A holiday from holidaying

Sunny England

Back on a plane instead of a van and am flying myself to London to take a break from all this intense holidaying. As much as taking a break from a holiday sounds ridiculous there is a small element of truth in it; call it catching my breath. On both the tours I have done and the time I spent with Roger in-between it has been go go go the entire time. The most time I've spent in one spot was 5 days in Panama City and 6 days in New York, everything else apart from that has been at best 3 days, mostly 1 or 2 night stays. As soon as I get the chance to stop somewhere, especially now I'm on my own, I realise how exhausted I am. Living out of a backpack which you have to lug around everywhere you go can be a pain in the arse. I am quite happy to dedicate this entire month to sitting on a couch in front of a T.V. but I highly doubt that will happen.

My first few days in London was all business as I had to organise a visa for Ghana and send that back to Australia, buy a tent and a mattress and send it to my next tour companies HQ so they can pack it on the truck before it gets shipped to Morocco as well as restocking on basics and grabbing some more clothes etc. for the coming months in Africaland. Mix this in with a bit of sightseeing, checking out the British Museum, catching up with a friend I met in Colombia and a few drinks in the evenings and my 3 nights in London had soon come to an end.

Street art in London

 

Sand sculpture art on the edge of the Thames

 

From London I caught a bus to Oxford to check it out and to catch up with Lydia, a friend from my travels in Central America. The city is bustling and much bigger than I expected and there are students absolutely everywhere, 90% of them riding bikes with stereotypical reading glasses on. It is also full of tourists but I couldn't find anything remarkable about the city myself. It was nice but not amazing, with no real drawcard or standout attractions. The nightlife here with such a young population is supposed to be fairly good but I never had the energy to check it out.

After Oxford I made my way down to Bournemouth on the southern coast after an impromptu invite from a friend via Facebook that I travelled with in Bolivia and Peru in 2010. Kate and Richard were kind enough to put me up in their house for 2 amazing nights, made all the better by their 2 beautiful young sons Rowan and Samuel. Tasting the local badger beer, catching up on old times including watching some video footage of our time in Peru, yummy home cooked food which I have not had for so long and playing card games that I learnt years ago and have passed onto countless other travellers was the order of the day. After helping Richards friend move some furniture from storage into his new house in the morning we hit the road on 2 mountain bikes just after lunch, making for a forest that had some good trails. Fortunately for me (I was stuffed), when we got to the forest there was a car rally on so we got to stand around and watch that for a while. All up once we got home we had ridden approximately 14 miles which was not bad for a first effort.

 

The next morning before leaving we had a walk and then lunch on the waterfront in Bournemouth and the weather was atrocious. As Ollie Williams would say - its raining sideways!

 

 

The Fridge Tavern

 

Bournemouth Waterfront with Kate, Richard, Rowan & Samuel



 

Back to London, a city to which I have been to so many times yet have always managed to miss doing all the main tourist attractions. Not this time however as I put in a stellar effort and walked over 10 miles starting in Shepherds Bush>Natural History Museum>Buckingham Palace>Westminster/Big Ben>London Eye>Tate Modern>Tower Bridge>Tower of London.

Natural History Museum

Buckingham Palace

Westminster

Tower of London

Tower Bridge



Absolutely exhausted I got myself back to my hostel as the next morning I had a 9.5 hour bus ride (which ended up taking 11.5 hours) to Edinburgh. I do like to make a point of not travelling to places I've already been but Edinburgh held a special place with me, being the city I lived in for about 4 months in 2007/2008. I am also planning on going to Ireland and wanted to go via the ferry so this was the perfect stepping stone. Nostalgia kicked in the minute the bus drove into the city, driving past familiar landmarks and drinking holes, none less than my old work Deacon Brodies which is on the Royal Mile only about 500 metres down from Edinburgh Castle. I managed to get myself on a walking tour the next morning, something I never managed to do while I was living there.

 

Statue of the dog that returned to his owners grave every day for 14 years

Deacon Brodies - My old work

Edinburgh Castle

National Monument

Edinburgh skyline

 

So far my "time off" in the UK is not really going according to plan, moving from one place to another like they're going out of fashion. The few times I have slowed down however I've got itchy feet rather quickly. Moving around and being active has just become second nature, a far cry from when I was doing nightshift back at 000 and my body didn't function at all on my days off. I think this is for the better and I am still absolutely loving being on the road. 5 months away and its amazing to think that I'm only ¼ of the way into my trip. If I had to come home tomorrow I would be utterly disappointed and probably back on a plane within a week, I still have plenty of juice left that's for sure. I think the bet my brother put on me coming home before I was due is even more incentive to keep myself on the road, though not as much as the love of travelling. 

 

 

 

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