The tunnel we first followed in was about 15 meters long before it split into two three-foot high tunnels. One tunnel only went for a couple of meters but the other we could see went quite a way. We decided that I would go in first and have a look around before we both went in so I gave Monique my backpack and proceeded down the dripping stone tunnel.

To my relief the ceiling lifted from it's three foot height after a couple of meters to a height that I could almost stand comfortably. As I followed the passage down I discovered a section that let a stream of light in through a hidden hole. This reminded me of one the first scenes of the movie 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' when they are in a tunnel in South America; there are other parts of this story that are reminiscent of this scene, but you can wait for that bit.

After passing this brief glimpse of light I walked quite a considerable distance until I reached another small alcove similar to the one where Monique was waiting.

Turning back I paced out my way back to the first tunnel estimating about 31 meters for this second tunnel. After reaching the first tunnel and getting my pack, we decided to both go and have a look back down the tunnel. Monique led the way this time stopping when we reached the rise in the ceiling.

At this point we noticed by the light of our small torches two cocoon like objects on the wall near the corner of the stone ceiling. On closer inspection they turned out to be egg sacks with two extremely large, and I mean extremely large, brown, black widow type spiders dangling an inch or so from the ceiling protecting their unborn babies. Monique immediately took a major step back to keep away from them, as she is the personification of arachnephobia.

We at first assumed these two where alone but after a quick inspection we discovered a number of these large spiders.

Upon seeing this Monique screamed "OH shit! Get me out of here!"

By the time I had turned around and said "Don't you want to go to the end?" (of the cave) she would have been well on her way out of the first tunnel.

By the time I reached the top of the steps, she was already checking her hat and pack for freeloaders; so I followed suit.

Once heart rates had returned to normal, we took a photo of the entrance and fed our goats on the way back (click here for the photo).

We took a look at Pendennis Castle, built by Henry VIII, later that day. In the courtyard there were men in period costume putting school kids through their paces with the pikes and muskets to the sound of drum beats. The pikes looked very realistic but the muskets looked fake until the resounding yell of "bang" came from each finely ordered line of helmeted school children.

As we were driving around one corner a car came flying around from the other direction and began to drift across the road towards us. On the other side of the road was a red and white steel post. How I managed to dodge both the car and the post at that speed I don't know; maybe the post got scared and jumped out of the way!

11:06 pm.

David: Today is the first time in almost two years that we have been together that Cathy and I have spent most of a weekend just relaxing and watching movies. I did have a bit of work for my old job at uni, but aside from that we watched 'The Good Girl', 'Garage Days', 'Full Frontal' (all pretty ordinary movies), 'Shrek' (a classic), and 'The Four Feathers' (very enjoyable). We were going to go surfing today, but one look at the webcams from down the coast put us off. It was good to take a bit of a break.

Here's the next of the UK journal entries:

Sunday 20/06/93 Lands End ( Windy ) 9:38 pm.

We did it! We have driven from the most northerly point of Britain to the most southern: from John O'Groats to Lands End. It's almost sad that we have done it and now; all we have left in this part of the trip is to get back to London. I'm looking forward to getting to Europe, but in a way I don't want to leave here. Not that I'd like to live in England, it's too cold, windy, and wet, and the endless green country could get on your nerves after a while. I'd like to see a dried out sun scorched piece of grass for a change.

Okchamption Castle (12th century) once owned by the powerful Courney family until one of the family was beheaded by Henry VIII and the king had the castle stripped and left to become the ruin it is now.

We saw an interesting burial mound where I managed to fall knee deep in thorn bushes.

Penzance had a castle near it called Saint Michael's Mount that is situated on an island in the middle on the bay. It is quite a spectacle.

We are camped about ten minutes walk from the beach near Lands End, so this afternoon I went for a short, cold swim in the surf here.

Too tired to write anymore. If I think of anything else I'll write it in the morning.

10:04 pm.

David: Yesterday was an interesting day at work. I was sitting in my supervisor's office with a woman from another department when my supervisor bent over the arm rest on his chair to pick up a piece of paper. The arm rest pressed into his ribs, and when he sat up he said that something in his chest had popped, somewhat surprised but not in much pain. Over the next 20 minutes or so, he began to feel increasing pain. Eventually, I had to accompany him to a local hospital until his wife and son turned up. This whole process took from about noon until after 3:00pm, so I didn't get very much done that day.

