We are senior citizens who live in Noosa, Australia and travel whenever circumstances permit, usually independently but sometimes with a group of close friends. This blog is a simple way to allow us to record our travel experiences for ourselves and to pass on travel tips to others who have expressed an interest. We're armed with a 4th gen iPad (formerly iPad1) which is the tool we use to update the blog as we go.
For many months we’d planned this family get-together. We’d chosen Fraser Island because it was unique, the “kids” hadn’t been there before and it was reasonably easy to access from our home at Noosa.
We’d reserved a three bedroomed villa at the Kingfisher Bay Resort for three nights in October. Our family car was adequate to transport the five of us, plus food and drink, personal belongings, and a kayak on the approximately three hour journey from Noosa to River Heads, from where a car ferry gives access to the resort.
Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island with amazing features such as lakes perched high up in the tree-covered dunes, amazing wide beaches, rainforest, and small streams so clear that it’s difficult to see the water in them.
We arrived in good time to check-in at the ferry terminal and claim our reservation for 1230 departure on the 50 minute ferry journey across Sandy Straits to the resort.
Because we’d already checked in at River Heads, all we needed to do on arrival at the resort was pick up the key at Reception and settle in.
Lee, assisted by Suzy and Nick, made a special meal for us on the first night, in honour of the occasion.
The next day was taken up with one of the main activities on Fraser Island, exploring the island by driving a rough terrain vehicle on its deeply rutted sandy tracks and wide firm beaches (low tide best for this).
Having set aside the whole day for this we made a plan to drive across the island to the Eastern Beach first (because low tide was around noon) drive north up the beach to Indian Head, then return to Eurong village and back to the resort via Lake McKenzie.
One of the delights of this beach trip is a stopover at Eli Creek which empties its gin-clear water onto the beach. This creek contains a population of jungle perch which can be readily seen from above and below the water surface.
We left the beach at the village of Eurong, turning west toward Central Station, then north west to Lake McKenzie. This beautiful lake we had all to ourselves as the sun was now low in the sky and darkness approaching. Nevertheless, we all went in for a dip in the limpid waters.
By the time we’d returned to the resort at 5:45pm the three newcomers to Fraser Island had all driven the Land Cruiser skilfully over some of the most challenging tracks to be encountered anywhere. It’s nice to be able to return the vehicle without damage, as we did, after such a journey.
That night we dined well at the Seabelle Restaurant in the resort and then slept soundly with the promise of a totally free day to follow.
That night, in quite heavy rain, we dined on excellent pizzas in the Sand Bar, a less formal resort eatery located on the edge of the beach near the jetty.
And the next day there was time for a leisurely breakfast before checkout at 10am followed by a couple of hours of killing time around the resort swimming pools and other facilities until we boarded the ferry once more for the trip back to mainland Australia and then home to Noosa.
One of the best things we decided to do on this trip was to book our last night in Britain at one of the hotels at Manchester airport. Some of these hotels are very basic and very cheap but we reckoned we deserved a little more comfort this time so we booked a room at the Radisson Blu, which not only is a short indoor walk (via a tube) to our terminal, but also served as the base for our car rental firm (Green Motion).
Our Sunday drive from Beddgelert to the hotel was undertaken without difficulty even with a short deviation to visit the mediaeval walled city of Conwy en route. Mary navigated right into Manchester Airport with the help of the iPad and we soon found our way to the hotel by trial and error (it’s a maze of roads in there).
The car was checked back in with no damage, despite having done some 2000 miles and having dodged quite a few sheep on the way. And then we were settled into our room, feet up, ready for a good night’s rest before the 0910 flight on the morrow.
All proceeded well and early on Tuesday morning we landed at Singapore in a heavy tropical shower which persisted until after we'd arrived at our small hotel in Katong, ten minutes from the airport by taxi.
Here we were again happy to see that our early check-in, late check-out reservation had been noted and by 8:00 am we were into our tiny but spotless room, aircon going and rain pattering on the roof.
I wasn’t going to bother updating the blog, because Singapore, well, everybody’s been there, right? However Mary and I strolled down to the beach this morning for breakfast at Starbucks. I expected to see the beach covered in litter as it had been when we came through here about a month ago but to our delight it had been cleaned up. In fact a beach cleaning patrol was underway as we stood there, gawping.
I doubt that the picture of the badly littered beach I included in my blog at that time had anything to do with it, but you never know.
Anyway, back home to Brisbane on the overnighter tonight, departing in a couple of hours.
We got away from Chipping Campden shortly after 9:00 am heading NW, generally toward Beddgelert, Wales, where we’d made a reservation at a B&B for our last two nights in the “wilds” of Britain. On our paper map we’d noticed that the name Beddgelert was underlined in pen, possibly as a result of discussions with Sandra Carson, a close friend in Australia who’d been over this way. A check on the Internet revealed that it’d likely be a suitable place to spend these two nights, especially as it was also reasonably close to Manchester airport, where we’d have to get to on Sunday afternoon.
