Knight on the moor
Thinking he was on his way to conquer Penrith.
2011 – Europe and Japan
Harewood house
On the way to Penrith we visited Harewood House. The owner is George Lascelles, the 7th Earl of Harewood. We discovered apart from being the first cousin of the Queen, he was also the director of the 1988 Adelaide Festival.
Flag was at half mast as he died on 11 of July.
Day trip to Beverley
while with my Aunt and Uncle, we visited Beverley for a day trip. It was very nice indeed! There were a number of interesting shops, a lovely Minster with ornate wood carvings.
No, we did not venture into this shop. There are only so many cakes you can eat on holiday!
Days in Hull
After London, we visited Hull for a couple of days to catch up with relatives. Where is Hull I hear you cry…. On the river Hull of course in England! No, not the one in Canada. More info read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_upon_Hull
Every time a family member from Australia visits Hull we are required to visit Ventnor Street, where my mum grew up, and take a photo. Usually, it is uneventful. This time, a bloke popped out of the house opposite, quickly getting dressed, and said “what are ya doing takin’ a picture of my car for?”. Your going to have to use your own imagine on the accent. Once explained, it was okay, but he did move his car. And for the record, we did take a photo of his car. The bumper bar was held on to the rest car with cable ties.
KDT’s Top 5 Coffee
1) Greystoke Cycle Cafe, a barn out the back of house with toasties, cakes, and coffee. What makes it great? It’s welcoming approach and plenty of towels to dry wet cyclists. Coffee is pretty good.
2) Monmouth Coffee – Monmouth Street London. Great coffee focus with extensive coffee menu. It appears that special coffees are only available as filter coffee. Very busy with local workers getting takeaway.
3) Nude Espresso – Eastend somewhere, good coffee with schmick interior a great relaxing spot. They roast their own coffee.
4) Java – Keswick does a great mocha with Belgian chocolate. Also muffins made on site are extremely yummy.
5) Brick Lane Coffee – great coffee vibe only problem is paper cups only.
We also had some chain coffee. That was horrible. Also, you’d expect good restaurants to do good coffee. This is not true.
Road signs
i love cycling overseas you get to see all sorts of interesting signs. This one is great. I didn’t know that Red Squirrels in England are licensed to drive.
DC’s Final PMP
I had to track DC down in London to complete his final PMP.
It was by far the best PMP I’ve done. It was held outside Terroirs a wine bar near the theatre district. French wine, olives, chacuterie and cheese. We discovered that DC had taken the initiative and explored England and Europe widely.
His communication skills, especially written have excelled. He tailors his message to the audience. Direct and colourful to those following him on Facebook and polite and considered for those following his blog see http://dcdoesuk.blogspot.com/
There is no doubt that he is having a ball!
Love the local signs!
When you get sick of cycling…
The top of a big red bus can be a great way to see London. Besides, the driver has a better idea of how to get to the destination than hapless Adelaide cyclists (see previous post!).
Boris Bikes
We rode Boris Bikes on each of our four days in London. I distinctly recall being amazed a the number of docking stations when sitting on my couch back in Adelaide when I looked at the docking station PDF. But, in a variation of Murphy’s Law, you can never seem to find one when you are on the bike looking for one to leave you bike and when you don’t need one.
Here is our list of dos an don’ts
Do
1) make sure you have a map of docking stations – that may help overcome the Murphy’s law variation described above.
2) download a map app and mount your iPhone to the handlebar – it will save you cycling the wrong direction for 20 minutes. We tried to head to the Victoria and Albert museum but somehow ended up in the inner east!?!
3) make sure when you dock the bike, that the lights appear. We didn’t get the lights once and went for a little walk only to be prevented from picking up the two required bikes. This then involves a phone call and walking back to the original docking station.
4) Do cycle near Buckingham Palace at 11:00am, it is lot easier to ride on the road (no cars) than walking.
Don’ts
1) Ride the wrong way up a one-way street. (There are many of those!) The friendly police become less friendly.
2) Avoid the roads near Buckingham Palace at 11:00am. I am throwing out a big hello to the 10s of thousands of tourists who have taken a photo of the Australian couple cycling around the Palace. We were the only traffic on the street.
3) Cycle to a docking station in a tourist area in the morning expecting a space to be available. There won’t be any! It might look like it will save time but trying to find another docking station with space can be frustrating.
4) Don’t conclude because you see a name that you recognise that you are cycling the right direction. Helen said something like “Look, that sign says St James, we must be almost there.” The fact was that we were cycling in the opposite direction.
5) Expect any street-map or sign to be helpful for finding a docking station. The only exception are the maps on the docking station. Catch 22, the problem is you are looking at the map because the docking station can’t be found (I never thought they could disappear Dr Who style).
