Ireland at It's Best!

24 April

Downpatrick Head, County Mayo

Who could ask for more? A free night tucked in beside the Downpatrick Headlands, sun belting down on the Atlantic just 20 metres away. Just up the (very narrow) road is Ceide Fields, the site of the the largest known Neolithic monument, in Europe. Sounds impressive, but you need a fair bit of imagination to grasp the significance of Ceide Fields. Lucky for us, we were just in time for the AV presentation and the guided tour. Without both, the site could easily be mistaken for a lumpy peat bog. In actual fact that's just what it is and it's the peat that has preserved this 6000 year old farming settlement. The stone walls that divided the fields, just as they do in much of Ireland today, were slowly covered by bog over a period of thousands of years. Fields, outlines of simple dwellings and ceremonial burial sites have all been preserved by the slowly rising bog.

Sometime in the 1920's, a local school teacher noted unusual rocks below the peat he was cutting. Eventually he also discovered a regular pattern in the rocks. With modern sensing technology, it has been established that the settlement pattern of parallel walled fields and associated settlements is repeated for over 10 kms along the coastline. A thousand years before the Pyramids were constructed, these simple farmers had sufficient knowledge of geometry to lay out a system of rectangular fields and a social system that supported planned construction of hundreds of kms of stone walls.

Crossing from Ulster (Northern Ireland) into the Republic today was much as any other border crossing in modern Europe; you don't know you've done it until the traffic signs change. Here it was the change from miles to kilometres that gave the game away. The UK, of course, still clings to miles and mph. Strangely, they sell petrol in litres and weigh things in kilos. Guess it's just a cultural thing? After all, they created the Imperial system of measurement.

So far this trip we haven't said much about our van. This is our fourth van hire in Europe, one in New Zealand and another in Tasmania. As well, we travel extensively in our own caravan at home. In all, we have done well over 2 years living “on the road”. So we fancy ourselves as experts! This van is easily the best we have had. Technology has moved on since our first hire in 1987. Everything works. Everything is so efficient! Water tanks (drinking and waste) are each 100 L rather than a skimpy 60 L. Water heaters and fridges are very light on gas and this van has an almost full size fridge. With digital TV, CD player, shower and chemical toilet, all we need is a solar panel (and SUN) to travel independent of caravan parks. We hired from Wild Horizons. They have reasonable prices and the best service!

25 April

Castlebar, Mayo

It's almost becoming boring, but it was yet another bright and sunny day today. Sadly, the forecast for tomorrow isn't as encouraging. Taking advantage of the fantastic weather and the lack of traffic due to the Easter long-weekend, we headed off on the narrow lanes of western county Mayo. The Mullet Peninsula was just beautiful, the open sea on one side and Blacksod Bay on the other. We'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

We also visited the small town of Knock, famous since August, 1879, when two women witnessed the apparition of Mary, Joseph and St John the Evangelist at a corner of the church. They quickly called other witnesses to support their sighting and the Church duly called it a miracle. Other miracles happened as sick and disabled people claimed amazing recoveries and a further, Church, investigation in 1936 upheld Knock's status. Today, a chapel has been built on the site of the apparition, constantly attended by the faithful. A basilica, capable of holding 12,000 people has been built nearby. What is disturbing is the line of taps dispensing holy water and the attendant shops with all manner of related holy treats. Rosary beads anyone?

On the down side, some of the 'quaintness' of the Irish countryside has disappeared since our visit 10 years ago. Ireland has experienced a housing boom since the late 90's which has seen tens of thousands of new homes replace the more traditional stone cottages that made the countryside so attractive. Nobody begrudges these folk the good times they had during the height of the economic boom, the 'Celtic Tiger' days, but some attempt could have been made to retain the character of at least some of the countryside. Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/9, Ireland has fallen on extremely hard times. We have heard the outside view of why the Irish economy faltered. It will be interesting to hear some local views of how Ireland ended up needing an EU bailout to save its economy.

26 April Connemara

A church car-park somewhere in the wilds of Connemara is our home tonight. Hours of bumping along narrow country roads has been well worth the rattling crockery and slow pace. Much of County Mayo and County Galway are relatively isolated. Rolling brown hills with peat bogs in the valleys. Lakes and narrow peninsulas have us stopping at every crazy bend to catch the view.

