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Highlands, Islands and back to Cities

 

Travels further afield

We've been busy taking day trips in and around Oxford. On Monday we went to Portsmouth to visit the Historic Naval Dockyards. It is a most impressive place to visit. They have some very historic ships that you can explore. We toured The Warrior which was the first iron clad warship built in the world. She dates from 1861 and has been totally restored so that visitors can experience a bit of what it must have been like to have been on her in the 19th century.
The second historic ship that has been restored was Nelson's ship HMS Victory. It is an amazing ship to visit. It's the ship Admiral Nelson commanded in the Battle of Trafalgar, and where he was killed. They even have the spot marked where he was hit during the battle. It has many decks and you go up and down many, many very narrow sets of stairs as you explore each deck level. The head clearance is very low, so it's a good thing Mum and I are not tall.
The third ship is the most amazing of them all. It's the Mary Rose. Henry the VIII's naval flagship that sank in the Solent River in 1545. It settled in mud on the river bed and was rediscovered in 1971. It was finally raised from the sea bed in 1982. It has taken 34 years for it to be fully restored and it is now completely dry and you can see it clearly. It's incredible. Half of the ship was preserved as it lay submerged in the mud and that is the half that's on display. The other half rotted away as it was exposed to the sea water. They have the most amazing artefacts from the wreck on display. Gold, silver, weapons, chests, clothing, instruments, tools, ornaments, skeletons and even the ship's dog! It is the most incredible exhibition!
We've also been to the Ashmolean Museum, the Bodlean Library and some of the university colleges, as well as the Alice in Wonderland Shop. It's all been great!
Yesterday we went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park. This was once a stately home which was transformed into a Wildlife conservation park in the 1970's. It was lovely. Very well set up and easy to walk around. They had lots of interesting animals, the obvious lions, giraffes, camels, etc, but also many more unusual ones - simians, lemurs, colobus, porcupines, wolves, tapirs, capybaras and even a lawn area which had 5 rhinos. It was lovely. We had a very nice day looking at an enormous variety of creatures from snails, mice, snakes, tarantulas, bats and fish to pigs, donkeys, leopards, lions and giraffes.
More soon

Oxford....without the pictures!

Ok, I know when I'm beaten, so this is just a written blog without any photos. I can't make it publish photos at all.
We are staying in our neat little flat, unfortunately it's up 4 flights of stairs, which is fine without suitcases, but not so easy with! It's a very nice flat which overlooks some canal boats on the Thames. We are only a 10 minute walk from the centre of Oxford. It's very pretty and very convenient.
We now have a car, a black Ford Focus. A nice little car, luckily with built in Sat Nav, as the GPS I brought from Melbourne has decided not to work in England. What a pain!
We have done a couple of trips. We drove to Leicester on Thursday and visited the Richard the Third museum. It was very different from our last visit in 2013. The whole site has been redeveloped and it's been done extremely well. We also visited the cathedral where Richard the Third was reinterred last year. It was a fabulous experience.
On Saturday we went to the water bird conservation centre at Slimbridge in Gloucester. We spent the whole day there looking at flamingos, swans, geese, ducks, coots, moorhens, cranes and even otters. It was lovely. We even saw the otters being fed and listened to a talk by one of the otter keepers. They are very cute animals.
The weather has continued to be lovely. We have been very lucky in the last week or so. I hope it stays fine until we leave for home in a week and a bit.

Oxford - Ducks, water and spires

I am trying to add a few photos to the blog. It seems to be working, but I can only add a few photos as it is quite a complicated procedure.
We arrived in Oxford on Saturday after catching the train from Glasgow to London and then a train from London to Oxford. We caught a taxi to our lovely flat and finally arrived at 6.00 pm. .
The view from our flat.
We went into Oxford on Sunday to have a look around. We stopped by the Thames so that GG could feed the ducks.




On Monday and Tuesday we caught the Hop On Hop Off bus. The weather was FANTASTIC! Temperatures in the high 20's and low 30's. Clear blue skies and sunshine. Amazing, you could be wondering which country you were in.....but it really is England and it is staying warm for several days!
This is the best I can do. It is incredibly tricky to add photos to this blogging site. I've added 2 and I'll try again tomorrow. As you can see, although I thought I'd added photos they have not been posted. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

To the far north and then south to Skye

Today we left the Royal Hotel in Thurso at 8.00am to catch the ferry to the Orkney Islands. We had a brief stop at John O' Groats for a 'photo opportunity. Kate, our lovely tour guide, tripped and fell and hurt her hand and ankle, but she's a trooper and she said she was fine.