Cathy ended up coming in to meet me at work around 4:30pm. This was the first time she'd been there.

I started to do some work for my old job this morning, only to find that I didn't have a necessary file on the home computer. Cathy and I drove to the uni to get it, and decided on the way that we'd both better get some more clothes for work. Also, as I'd been paid for some work I'd done for the uni a long time ago, I decided to buy a DVD player. We were both sick of using my laptop for watching DVDs.

While we were there, we saw an indoor fountain for about $20. We've been trying to find something like this for the birds to use as a source of water for drinking and bathing. The bath and the water container that they used to have would get hot and dirty looking in the scorching summer we've been having. We thought that the flowing water from the fountain might be more appetising for them. I've uploaded a few photos of them on it (click here).

Here's the next UK journal entry:

Saturday 19/06/93 Honiton in Devonshire. 9:20 pm.

We saw a few interesting things today, the first was a visit to the town of Bath. This is an interesting town, with most of the large buildings having Victorian style columns and are made of light coloured stone. There is an ancient Roman bathhouse in the middle of town that is fed from natural hot springs. It cost us �4 each to get in, and even though it was interesting, it wasn't worth anything near that much. The ancient Roman baths, after being discovered, where excavated and built over in a vaguely Roman/Victorian style by the people of the Victorian era; but all the lower section of the bath and pool were completely Roman. When we first arrived, we sat next to the pool and naturally we felt the water, only to find out from a guide later that you shouldn't touch the water, as there is a particular germ in it. So we ended up treating our hands like lepers until we could find a place to wash them. The Romans used to throw curses written on lead into the main pool to ask a goddess to harm people who had done something to them. Some of these were quite interesting to read as they asked for some horrible things to be done to people for very simple crimes.

Stonehenge was our next visit and I was a bit disappointed, not in the stones but in the way they are being treated as a money maker. The entry to get fairly close to the stones was �2.70; which was pretty reasonable considering the amount of people employed on the site, but we didn't have to pay anyway due to our English Heritage Pass. After passing through the gates, from the large crowded car park, we had to walk under the road to get to the site. As we entered the tunnel under the road, they had a sign that read something like "Now you are heading back in time", and on the walls were little plaques reading from 2000 AD to 2500 BC as you left the subway on the other side. They had plaques on the other side telling you how it was made all those years back (Stonehenge not the subway), and these where sensible enough; it was just this silly time tunnel thing that spoilt it and made the whole thing seem like Disneyland. Well the stones themselves were a grand spectacle, especially with some dark clouds as a backdrop, and the two burial barrows nearby set the atmosphere even more (if you could manage to ignore all the people). There was absolutely no emphasis put on the barrows, and I don't think that most of the people there would have thought they were anything other than small green hills.

I had one Japanese tourist here call out "G'day mate" to me and when I turned around he was videoing me and then he said "thank you". We often get people saying "G'day mate" to us as we walk around here. It's amazing how silly it sounds coming from anyone but an Australian.

At Old Waldour Castle we found what looked like a man made cave with stalagmites and stalactites. The interesting thing was that the cave was built, not dug from rocks. The castle itself was destroyed in some places by the two sieges held there, but a lot of it is still in good condition and you can get to the top up four floors. This castle is more a large building than a traditional castle. One of the interesting things about this castle is that at the front the widow areas are surrounded by chipped holes made by balls from what must have been embryonic Muskets. (Editing note: I found out later on that this castle was used in the filming of the movie 'Robin Hood Prince of Thieves' Staring Kevin Costner, and that the place I took the photo of the castle from was exactly the place they had filmed Robin's father's grave in the movie).

Both of us are starting to get sick of the English roads, and the crazy English, drivers though in a way it'll be sad to give back old 'Puffin' Billy' (we called the car this due to the copious amounts of smoke that comes out the exhaust) on Friday.

10:14 pm.

David: What a dreadfully hot day it was today! On the news they said that it was the hottest day of the year. Once again, it wasn't too bad for me, considering that I was in an airconditioned office, but Cathy spent the day here today doing uni work (or trying). It was 38 degrees here in the house when I got home at about 5:15pm; no wonder Cathy didn't get much uni work doing today. The sweat was pouring off me at the gym tonight.

Here is the next UK journal entry:

Friday 18/06/93.