We struck a bit of a problem with our credit card today. Apparently, Aldi Supermarkets only accept Irish cards! Lucky for the check-out chick, we had just enough cash to cover our purchase. This has happened to us before in Scandinavia. Our planned response to this uncivilised treatment is to just leave our groceries on the counter and walk away! Our protest that our money isn't good enough for the company. Perhaps they could learn from Asian countries, where even the hawkers beside the road have credit card access and accept all cards!

27 April Doolan

Eight o'clock and the sun is still beating down – and warm!

Twilight, as we have said before, is an anathema to us. But we love it! Sitting in a beer garden in the once classic town of Doolan with a Guinness on the bench in front of us and the company of a couple of like travellers is about as good as it gets.

Doolan is 'once classic' because it was once an isolated village where traditional Irish music was played in the quaint local pubs. Last time we were here, ten years ago, there was nothing much to Doolan. Today, it is a tourist town. New houses, gift shops, crowded streets and no room to park. Progress!

On the subject of houses. How many houses do the 4 million people of Ireland need? There are thousands upon thousands of new houses here! Either each Irish citizen has two houses, or foreigners are building here big time. We suspect that the bursting of the Irish housing bubble, that recently contributed to the demise of the Irish economy, is to blame for the litter of new housing estates that have destroyed the traditions of Irish rural housing.

Escaping the Wedding - Ireland

21 April

Belfast

Scooting through some of the lesser populated areas of the country yesterday was a significant relief after some of the heavy traffic and congested country lanes we have had to contend with of late. A quick visit to Carlisle Castle and a stroll around Dumfries, visiting Robbie Burns memorials, was all accomplished with a minimum of fuss. From Stranraer we jumped a ferry bound for Belfast. We couldn't have hoped for a better crossing. Flat as a billiard table.

Belfast Port/inner city is not a pretty sight in the dwindling twilight! Even though it is a major port, there is a significant area of industrial wasteland surrounding the city. However, most of the traffic had gone and it was an easy trip to our Caravan Park at Dundonald on the city's outskirts.

Armed with yet another bargain bus pass, we headed into town this morning to enjoy what is fast becoming the best spring on record in the UK. It was 27C in London yesterday and by mid- afternoon today in Belfast, it was only a few degrees below that.

Union Jack bunting was being hung along Dover Close in the Shankill district of inner Belfast today in preparation for street parties to celebrate the Royal Wedding next weekend. It is unlikely that Union Jacks will be going up in the Falls Road area though. These inner suburbs were the centre of sectarian violence (“The Troubles”) during the 1960's and '70's. Loyalist Protestants and Nationalist Catholics living just streets apart, were drawn into a violent struggle between two lawless and extremist para-military organisations, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the IRA (Irish Republican Army). Between them was the British Army trying to keep the peace. Naturally, they ended up embroiled in an undeclared civil war that raged for decades.

It is peaceful now on the Shankill Estates and the Falls Road, but there is still a certain discomfort to be felt in these streets. Both are poor neighbourhoods. Just after the Second World War, 30,000 men worked in the shipyards of Belfast. Most of them came from the Shankill area. These shipyards, in the early part of the 20^th century, were the largest in the world. The Titanic and the Lusitania were both built here. During WWII, six aircraft carriers and hundreds of other warships slid down the slipways at Harland & Wolfe shipyards in that short 5 year period. Today, fewer than 100 men work in the H&W yards.

Now 'The Troubles' are more likely to be felt by both Catholics and Protestants. The problems of unemployment and poor services, compounded by the current economic malaise of the UK economy in general, know no sectarian boundaries.

22 April

Bushmills

Finished the day today with a long walk around the Giant's Causeway. Believe it or not, another fine warm day! Sadly, there is an increasing haze as these still warm days go on. It probably isn't smog this far away from civilisation, but it does significantly reduce visibility.

We escaped the “big island” in favour of Ireland to avoid the Easter weekend crowds. Good call as it turned out. Most of the roads in the UK are chocked with holiday makers today, but here in Northern Ireland, the traffic is light and the crowds at attractions like the Causeway are not overwhelming.

First off today, we escaped Belfast with extreme ease! The Irish aren't early risers, so a 9:30am drive across the city was a breeze. Just for something different we visited – YES – another castle. Carrickfergus is reputedly the best preserved Norman castle in Northern Island – so there! Not only that, but we discovered another family link.

But first, a little family history. The O'Neills were once the rulers of most of current day Ulster. The family crest features the same Red Right Hand that adorns the Ulster crest today. For those who don't know, the Red Hand story itself is topical, but that's even another story! So how did this dynasty end with us?