Mary did the first two hours of driving, through the more populous areas, and this and my two hours or so afterward broke the back of the journey. We’d originally considered travelling via Aberystwyth, on the Welsh coast but canned that idea when we realized that we could save some time, and probably some traffic hassles, by cutting north sooner. This also meant a more scenic drive.
Just before 3:00pm we were checking in to our B&B and shortly thereafter we were enjoying a cold cider each in the warm sun, outdoors at the pub just on the other side of the stream, visible from our window.
Even though it was only Friday afternoon there were quite a few generally elderly non-locals wandering the streets, doing the tourism trail. The locals, young and old, were pretty much seated near us, having a cold pint. Our thirst slaked, Mary and I examined the local church, the nearest building of historical interest to the pub. Here we found that three Christian sects presently use the same building for their religious gatherings: Anglicans (who switched from Roman Catholicism a few hundred years ago), Evangelicals, and Roman Catholics (who were banned in England for a couple of hundred years after the Reformation). Nice to see them sharing the facilities... Things have come a long way even in the last 50 years, although some of the changes have presumably been caused by necessity due to dwindling attendance.
Sleepiness, caused no doubt by the long drive and the warm, warm sunshine (but possibly just a little by that extra pint of cold cider), pushed us toward an afternoon nap before we strolled out in the evening to find an evening meal nearby. This is where it’s useful to be able to park and temporarily abandon your car, as we had done. Central accommodation with a variety of things of interest and sources of sustenance within a short stroll is a significant time and hassle saver.
Our sleep was interrupted about midnight by some raucous behaviour just in the street below. Did I tell you there’s another pub just next door? But it soon died down and we now forgive the interlopers because they provided some unique entertainment on Saturday (today, as I write). More later.
Two streams, both crystal clear, shallow with occasional deeper holes, and tumbling over rocky beds merge here. This morning was slightly overcast, great walking conditions, so after breakfast Mary and I successfully navigated to the stream-side public path, intent on following the stream a little.
We hiked about four kilometres there and back along grassy shores and into the edge of a gorge, long before the Saturday “crowd” appeared. There’s a local story, likely a myth as a similar story pops up in several places around Europe, about a dog, here named Gelert, loved but killed by its high-born owner when the owner mistakenly blamed the blood spattered dog for killing his infant son (a fierce but dead wolf and unharmed son found later are also involved so you can probably get the plot). Gelert’s supposed grave is nearby and also nearby is a statue of the imagined dog (dead now some 700 years) in noble pose. On the grave we found a fresh posie of flowers. And in the local souvenir shop you can spend your hard-earned on artifacts commemorating this unlikely dog. Also in the souvenir shop you can buy Australian didgeridoos. We’re puzzled at the Welsh connection, but have found didgeridoos for sale in many strange places, including the Greek islands. I mention this because, incredibly, a bloke walked past our window just now with a didgeridoo on his shoulder!
On returning to the village, to our delight, our eyes were drawn to the bright colours and elaborate dress of what could only be Morris Dancers.
Clearly they were assembling and hopefully were about to perform. Soon an older member of the group, whose black top hat was adorned with two toy koalas, confirmed to me that they were about to do their thing on the street corner just here. In conversation with him he revealed to me also that they’d used the pub next door to us as a meeting point last night and several members were less than their best as a result.
The group consists of both sexes, calls itself “Clerical Error”, blacken their faces when performing, and hark mainly from North Wales.
On that note, it’s probably time to finish the Britain blog. We have dinner this evening, at the B&B, which also has a bistro. After dinner we might, just might, join the Morris Dancers, this time in mufti, in the pub. Who knows, we might start a Noosa Branch.
Tomorrow night we sleep at Manchester airport, not I hasten to add, in the terminal, but in the Radisson Blu. Then Monday we start the journey home.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the blog and we especially want you to feel free to refer to it. After all, it’s intended as a permanent record for us and for anyone else. Thanks for reading.
Kev and Mary
- Prepared using iPad software and posted from our iPad
Thursday 29 Sep 11
So tomorrow we leave Chipping Campden. We’ve chosen to spend our two penultimate nights at Beddgelert, in Snowdonia National Park, Wales. We’d kept our options open and booked a B&B there via email just yesterday (got the last room at our preferred option). Our last night is booked at Manchester Airport, at the rather swish Raddison Blu, just a five minute stroll, via air bridge, to the check-in counters, at which we need to present ourselves at 7:00am on Monday.
We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our stay here in Chipping Campden, and have struck excellent weather, especially in the last few days and today. Digging through the photo portfolio we noticed a few more pics we think worthy of posting and there are a few anecdotes of likely interest also.
Firstly, there’s the Olimpick Games. That’s not a mis-spelling for these games were inaugurated in 1612 in Chipping Campden and ran more or less annually until 1853 when (so I’m told) a powerful member of the clergy decided that too much fun was being had and managed to briefly stop the frivolity. But they’ve been revived since 1951 and such events as shin-kicking and sack racing, and probably a bit of horizontal folk dancing, are back on the agenda annually. The event is held where it has always been held, at nearby Dover’s Hill, a ten minute uphill stroll from the village. Next year is the 400th anniversary of the Olimpick Games (to be held Friday 01 June 2012) which year coincides with the rather younger Modern Olympic Games to be held in London. If you’d like to visit Chipping Campden a visit coinciding with their Games, especially in 2012, would result in some interesting experiences I’m sure.
