It was time for our first real sleep in without an alarm before
heading to the world famous Stonehenge.
I am sure it is no surprise to you that we didn’t really do any research
before planning when we would visit Stonehenge.
It turns out that we missed the Summer Solstice by one day, the only day
of the year you can touch the stones! We
didn’t let that dampen our spirits and took in the view of the amazing stones. It really is just some massive stones in the
middle of a paddock, but the history behind them is probably the more
interesting part of the landmark than the actual landmark itself in my
opinion. We took the opportunity to pack
our own lunch (turkey, avocado, cheese and spinach sandwiches) and sat on the
grass to take in the view while eating. It was a beautiful day and I thoroughly
enjoyed the hour or so we spent there.
We also stopped in at Old Serum on the way which is home to the kings
castle from I couldn’t even tell you how many years ago. It was a lot of broken down stone but the
views were so amazing and I even got to see some sheep!
After making our own dinner again (being able to cook again
I was in heaven I tell you!) this time a chicken pesto salad with some fresh
produce from the Sailsbury market we headed to a local pub to watch some more
Euro cup, Englands last pool game. We
had also been to a pub in London when England were playing Sweden and I was
much happier to see that the crowd was more tame than the mob that we watched
with in London!
We headed off to Bristol the next morning to spend the day
with my travel buddys family. They took
us on a driving tour of the city and we saw the famous suspension bridge and
river avon. I was very surprised that
the tide was so low that you basically just saw mud with a little water laying
on the bottom. They cooked us a devine
home cooked meal and was a very welcome change to be in a house where people
live permanently! We had planned a
lovely bike ride to the historic town of Bath for the next day, but of course our
good intentions of getting in a bit of exercise was ruined by a downpour of
rain. We took the opportunity to have another
sleep in and then head out for brunch before catching yet another bus to
Bath. We went to a little cafe on the
waterfront where we saw not only the water in the river, but the downpour of
rain around us to fill another river! I
decided that as we were having no ride today I should opt for a healthy option
and I choose a capra burger which was a vegetable falafel burger with goats cheese
, grilled capsicums and caramilsed onion.
My mother would be pleased to know that it was on wholegrain bread
too! It was probably the most delicious
vegetable burger I have ever eaten, and I do like a good vegie burger from time
to time. The goats cheese was strong in
parts but the onions balanced the flavours perfectly and if a vegetarian meal
was that good all the time, I would seriously consider being a vego. We both enjoyed our meals so much that we
even went back there for dinner where I tried out some fajitas! My spice crave had kicked in again so it was
just the fix I needed! I realise I have
completely skipped over our afternoon at Bath, but with the weather being so
horrible we basically spent the afternoon hopping from shop to shop to avoid
the rain. We did manage to see that
famous Bath houses and also the cathedral before heading back to devour dinner and
then an early night in.
The next morning we had some time to kill before heading to
Birmingham so we wandered through the markets and did a little more shopping,
well more browsing as my pack is too full to actually buy anything! By the time lunch had rolled around we were a
little bit over aimlessly wandering to pass time as the weather was continuing
to dampen our ability to do any real tourist sightseeing so we decided to take
the opportunity to try something neither of us had experienced before, a full
on sushi restaurant with a sushi train.
Don’t get me wrong, I have tried sushi before (or what Aussies call
sushi, hand rolls, which is actually just one type of sushi) and I cannot
stress to you how much I love a good californian roll so I was super excited to
give this a whirl. You can either order
something off the menu and see it be made in front of you or you can take
something off the train that continuously loops around in front of you. There are certain things that are so popular
they never make it around so I ordered a californian hand roll to start with. I was keen to see if this was going to live
up to my expectations as I had heard that the sushi in England was horrible
compared to the majority of Australian sushi.
Luckily for me it did not disappoint and it was obviously super fresh
and was most importantly delicious. I think the main difference is the nori was
not moistened to complete the joins and admittedly it did feel a little like I
was eating paper when I was getting to the ends with no rice. I tried a couple of other dishes off the
train including a noodle dish and a salad.
After stuffing our stomachs we headed to Birmingham to meet
up with a friend. As we arrived fairly
late we headed back to her apartment and an early night before a jam packed
day. We decided it was time to visit our
childhood years in ways that we cannot in Australia and went to the ice skating
rink for disco Saturday! It sure was an
experience but I am pleased to say that I did not fall over once and got around
the ice quite a few times. It was bit of fun before a quick tour around
Birmingham. We visited Birmingham City
football stadium before driving into the city centre. Apparently Birmingham is well known for its
bulls, although I am not really sure why, but in the middle of a shopping
centre there is a large bull made out of jelly beans. It was amazing and was for sale, if only I
had somewhere to store it!!
As my friend is originally from Nottingham we then drove the 45mins or so to spend the night with her friends. It was a great change to attend a house party and meet some new people and was a lot of fun.
As my friend is originally from Nottingham we then drove the 45mins or so to spend the night with her friends. It was a great change to attend a house party and meet some new people and was a lot of fun.
Before heading back to Birmingham the next day our friend
was very adamant that there was no way she was letting us out of her custody
without us trying Jamaican food. When
she lived in Australia she said this was the one type of take away cuisine that
she missed the most. So as always we
gave it a try from a shop called Mr Cool, apparently the best take away shop in
Nottingham. The meals are HUGE and my
travel buddy and I opted to share a small chicken curry. The container was filled with at least half
rice and the remainder curry, they even wrap the container up in glad wrap as
its overflowing with food. The curry is
more like a stew and the meat has obviously been cooked for a long time as it
was so tender it just fell apart. Similar
to an Indian style curry but with less spice the flavours were delicious and so
filling that between the two of us we didn’t get close to finishing it
all. It was delicious though and will be
something that I try again when I have the opportunity, apparently the mutton
soup with dumplings is a must have.
We are now in back in London after catching another bus and
staying in Hammersmith the night before heading out to Gatwick to stay one
night as we have an early flight to Spain on Tuesday morning. Apparently it will be 43 degrees when we
land so we have reorganised our pack and arranged to leave all our winter gear
behind with some friends. Time to get
some sleep now as we have finally got our runners back that we left behind in
London before going on tour. We are planning on our first run of our trip to
get back into the swing of exercising to work off some, if not all, of this
delicious food I have been going on about xx
Oh, we would be in heaven with the jelly beans in our house Chlo! I can just see it in the paddock now, with everyone helping themselves! x M
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