In a nutshell, the O'Neills had a real knack for backing the wrong side. More about this later as we move south, but for now the story of Con (Connor) O'Neill of Castlereagh will suffice as an example of the legendary bad judgement that saw our direct ancestors' status fall from being rulers of much of Ireland, to becoming squatters in a 19^th Century Dublin slum, waiting to jump a ship to Australia.

In the 16^th Century, Elizabeth I established the first English claims to land in the area of Carrickfergus by taking territory from the local O'Neill chieftains of Clandeboyne. Con O'Neill was tricked into forfeiting even more of his holdings as a a result of a fracas between his retainers and English soldiers during Christmas celebrations 1602. Seems Con and his friends ran out of wine during a 'bender' at his ancestral seat of Castlereagh and sent some 'lads' off to find more. Sadly, the 'lads' were as drunk as their masters and they ended up in a brawl with English soldiers. One thing led to another and more was made of the incident than was necessary, but it was all to the crown's advantage and Con found himself deposed and imprisoned in Carrickfergus. From here on, the story gets a little confused, but the most romantic version (and the one we favour) is that Con was helped by a young lady friend who smuggled in a length of rope in two large cheeses to help him escape. Nobody is really sure what the cheeses were for, but the rope would have been an absolute necessity! We've seen the cell he escaped from!

What happened to Con from this point fades into the mist of history, but it's a great story about a poor dumb Irish lad duped by the evil English. And - Con is the only person ever to escape from the castle dungeon.

Wales and Merseyside

14 April

St Davids, Wales (The omission of the apostrophe is deliberate and correct – so there!)

Our luck with the weather deserted us a little over the last couple of days. We can't complain though. Even with the heavy skies, there has been very little rain and we have been able to play tourist in the museums and other 'indoor' attractions of Cardiff. Castles and Cathedrals just keep coming and we just keep falling for them. Many, like Cardiff Castle, have been significantly reconstructed, not just restored, over the centuries. Sometimes it is far more interesting to clamber over the ruins of an abandoned castle that has been left in its ruined state. You can still find them, but these days, every town that has had a castle at any time in its past, has 'restored' it to grab the tourist trade. Understandable - and some of them are just spectacular.

By early afternoon today, the clouds burnt off and the Welsh hit the beaches. A couple of big holiday weekends are coming up and this, combined with school holidays, has meant the holiday trade has hit the resort towns like Tenby in South Wales early. Tenby has some very nice sandy beaches and ,while there wasn't much sunbathing going on today, kids were paddling, kicking balls and licking ice-creams. It must be heaven for parents when the sun breaks through after such a harsh winter.

While searching unsuccessfully for a free camping spot this afternoon, we took some impossibly narrow lanes down to the Pembrokeshire coast. Just beautiful! The coast NOT the lanes! Sadly, we couldn't find any suitable 'freebies', so we are in a Camping Club site on the side of a hill just outside of St Davids. You need one leg shorter than the other to get around this park! It's on a hell of a slope. Luckily for us, the manager had a couple of spare chocks to stick under our wheels to get us almost horizontal! So here we are, at 7:45pm, waiting for the promised amazing sunset of the Caravan Club Sites Book. Doesn't look like coming any time soon, so we will have to start cooking dinner.

15 April

Lay-by near Barmouth, Wales

Here we are, enjoying one of our favourite travelling experiences - free camping in a premium spot by the water, with 'Oldies Rock' belting out on the cheap van CD player, a few glasses of cheap Californian wine (we never drink Australian when travelling) – and the USA is just another busted-arse economy to be exploited while the sun shines briefly on the Aussie $. A nice home-cooked spag-bog is ready to eat and the traffic noise is slowly abating as the long twilight rolls on.

Everything looks better in the afternoon sunlight and Barmouth Bay is no exception. Even at low tide, in the late afternoon light, the dry reed fields at the water's edge look just right against the background of russet Welsh hills.

Today, we finalised our arrangements to cope with the earthquake disaster in Japan. We now have a cottage booked in the Derbyshire Dales National Park area and a little car rented to zip about the narrow lanes that have caused us some anxious moments with the van. We will still fly home via Japan, ten days later than planned, but with just a short stop in Narita airport. So the title of this blog is still valid - just! Africa, Europe and Asia.

