Gurus: July 2005

Our Scotland trip began with a trip to New Lanark Village. It was a small community that began around 1795 as a self sufficent village where children were able to go to school instead of working in the cotton mills from such an early age. People were given free health care and were all in employment. They had their own New Lanark currency even.

New Lanark had a wildlife reserve and lovely waterfall.

On the Isle and Arran, just after Whiting Bay, we went on a walk up to the Glenashdale Falls. The scenery was similar to NZ bush but not quite as dense.

On the Isle of Arran we discovered this rather large waterfall called Glenashdale.

We couldn't quite get our bikes up here, but managed to bike half way and walk half way.

We had to bike up some rather large hills to get the good views like this one. Susan was a little tired, to put it politely.

Mike on his bike on the Coastal road around Isle of Arran.

One of the many castles in Scotland which had amazing views.

A lonely castle with some spectacular views.

Some great views of the coast on the Isle of Skye.

There were some very hilly parts around the Isle of Skye.

Some great photo opportunities on the Isle of Skye. Very pretty.

To our suprise we saw a Highland bull just wandering around on the road.

Mike got rather excited when we arrived at St Andrew Old Golf Course. He was a bit annoyed that the Open had finished the weekend before we arrrived in Scotland.

Half way around Loch Ness we spotted this old ruin of Urquhart Castle - a bit touristy though.

Because we didn't see the real Nessie we thought this would do.

Here we are at the well known Loch Ness. Very pretty but no better than a lot of the other Lochs around Scotland. Didn't manage to spot Nessie though.

A very old ruin of Resteneth Priory near Forfar. The earliest building work here was done around 710 AD.

A Scotch thistle in Scotland. Had to be done!

A photo of the William Wallace Monument from the carpark. It was a steep walk up to the top.

The view out over Stirling country side was rather breathtaking.

The roof of the Wallace Monument was very artistic.

Inside the Monument there was a lot of history about the life of Wallace, including this bright stained glass window.

Mike sitting with William Wallace at the Wallace Monument in Stirling.

21 July 2005

Has been a while since our last post on this blog so I thought that I had better update it before we head off on our big expeditions overseas. Only one day left of school for the school year and then we are up for a 6 week break! We are, as you would expect, rather excited about our summer travels as this is really our big chance to see as much of Europe as we can before we come home in December.

Last weekend we headed up to Leamington Spa and caught up with some of Mike's relatives. Mike's mums cousin was having a barbeque with a few of the family (who we had not met before) so it was nice to put a face to some of the names that Margaret has been dropping over the years. When we arrived at the train station I said to Mike, how are we going to know who she is? When we saw her it was rather obvious as she looked very similar to Mike's mums side of the family.

While we were there we had a look around Warick Castle which was rather massive, but quite comericalised. Still, it was worth the visit as it had a lot of attractions going on outside in the castle grounds including a Trebuchet, which is a rather large Catapolt Machine made from wood.

Well we are off to Scotland on Friday night it should be good, our Aussie flatmates are moving out so we have had to find replacements, it just happend that our old mate Malcom from Rebel Sport and his girlfriend Pauline were looking for a new place. I have flatted with the both of them back in Hamilton so we are looking forward to having some close mates around. Check out the photos and we will post some more soon. Take care.

Warrick Castle on a beatiful english summers day???

The view into the catle grounds and the wall from the inside.

The State Dinning Room, fit for a King!

One of the towers of Warrick castle, a nice view of the country.

A very old bridge from the castle.

The grounds of the castle over the river.

The trebuchet seen from the top of the castle tower, (very impressive) the largest in Europe.

Trebuchet from the side, huge you can just see some people beside it.

Belgium - Brussels

We had a great weekend in Brussels a couple of weekends ago now. We took the Eurostar over, or should I say under the sea on Saturday morning very early along with my parents. Had a good look around the Grande Place and the Saturday markets before having a spot of lunch. Then we did a walking tour of the City on our own and thought that it was quite pretty really - some nice gardens and some very interesting eating places where they basically try to push you onto a table and chair to have a meal. On Sunday we rose early to make the most of our last day and headed to the Main Museum centre about half and hours walk from the hotel.

We first visited Autoworld (dad's choice of course) followed by the military museum, which believe it or not I actually found rather interesting as they had quite a collection of aircrafts. The best part though was the Natural History Museum which was quite amazing. They had a huge collection of insects and very large hairy and quite scary spiders (and if you know me you will know that I hate spiders). They had about 20 different varietys of hideous spiders which were actually living, which of course I had a few squeals and screams about.

Mike and I headed back that evening, not before buying some chocolates (which I must say were delicious) and chocolate coated icecream and waffles (a dream). Mum and Dad stayed on for another 2 nights and visited Antwerp and Waterloo battle grounds.