We are in a very muddy tent site near the area of the Avebury Stones (that are older than Stonehenge), Silbury Hill (4600 years old (man made)) and West Kennet Long Barrow (3500 BC). It feels strange to be sitting dry in the tent when the ground outside is so muddy and wet around it.

I discovered last night, when I went to go for a shower, that I had left my toilet bag at the last campsite. Most of the stuff in it was of little worth, but my battery powered beard trimmer was in it. We worked out that a new one would cost less than the fuel to drive back for the old one, and the trimmer was getting a bit long in the tooth anyway. Gives me an excuse to buy a new one.

It's getting dark, so if you'll wait a minute I'll just find the torch.

There that's better; now on with the story.

Goodrich Castle (12th century) is built on a rock base surrounded by a cliff creating a moat. We had this castle to ourselves, so after we went up the highest tower, and were descending the tight, narrow, steep , dark steps, I managed to get ahead of Monique and lock the door at the base of the steps then proceeded to explore the castle. I only left her for five minutes or so, but when I returned and opened the door she was sitting on the steps ready to give me a good thumping. I bet that's the first prisoner to be held in that tower for a long time!

Blackfriars Priory (1239 AD) was closed, after much trouble finding it.

Belas Knop Long Barrow (2000 BC) was an interesting burial mound, though it was a long muddy walk to it.

As we were driving looking for a campsite, we came across a town surrounded by lots of monstrous standing stones called Avebury Stones.

Near there is Silbury Hill, which is an impressive man made hill built about 4600 years ago. As we were standing looking at it, about twenty cows from the field around it came to the fence to talk to us.

Our next stop, at nearly 8 pm, was West Kennet Long Barrow. It was a fair walk to this one too, and we had to literally push our way through a group of steers to get to the path to it.

The entrance to the burial mound is surrounded by large stones, the largest of them was about ten feet high and at least that wide. Behind this stone is a small round entrance area leading into the burial passage, which is about fourteen meters long and has five burial chambers leading off it; the largest at the rear with the four smaller ones leading off the sides of the passage.

You may be able to imagine the way it felt walking into a 5500-year-old burial mound at this time of the late afternoon with no other people to be seen. It was quite eerie.

These last three places, and another area we stopped at, that used to have standing stones are all within sight of each other and would probably have been used by the same people ( tribe ) over a thousand years or more.

10:22 pm.

David: While I was at work today, Cathy and Marie had the difficult task of going to the beach. Marie's car broke down on the way home though, and they had to wait on the side of the highway for an hour waiting for the RACQ. It must have been a hot wait, as the temperature was around 35 degrees Celsius! Marie's husband drove to meet them, and they sat in his airconditioned car for some of the time though.

Thursday 17/06/93 Manmouth , Wales. 8:05 pm.

After sleeping in until about 8:00 am, we visited an ancient multi-chambered burial mound called 'Arthur's Stone', which was built in the Neolithic period (between 3700 BC and 2700 BC). The mound over the top of the chamber has eroded away, leaving the stone structure beneath exposed and partially collapsed. There is an extremely large flat stone, sitting on other smaller stones (about 2 feet high), forming most of the roof. I cannot imagine how these people managed to put this stone there. According to folk law, this stone marks the spot of one of King Arthur's battles.

Longtown Castle was a 12th century castle built by Walter de Lacy was our next stop. It consisted of a fairly ruined wall and keep.

Next was Caerphilly Castle (1268), one of the biggest castles in the UK, and has two moats to cross before you reach the inner castle and a multi wall system of defence. They had a short TV show on siege engines and have four working engines on site. I shall attempt to draw each below and explain a little of each one.

DRAWING OF A LARGE CROSSBOW.
(In the original book)

A large crossbow mounted on a pivot that shoots a bolt about 1.5 meters long and 2.5 inches thick.

DRAWING OF A SMALL CATAPULT.
(in the original book)

A catapult for shooting smaller stones the size of lawn bowls. It's about six feet high.
DRAWING OF A HAND PULLED CATAPULT.
(In the original book)

DRAWING OF A LARGE CATAPULT.
(also in the original book)

The largest catapult of these fires a stone about 1.5 times the size of a ten-pin bowling ball.

We stopped at one small castle (which we didn't bother to enter due to the price) that had all these white vans parked in front of it and people wandering around in 18th century costume. We found out they were doing a documentary on pirates in the castle.