18 April

Ormskirk – outside Liverpool

Home of the Fab 4

We are both children of the '50s and teenagers of the 60's. So it will come as no surprise that we are unabashed Beatles fans. Play any Beatles song and we know what follows it on the album. So indoctrinated were our children that they can do the same!

After a couple of “Castle days”, looking at gorgeous Welsh castles, it was a pleasant change today tojump the outer-surban train from Ormskirk into central Liverpool. We haven't been here before, but on this sunny (again!) Spring day, we could easily overlook the usual industrial wastelands that line the tracks of cities like this as we approached the city centre. Once we stepped out of Liverpool Central Station, we found the real Liverpool. It was modern, clean and progressive.

Tourism is mostly about the city's most famous sons. And that's why we were here after all!

Penny Lane, Lime Street Station, John's childhood home, Strawberry Fields and the Cavern Club were all on our hit list. With the help of a very cheap day travel card, plus a lot of 'street walking' - with the appropriate tunes playing in our heads of course - we found them all.

“The Beatles Story” is a commercial 'experience' that we would normally avoid at all cost. Today, however, we made a good call and paid up the fairly hefty entry price. It was money well spent. A great trip down memory lane including a fun 3D film complete with vibrating seats, water sprays and other tactile treats.

It was a long day, but thanks to the northern twilight, it was still broad daylight as we walked the final 2.5kms from the station to our camping grounds after 7:00pm.

On the path of legends

8 April

Lay-by near Barnstaple, Devon

Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur, was splendid in the almost heat wave conditions that continued today. Not much of the medieval castle is left and the legend is more of a myth than a legend, but the position of the ruins on the rugged Devon coast gave us views that made the tortuous trip through the Devon hedgerows well worthwhile.

Our other touristy visit was to the privately owned village of Covelly. One hell of a walk down – and then UP - to get to the old fishing village but just so picturesque on such a perfect day.

Technology has made travelling as we do much less fraught. With our GPS (TomTom) and our mobile broadband mini-computer, it is all so simple. For example, to find our free camping spot tonight, we used a downloaded POI file (Points Of Interest) for our GPS, which also feeds into the Google Earth satellite map program running on our computer. Using both together, we are able to identify possible free sites and then 'look' at them in Google Earth, which, in most circumstances, lets us see pictures of what they actually look like 'on the ground'. How did we ever do this before?

10 April

Newton Mill Caravan Park (Bath)

At almost 7:00 pm we are sitting in shorts, bare feet and T-shirts enjoying the last of the warm spring sunshine. Like most of the 60M people of the UK, we have been out and about enjoying this incredible run of unseasonal weather. It was positively hot today! Even for us, after five weeks in the late summer of Africa, it was hot! For the Brits, who have had one of the worst winters on record, this is heaven on a stick. So there they were, in the parks, out on the streets, on the 'lazy-boys' in the camping grounds, lapping it up.

The city centre of Bath was packed by mid-morning, with girls in short shorts, winter-white skin quickly turning pink in the sun and T-shirts and flip-flops everywhere.

This is a beautiful city, even in the dismal weather we have experienced here in previous visits. But today, with the flowering trees, gardens in full bloom and the mellow stone buildings glowing in the bright sunlight, it was just magic!

As usual, we got a bit lost getting into the city on the bus. We walked a couple of kms up what is known locally as Pennyquick Hill, looking for a bus stop that was on a totally different road - one hell of a walk. But it turns out that the steep rise we tramped up is a local fault line, the source of the heated springs that originally drew the Romans to this spot. There is always a silver lining if you look hard enough.

Bath has been an important site since before the first Roman settlements and, as a centre of the Medieval church, it holds an important place in history, paired with nearby Wells. The Bishop of Bath & Wells holds a significant place in the church hierarchy to this day.

Wealthy 17^th and 18^th century Londoners maintained houses here so they could “take the waters' in the 'season'. The Georgian Royal Crescent and Circus are still home to magnificent, stone, three-storey mansions fronting cobbled streets with enormous green lawns that are now common land to be enjoyed by the good citizens of Bath this sunny weekend, the first week of the school holidays. Woe is us! Others on holidays. Crowds. More kids in the streets and museums.

We have revelled in the weather the past week, but all things must come to an end. A cold front approaches from the west and we expect a 10C drop in temperatures tomorrow.

11 April

Lea, Gloucestershire

The weather didn't turn out as dismal as predicted. A few clouds scudded by, but it was still a very pleasant day to be cruising around the villages of the Cotswolds. One of our long term favourites is Castle Combe. We have seen the village in snow, but today, it was in its spring brilliance.

