Punting in Oxford...

Unfortunately we only spent one day in Oxford, but that day certainly deserves a post of its own...

We caught the Oxford tube in London and mostly slept through the 2 hour trip, so when we woke up we were magically in Oxford. Quite a pretty city really. The first thing we did was go to lunch with a family friend, Simon. He took us to a lovely little place called the Trout Inn, where some of the Inspector Morse series have been filmed. We ate a lovely lunch seemingly surrounded by fellow Australians and ducks.



After lunch we went to visit the Pitt and Rivers museum - a lovely small museum with everything from dinosaurs to shrunken heads, and specimens that you could play with as well! We also made sure that Cam got a photo with one of his heros Charles Darwin.



In the afternoon we met up with some friends, Will and Sandy - 2 doctors we met in Papua New Guinea when they were doing their final elective. They took us out and made sure our short stay in Oxford was memorable. They took us on a lightning tour of some of the historical colleges - we squeaked the mound, and saw the choir stalls at New. But the first really important stops were a couple of pubs, including the one where Bob Hawke had set the record for the fastest 'down' of a yard glass...



The boys pointed out that one can't visit Oxford without punting, so they bought supplies and we spent the next few hours on the Thames (known as the Issis in Oxford) in a punt.



For those not familiar with punts, they are small square bottomed boats that aren't all that stable. Although they had both punted before we explored a part of the river neither of them had ever been to, and boy were there some surprises in store. After a while the river became overgrown and we kept drifting through the foliage, getting scratched, covered in pollen, and trying not to wet ourselves with laughter.




There were also incidents of the pole getting stuck in the water, and the pole getting stuck in the trees above which led to a very wet Will. Although it may not sound like much, let us assure you that this was possibly the most hilarious part of our whole trip.

After drying off we departed for a bbq 'Oxford style'. Comforting to know that student parties are the same world round - we ended up drinking cocktails out of a saucepan. We also caught up with an old friend of Cam's, Sebastian.

Oxford was a lovely place, and we must thank Will and Sandy for showing us such a great time! We hope that we return to you both the same hospitality on this side of the world sometime!

Little Old London Town

Well, it's not really. Quite big actually, with a population ranging between 12 and 14 million depending on where you stop counting. We're not sure how many British we actually met though, as London is packed full of Australians and everyone else from around the world...but it probably didn't help that we were staying with Aussie mates while we were there.

So anyway, we left ourselves a week and a half for London - a good amount of time to catch up with people, but not so good for the finances. We couldn't believe just how expensive London was, no matter how much we had been warned. But enough about money - we'll worry about all that when we get home...

Highlights of our time in English capital include:

*Visting many museums - the natural history museum, with it's stuffed animals and skeletons of those long dead. Cam particularly liked the icthyosaurs (fish lizards), which makes sense considering his love of all things from the sea.



We also went on a behind the scenes Darwin tour, where we saw some of Darwin's original specimens from his voyage on the Beagle , as well as specimens of Coelacanths (very old, thought-to-be-extinct fish); and a 8.7m specimen of Archy the Giant Squid (Architeuthis). Very Bloody Cool.

*The Victoria and Albert museum. Of particular interest was the fashion through the ages exhibition. No really, it was interesting. Particularly liked the underpants and glove set. There were also cool sculptures and an Oriental Exhibition.



*The Science Museum. A place Cam could have visited many times. Of particular interest were the Spitfire exhibition (interesting for Jane too, as she found out they were mostly made by women during the war), the boat exhibition, and of course the Scuba Diving exhibition. Even the Maths stuff was interesting, and quite pretty too. And of course, there was an awesome gift shop, which included some useful stuff, being a science museum and all...



*The Greenwich Meridian Line. We were only there for a short period, but we had lots of fun being in both the East and West hemispheres at the same time...we also didn't buy anything from the first shop in the world.



*The theatre scene. You can't go to London and not visit West End! Even Cam was enthused about it. We saw Avenue Q together - a musical with puppets made for people who aren't usually musical fans. Very funny. And Jane went to see Wicked by herself, so that Cam didn't get a musical overdose. We also went to see Othello at Shakespeares Globe Theatre. We paid for standing room only, and while it was great to experience it as many once did, it would probably be preferable to see any other 3 1/2 hour performance sitting down.



Of course there was lots of site seeing - we went to Hyde Park and watched all the sun-starved Londoners in their bikinis on a surprisingly fair weekend. We walked past Buckingham Palace, watched some great street performers at Covent Garden, ate dinner at Brick Lane, and tried to collect as many 'monopoly places' as possible (we were still missing a few when we left).

The best thing was definately the catch ups though. Thanks to those who took us out and put us up (hopefully we weren't there too long for you to put up with us). We had a great time. This last photo is in honour of friends - for those who bring Papua New Guinean penis gourds across the world for their mates, and for those mates who try them on enthusiastically as soon as the gift is received (yes, alcohol was involved). We just want it known, that it was requested by the wearer of this penis gourd to post this picture. Cheers Alex - you would make the Papua New Guineans...proud...

The Lovely Llangollen

We arrived in Llangollen, Wales, cold and tired, after 6 hours of (exhorbitantly priced) train travel. But we were received warmly by the Brown family, and instantly felt better.



We only spent a few days in Llangollen (this is the shortened spelling - photo above shows proper spelling!), but it was just so beautiful there (and so green compared to Australian landscape). The weather was wet and grey, so we sat inside in front of the fire for a while, and ate delicious food - some of which Cam cooked. It was a real treat, and every traveller needs to slow down once in a while.



But we did get out and look around. We visited the house of the Ladies of Llangollen - two women who lived in a romantic fashion in the 18th century, and had a list of impressive visitors that included the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron. The house is just amazing - there are curious carvings everywhere - and many interesting stories accompany it.



We also walked by the canal which was picturesque, even if people kept steering their boats into the walls. There is also a very big aqueduct that we walked over (the highest navigable aqueduct in the world), which was interesting, but slightly frightening when overtaking people with prams or dogs who were also walking over it. It is quite high.

Big thanks must go to the Browns - thanks Phil, Ingy, James and Rose for having us, putting on discos, and teaching us rainy weather games. We had a wonderful time!