I rang mum this morning (8:30pm-ish Australian time) everything seems to be going well at home except Arnold is missing me a bit, poor dog.

Castell Castle was originally built in the 13th century, then went to ruin very badly until in the 19th century. It was restored by a wealthy eccentric into a fairytale castle with painted rooms and high spires. One room was painted with fairytale scenes of animals and trees of every kind leading up to a sky filled with flying pheasants and ducks on a large domed ceiling. Another room above was a ladies bedroom decorated almost as lavishly with a four post bed. Each post on the bed had a large clear crystal ball upon it's top.

All the furniture was original and brightly painted in intricate designs. This is the kind of place fairy tale princes and princesses lived in the tales I heard when I was a kid.

We had a look around outside Chepstow Castle (1071) and Tirtern Abbey, before coming here to set up camp. Chepstow Castle is the first stone castle in Britain built by William fitz Osborn.

The tent seems to be holding out OK now, though we never seem to get the chance to let it dry out as it nearly always rains overnight; luckily it doesn't leak at all. It is a comfortable tent for two people and when Monique goes for a shower I have enough room to do push ups and sit ups in it if I arrange the gear in the corners. Dome tents are definitely a better tent, far more room and easy to set up.

Monique just informed me that we have visited exactly 50 historic sites on the English Heritage Pass we bought. We have well and truly got our moneys worth out of it, and we still have a week to go.

We clocked up 3000 miles (that's miles not kilometers) on the car today.

9:18 pm.

David: I missed the daily entry yesterday again, but for good reason. We went to see 'Lord of the Rings: Return of the King' at the Gold Class cinema last night. For those who don't know, Gold Class cinemas are the VIP cinemas where only about 30 people watch the movie at one time. The seats are like first-class airline seats, with a table between two seats (obviously designed for couples) with a wine holder. The seats recline, and are almost too comfortable. It was lucky that they were so comfortable because this final 'Lord of the Rings' movie was about three and a half hours long.

We arrived about an hour early, and ordered the meals and drinks to be brought out during the movie. These would be delivered at intervals throughout the movie. The main meal was better than we had expected. We both ordered chicken with cheesy brocoli sauces, salad and wedges. Dessert came out about an hour laters, a gorgeous mud cake with a white chocolate leaf on top, and a scoop of icecream on the side. It was difficult to eat though, as I didn't want to look down at my food and miss some of the movie.

What can I say about the movie? I loved it, but I'm biased. I have always had a soft spot for the Tolkien books, every since I read 'The Hobbit' when I was in my very early teens. We sat there until the very last of the credits faded off the screen. This probably bored Cathy, but I wanted to hold on to every moment of the experience. It was probably different for her, but for me it was the end of three years of looking forward to the next movie. Often, throughout the year, I would think about the movie to come. The end of the last movie was like the end of small era in my life. It certainly wasn't the most important era, but I have enjoyed the whole looking forward to the next 'Lord of the Rings' movie experience.

I also wanted to hold on to the experience because Cathy had bought me the tickets for Christmas, and I wanted to make my Christmas present last as long as possible. Holding on to the experience a long as possible meant that I didn't get much sleep last night, as we got home well after midnight and didn't get to bed until a while afterwards. I had to be up early to go to work, and ended up having a long day today. I'm stuffed!

Here's the next UK journal entry (it's not as exciting as 'There and Back Again'):

Wednesday 16/06/93 Hay on Wye 8:35 pm.

Big day today, we've seen heaps of things.

The first was Houghmans Abbey (1135 AD), a ruin in most respects. Unfortunately the only section with glass windows (probably modern) is an attic area of a large transept that contained a trapped bird flying into the windows trying to get out. I looked everywhere for an entrance but strangely the only way in seemed to be through the windows about six meters up or more. I tried to get to the roof but couldn't, and found out later by looking from the hill at the rear that I wouldn't be able to get in that way anyway. We informed the bloke working there, so I hope that he got it out.

Wroxeter Roman City (built between 58 and 88 AD), our next stop, was mainly only had the ruin of the bath house left. Though I discovered there that Romans knew something of resistance training and they used a form of dumbbell.

Wenlock Priory (1200 AD) was an amazing place even in ruin. We had a tape tour here, and at one stage it told of one of the miracles that was supposed top have happened in the Lady's Chapel area of the priory. A woman who no matter how much food she consumed still kept getting thinner and thinner (sounds like diabetes) was taken to the alter and began to vomit a large worm which had to be killed with a staff.