Those readers who followed our South African blog will remember the ripping tales of the Anglo-Zulu wars and in particular the heroics of the Welsh regiment that defended Rorke's Drift. Today, we followed through on one of the heroes of that battle, so far away in time and space. In the little village of Churcham, just outside Gloucester, we found the grave of Alfred (Henry) Hook (the cook) who won one of the 11 VCs awarded at that battle. He was one of the saviours of the wounded in the hospital, dragging comrades through the rubble of the small outpost in the face of a fierce attack by thousands of Zulus.

Born at Churcham in Gloucestershire in 1850, he first served in the Monmouth Militia and enlisted into the regular army at Monmouth in March 1877, aged 26. After his discharge in 1880, Hook resided at Sydenham Hill and worked at the British Museum. He retired in 1904 and returned to live in Gloucestershire. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis on 12th March 1905 at Osborne Villas, Roseberry Avenue, Gloucester.

Interestingly, there is some mystery about his first marriage. His wife thought he had been killed in South Africa and ran off with someone else. Hook married again, in 1897, in Islington. His second wife, Ada, is buried with him in the peaceful graveyard in Churcham. She died in 1929.

Today, it is a long way from the sunlit fields of early spring in Churcham to the blistering heat and isolation of the site of Rorke's Drift in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Just imagine how far it was in 1879!

12 April,

Cardiff

Most of today we spent again in the foot steps of Henry Hook, VC, of Rorke's Drift fame. Our pursuit of this humble hero of the Zulu Wars has become a bit of an obsession, we must admit. In Monmouth today, we visited the barracks where Hook probably enlisted. He was stationed here before his departure for Africa.

The Welsh town of Brecon was the base for Hook's Regiment of the Welsh Borderers. The 24^th had its headquarters here and today, the Regiment's museum is full of memorabilia from the Zulu War campaign. Hook's VC is in the museum along with a bible that he found at Rorke's Drift.

Brecon Cathedral has a chapel dedicated to the Welsh Borderers. Here many of the heroes of Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift are remembered. One highlight for us was the Queen's Colours that hang in the chapel. Those familiar with the details of the battle will know that two VCs were won by Lieuts. Melvill and Coghill, who died at Fugitive’s Drift defending the flag. Tragically, the colours were lost in the raging stream and the two defenders were slaughtered by the Zulu. The colours were later retrieved and presented to Queen Victoria. In 1933, they were returned to the Regiment and today they hang in Brecon Cathedral, a material link between this quaint Welsh town and a colonial war fought by tough little Welshmen (and they were little in stature) on the other side of the world over a century ago.

All this is a link for us as well, between two places we have recently visited, South Africa and the UK. Two vastly different cultures. Africa and Europe. The third and the first world. And we wonder here in 2011, why men from these Welsh valleys travelled halfway around the world to fight in a war of Empire against an enemy they never knew, for a purpose they probably didn't understand. Perhaps Sergeant Frank Bourne DCM could have explained it? He died on VE day 1945. He was 91 years old. The last surviving defender of Rorke's Drift.

Heat Wave!

6 April

Maiden Castle, Dorchester

A free night at last!

It is just so crowded in the UK that our favourite camping areas – the FREE ones – are almost non-existent. But tonight we are nestled in, on a very warm and sunny afternoon, at the foot of Maiden Castle, the largest ancient earthen fortified 'castle' in the UK. Six thousand years ago, neolithic tribes began to fortify this natural high point on the green and rolling Dorchester hills. Then, of course, most of the landscape was dense forest. Over the millennia, many different civilizations called this hill home. They added miles of earth works, ditches and wooden fortifications. All to no avail as it turns out. They are long gone and we, and the dozens of locals walking their dogs, have taken over. There must be a lesson in there somewhere?

Visiting Britain is always going to be about culture, castles and cathedrals. Some of these places we have already seen two or three times, but we just keep coming back! Canterbury and Salisbury Cathedrals are cases in point.

We always find something different and interesting. In Canterbury, for example, we were able to pick up a special Australian guide to the Cathedral. It detailed special monuments to locals who had made good in the colonies who were buried in the cathedral. One of the vergers at Salisbury offered us a special Aussie guide, but it was just a normal one that was printed with the inside pages printed upside down (in error). Very droll!