This place is genuinely ancient and a lot of value is placed, rightly in my opinion, on retaining the look and feel. Because it’s such a pleasant place to dwell and because of its proximity to London, real estate here is far more valuable than in the villages all around. Until it’s pointed out, you don’t notice that there are no “power” lines visible. The Britons’ love of the “telly” however has resulted in concessions being made, as antennae to receive free-to-air TV are ubiquitous.
Also, many of the older roofs are covered in roughly split and shaped stone, not, as I had thought, slate. Apparently this stone was sourced locally, dug out of quarries in large slabs, kept soaked, in pits, for months during summer and then exposed to winter frosts which would freeze the soaked up water and hopefully split the stone. One roof in particular has the same stones which were placed on it about 700 years ago.
And now some pics of general interest
I think it’s rare that evening dining outdoors, at the end of September can be experienced in comfort in Britain. We were the first into the restaurant, at 6:30pm and by the time we left there was a good crowd.
It’s such a beautiful day today that we’re going out to lunch, hopefully at the Churchill Arms in nearby Paxford, where we intend to sit in the sun and try the cider and the ploughman’s lunch as the Brits like to do on these not-to-be-missed opportunities.
Chipping Campden is a great place to stay, and bring your hiking boots to enjoy the countryside.
Bath, what an intriguing yet banal name for a city. We’d thought on this trip that we might get the opportunity to visit this place at last after having previously driven past, in 1984, due to time constraints.
And better still, on the way were a couple of other intriguing places: Bourton-on-the-Water and those two other villages which sound as if they should feature in an Agatha Christie novel, Lower Slaughter and Upper Slaughter.
So we set off on Monday morning, Mary navigating this time, for the journey down to Bath, via B-o-t-W, and back via the Slaughters. Probably 50-60 miles each way, on a bright, clear day.
Mary’s comment:
We drove to Bourton-on-the-water on my brother Peter’s recommendation from when he stayed there many years ago. It’s a lovely place but there were no trout visible in the stream whilst we were there. And the water level was very low. Some of the ducks were standing up! It is a lovely place however, but as a base for a week, this spot of Chipping Campden has a lot more going on.
With only a couple of minor navigation problems (many, many, small roads and weird place names) we rolled in to Bath at about 11:30am and parked the car in the Long Term carpark just south of the Royal Crescent for a rather hefty £5.40 for the minimum four hours. From here it was an easy walk downhill to the attraction most important to us, the Roman Baths.
Mary’s comment:
Bath was great. I was surprised at how easy it was to find our way to a parking area and then to walk to all the attractions. I know of Bath from Georgette Heyer’s regency novels which Peggy Ford and I used to devour as teenagers. It was amazing to walk the same streets that she was talking about in her novels all set in the 1700s. There was also a Jane Austen house with a dummy dressed in Victorian clothes outside the door of the place where apparently she’d stayed. A bit kitschie I thought. (Like all those Mozart impersonators in Vienna and the pretend gladiators outside the Colosseum in Rome!)
Back to Kev
Bath is a city now because a hot spring emerges from the earth there. Before Roman times the ancient Brits congregated around the spring, (evidence: numerous flint arrowheads found around it) but the surrounding area was marshy and bounded on three sides by a river.
The Romans, who arrived about 2000 years ago, treated the spring as something magical but that didn’t stop them from transforming it into a tourist attraction. (Monty Python: “What did the Romans ever do for us?”) And of course it provided employment opportunities for hundreds of locals and colonizers for about 300 years. With the withdrawal of the Roman culture the location seeped back into the past, the building blocks were plundered and the springs built over until rediscovered as a potential tourist attraction only in the late nineteenth century.
I must say that the present management of this major World Heritage Location has done a marvellous job of hitting the right balance between allowing public access and presenting the facts. Disneyland it isn’t, but it doesn’t hesitate to use modern technology to get the message across. The £10.50 each (aged person concession price) was well worth it, I think. More info here.
We could easily have spent much longer examining the engineering (much of it still performing its original function) and artworks left by the Romans but we left after 90 minutes, aware that we had to eyeball a couple of notable relatively modern pieces of architecture before finding our car again and then wending our way back to the north.
Mary’s comment:
Then we set off for the Slaughters. Upper and Lower Slaughter are two extremely picturesque villages here in the Cotswolds. Very quiet however but with trout (Kev: or grayling) in the streams in both places and many people (artists) painting by the stream. There was an art exhibition on so I investigated and came out with a few purchases.
Mary’s comment:
This last couple of days have been bright and sunny and quite warm. We’re down to short sleeves and Kevin has put on shorts for the first time (Kev: in the UK, anyway, this holiday, and only briefly, in the Volunteer Inn).
We’re off to one of the six pubs in town now for dinner. It’s a balmy Tuesday evening in Chipping Campden.