We then drove to Gill's Point to catch the ferry across to the Orkneys. The coach (it's not a bus) driver had to reverse the coach onto the ferry so that it could be driven off. Amazing skill.

 

 

It took about an hour to get across to the main island of the Orkneys. We landed at St Margaret's Hope and drove off the ferry.

 

We had to drive over the Churchill Barriers to get to our first stop on the island. The Churchill Barriers were built by 600 Italian prisoners of war during WW11 to protect the British navy. The navy fleet was anchored at Scapa Floe, the huge natural harbour of Orkney, but a German U-boat had got in and destroyed one of the ships, so the POW's were sent there to make and place huge concrete blocks up to 70 feet down to prevent any further U-boats entering the harbour. They also sunk ships in front and behind as additional deterrents. There are four Churchill Barriers and they are now used as causeways or bridges.

 

We arrived at The Standing Stones Hotel for lunch. It was all very nice. They had a huge trout trophy on the wall. It was 28lbs. I didn't know trout could grow that big!

After lunch we went to the Standing Stones of Brodgar which is a complete circle of stones which were brought from different locations all over the island and erected there. They are opposite a large burial mound. You van walk around the stones and touch them, unlike Stonehenge, where you can't get Clos to them. There is a ditch, or henge as it's called in these parts. The heather was just starting to flower around the henge. It's very pretty.

 

 

 

Off we went again, this time to Skara Brae, the 5000 year old community that was discovered in 1850 after a terrific storm blew the sand dunes away. It is truly amazing! There are only 8 houses and a workshop, but they are so well preserved. Everything is made of rock and stone. They are small but perfectly formed. You can only walk above them now and look down into them, so as to protect them. It is right on the beach but it is thought that originally they were further inland but over the thousands of years erosion has bought the beach closer.

 

 

After our visit to Skara Brae we headed into the capital of the Orkneys, Kirkwall. We visited the cathedral, St Magnus and the ruins of the Bishop's and the Earl's Palace. The highlight, however, was some dogs who were playing in the grounds. They were two Scottish Deerhounds and a grey hound. GG was in her element.

 

 

We then headed off to the Italian Chapel which was built by the Italian POW's while they were constructing the Churchill Barriers. It was built out of two old Nissan huts and is absolutely gorgeous. The men built it in their spare time so that they had a place to worship. When the POW camp was decommissioned this was allowed to remain. It is truly beautiful. It was built from scrap and bits of stuff no one wanted or needed. Truly amazing.

 

A long day, but a day well spent. We saw some absolutely fabulous things.

 

 

This will be a big blog if I can ever get it posted....... There is very little WiFi connection in the north or on the islands.

 

Today (Monday, 8.00 am) we left Thurso and the Royal Hotel, with all its quirks and foibles.It is an old fashioned place as you can tell from the shop windows.

 

We will be travelling along the northern coast to the most westerly town and then we'll head south to the island of Skye. Most of the day will be spent on the coach. We drove past the experimental nuclear power plant that was built in the 1950s and is now being decommissioned. Apparently that will take between 50 and 100 years.

We also saw some amazing scenery.....

 

 

There is an incredible amount of water everywhere. It was drizzly and wet today so there was water lying, flowing, falling, swirling and rushing everywhere you looked. There was cut peat laid out to dry, numerous sheep and even a letterbox and phone box placed in the middle of nowhere! Perhaps it was for the sheep.

 

We stopped for lunch at Ullapool. A very pretty fishing town. We went to the Seaforth hotel and had some very delicious fish and chips.

After lunch we continued to drive south. The rain cleared a little and we stopped to take photos of the castle of Eilean Donnan. This is where they filmed 'The Highlander'. Very picturesque.

We finally arrived at the Kings Arms hotel on Skye at 6.00 pm. We came over the road bridge rather than on the ferry. Tomorrow we will explore Skye.

 

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