A new spot for us was Corfe Castle - a magnificent ruin perched atop a hill and commanding a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside on this, probably the best day, weather wise, we have ever experienced in the UK!

7 April

Somewhere in Sunny Cornwall

London experienced its hottest April day since 1892 yesterday. 23.5C. Down south, where we are, it was shirts off, shorts on and down to the beach for many of the sun-deprived locals. Not a pretty sight, your early spring pommie on the beach. Nevertheless you've got admire their spirit. Beaches of mud coloured sand, waves the height of a two year old's knees and water temperatures that would curl your toe-nails and they are into it!

We spotted these excited beach goers and thousands of others, out and about enjoying beautiful early spring sunshine in the old fishing towns of Looe and Polperro. We have visited both towns a couple of times before, but we've never seen them in bright sunshine like this. Beautiful!

Twilight is an unfamiliar phenomena for us tropics dwellers. As we write this, the sun is still belting down at 7:30pm and it is still well above the horizon. No complaints from us though. We recall the shortened days of winter on our previous trips when it was dark by 4:00pm. We do have to take care though, that as we enjoy the warmth of the twilight, 'beer o'clock' doesn't extend to the point where we can't be bothered to cook dinner!

Spring has Sprung

2 April

Catsfield, East Sussex

The less that is said about our delayed departure from South Africa the better. It is so easy to let a bad experience spoil a fantastic trip. So we will just let the horrors of the inefficiency of Cape Town Airport remain a problem for the good citizens of Cape Town. Our delay was no fault of our carrier Qatar Airways. One of the ground crew at Cape Town (the one with the ping pong bats) waved our plane into the wrong landing area and so the plane hit the terminal. Shades of “Flying High' and Leslie Neilson, we thought. This was compounded the next day by the extremely inefficient national carrier South African Airways with whom we were re-booked to continue our trip to the UK. Ok. Enough is enough. We are over it and the great experiences we had in this amazing country far outweigh the difficulties of our last couple of days.

So, here we are camped in a paddock in East Sussex. Our recently hired campervan is probably the most modern and comfortable we have hired in our many camping adventures. Tonight, at least, we have fifty channels of digital television, a close to full-size refrigerator, water heater and all the mod-cons that we only dreamed of when we first hired a van in Europe back in 1987.

This is our first real van visit to the UK since that original '87 trip. We passed through in 2001, but the expense at that time (35p to the $) limited our stay to less than a week. With the current strong Aussie dollar putting prices here on par to, or even lower than at home, we are making hay while the sun shines.

Following a quick visit to family in outer London, tracing the footsteps of Geoffrey Chaucer and his band of pilgrims, we headed off to Canterbury. Chaucer and his bawdy band followed a well-worn path to the tomb of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in the cathedral in 1170. Obviously, much has changed since the time of Becket's murder and Chaucer's pilgrims' journey to this magnificent example of medieval architecture, but the cathedral still draws thousands of modern day pilgrims (tourists!) who were out in force on a warm and sunny spring day.

This is the first time we have travelled in Europe outside autumn/winter. Crowds are already getting to us, but the spring flowers and the first flush of green on the trees is, so far, making the crowded streets and slow traffic bearable.

After a long walk along the White Cliffs of Dover and a slow drive through the sunny Kent countryside, we are now settled in a farmer's paddock outside Catsfield, but not before we bogged our van getting onto the field. That's camping, folks!

4 April, Chichester

Sun shone down on us most of the past couple of days, still a weak spring sun, but enough to bring out the locals. After one of the coldest winters on record, the cabin-fever infected Brits are really enjoying the first flush of spring. We have visited a few National Trust properties, including the almost perfectly preserved medieval castle of Bodiam, the imposing Arundel, seat of the Norfolk dynasty and the country seat of the Dukes of Northumberland, Petworth. The locals were out in force with their special walking staves and backpacks - just the thing for a stroll on a level gravel path for a km or two. Walking is a very serious business apparently.

We had forgotten just how crowded the UK is. The South-East is particularly densely populated, with narrow roads and hedgerows that scrape the side of our van as we cringe on the left shoulder to avoid on-coming vans and trucks. Consequently, we are now without one driver's side mirror, a victim of that one branch that didn't give way to our left side 'hedge- trimmer'.

We are making very slow progress at the moment, enthralled by the many beautiful villages and towns with their Tudor half-timbered houses framed by trees and bushes in full flower. And the daffodils are just gorgeous, popping up all over the place. Wordsworth would be in daffodil heaven.