Acton Burnell Castle (1283), built by Robert Burnell, mustn't have been very impressive because sitting here now in the tent I'm stuffed if I can even remember it.

But I can remember Stokesay Castle (13th Century). We had a tape tour here as well, though the tape tour seemed designed for senior citizens as it took so long to get from one place to the next. This place was strange as it had what looked like a house stuck on top of a castle tower. It was a nice place with one really nice room and a large hall. All the roofing and floors were still there, and in good condition. The only time this castle was under siege was during the civil war. It was surrendered without a single shot being fired.

Our last stop was Whitely Court, an absolutely huge Victorian Mansion. It was begun in the 16th century and went through many remodellings and expansions up until about 1880. In 1937, it had a large fire that damaged what seemed to be a small area (judging from the photos) but the rest of the mansion was completely stripped and the floors and ceilings gone. It's so sad to see the place, as it is held up by scaffolds, even what we could see of the cellars were held up by it (the cellars were big dark and eerie). Here would have stood the most beautiful building I have ever seen, or at least from the extensive remains and pictures my mind sees it that way. Maybe I'm seeing more than what is there in this ruin; but even so, anyone who knows me will know I don't gush about things, but this place truly impressed me. Sitting here writing this, I feel sad that it is not as it had been in the 19th century.

The front and rear both had wide stairs sided with curved ornate masonry rails. To the rear down the steps was a large lawn, maybe eighty meters long, and wide with a massive fountain pool with a statue of a naked man on a horse killing a sea serpent which is circled by clam shells. This statue was life sized and as we stood at the edge of the brick fountain pool (dry) it was still some distance away.

There was another fountain, not quite as big, on the other side of the building. As you enter from the front steps into the entrance, you can see through the front door and out the rear one with the statue of the man on the horse perfectly framed by the doorway. I would love to go back in time and see this place as it was at its peak!

9:41 pm.

David: I got home from work on Friday, looking forward to a relaxing weekend, only to find that paper I discussed earlier had been sent back to me to finish off. We had planned to have a relaxing weekend, with a trip to a friend's place on Saturday night. I ended up going to bed early Friday night, and then got up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to work on the paper. I finished and proof read the paper by early afternoon, but I wasn't at all pleased with the result. I sent it back to one of the other authors saying so. Two of the sections didn't fit well, and I was having a hard time using them to make a coherent point in the paper.

We left for Leanne's place late in the afternoon. We hadn't seen Leanne in a long time, and it was good to see her again. We met her new man, Brett, and all went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant.

We visited the Boondall Wetlands on Sunday, a protected area of bush and mangrove swamps north of Brisbane. The area was pathed with tracks and boardwalks. We are glad that we took the time to visit the Wetlands, and I'm sure that the hoards of mosquitoes also appreciated our visit.

The next stop was the Taoist temple to the north of Brisbane. This was a wonderfully peaceful place, even if we could still hear the sound of the traffic from within the temple. The shrines and mosaics were beautiful (I took quite a few photos, and you can see the better ones of the temple and the wetlands by clicking here).

On the way back, we stopped at Balmoral to see the movie 'Cold Mountain' with Jude Law and Nicole Kidman, which we both enjoyed. After that, we had Thai again for dinner.

Even though it started with some unexpected work, we ended up having a great weekend.

Here is the next UK journal entry:

Tuesday 15/06/93 Near Stafford. 8:32 pm.

We are in a tent site near Stafford. This is our first night in the tent for a while as we spent two nights at Janice's place.

Visited the city of Stafford to see my dog's heritage. Arnold's ancestors came from Staffordshire, as Staffordshire Bull Terriers were originally bred in Stafford and the knot insignia that belongs to the breed is also seen often in the town.

Also visited Monique's step aunt in law and cousin today.

8:40 pm.

David: We went to Southbank for New Years last night, meeting Maree, Steven, Cheree, Andrew, Marissa, and a few others (17 of us in all) at a restaurant called 'Taste of India' (click here for the photos). We only really sat around talking most of the night, but it was good to catch up. On the other hand, the food was pretty ordinary. Someone there told us that the food is never particularly special at that restaurant.

There were two batches of fireworks, one at 9:00pm and the other at midnight. We had a good view, but the fireworks were also pretty average.

We decided that we want to do something more out of the ordinary for the next New Years celebration.

Here's the next UK journal entry:

Sunday 13/06/93 Bakewell (Janice's house [ Monique's relatives]) 8:46 pm.

I missed an entry again yesterday now I've got to try to remember what we did.

Peveril Castle (1066 AD) a ruined castle on the top of a hill.

In the afternoon we went to Speedwell Caverns, an old lead mine. We descended 105 steps from a small doorway down into the mountain through a wet passageway. At the bottom, we boarded a five foot wide boat sitting in a six foot wide flooded passage in three feet of muddy water. There were about 17 people in the boat when we started down the dark passage. The young guide steering by using his hands and feet to ward the boat off the walls of the tunnel while he did a running commentary. We were seated in the first two front seats and had to duck our heads to miss the roof on occasions. After travelling for quite a while, we had to turn into a widened section to let a boat coming the other way pass us. The guide informed us that this was called the 'half way house', for the simple reason that it was exactly one third of the way down the passage. There were occasional light bulbs placed in strategic places where important points are. After reaching the end of the passage, we reached a large cavern with an underground lake. We were 860 feet down below the mountain.

The lake was used as a dump by the miners for the rubble. The miners expected to fill the lake in 5 or 6 weeks but by the time the mine closed 9 years later the miners were still dumping the rock into the lake. In the late 19th century the mine was opened as a tourist attraction, and the lake was said to be bottomless. Right up until the 1960's (I think it was the 60's, maybe the 70's) they claimed it was bottomless until a new owner decided to send some divers down to measure how deep the lake was. Well, after measuring the lake extensively, the divers came up to inform the new owner that his famous bottomless lake was an amazing 15 feet deep. This new owner had to save face somehow so he employed a geographer to work out how deep the lake would have been before the miners began to dump in it. He worked out that the lake would originally have been 500 feet deep. The level of the lake never rose during the dumping; this was another reason they thought it was bottomless , this was explained by a crack in the wall acting as an overflow.

The trip down the mine took a total of fifty minutes and cost us £4 each, and was well worth every penny.

There was one story the guide told us as we were returning along the tunnel in the boat that would be interesting to record here.

In the 1800's, a 16-year-old lad and a 13 year old girl decided they loved each other so much that they had to get married, so they approached their parents about it and understandably the parents said no because they were much too young. The couple (we'll call them Tom and Christine for I can't remember their real names) decided to elope to the High Peak District, as there was a corrupt priest there who would marry people no questions asked for a few pounds in his back pocket. The couple stole £200 from their parents in Scotland and headed south. On their way they stopped in a tavern not far from the mine we were in. Tom got to having a few drinks, and began bragging quite loudly to Christine about how much money he had and how well he was going to keep her. Unknown to them, a company of four miners at a table near them also heard how fortunate Tom was and decided to ambush the young couple in the valley near the entrance of the mine the next morning.

So the couple was greeted with the cry of "Your money or your lives!" as they made there way through the valley. Young Tom, being a feisty young Scotsman, decided he didn't want to give up either and ended up with a pick axe through the back of his head. Seeing this Christine began to scream until the miners slit her throat.

We'll these lovely miners did not live happily ever after, as you might think, they were all dead within three weeks. Two died in a freak mine collapse, one had a piano he was moving fall on him and kill him. The last, obviously petrified by the fates of his friends, committed suicide and on his death bed and confessed to the murder.

Well I'm sure your wondering what happened to the other key players in this saga, the piano and Christine's sidesaddle. Or maybe your not, but I'll tell you anyway.

The sidesaddle was found in the mine and is now displayed in the mine museum, complete with a large slash of Christine's blood across it.

The piano was known from then on for playing an unusual note called B Flat Minor.

We got to a campsite in the village of Hayfield. Monique's father grew up in this town, and we visited her grandparent's graves in am overgrown graveyard nearby. Her grandmother died at 34 and him at 56. They were both buried in the same grave, and this is now getting overgrown and a bit dilapidated.

One of our tent poles snapped in the wind last night, so we are going to have to see if we can get another one on warranty tomorrow from a linked store.

We spent today with Janice and the family at their house near the river at Bakewell. We will be spending the night there tonight on the floor in the lounge room I think.

There is a stone circle near here, near Janice's fiancé Frank's house. Frank's dog wont go near the circle and other people report their dogs wont go near it either.

10:35 pm.