rachel.blog

Category: Travel

  • Durham

    Yesterday we went to Durham – “a perfect little city” – according to Bill Bryson. In his book Notes from a small island, Bill Bryson summarises so well the feel of the place, so I’m going to copy and paste his words here: Why, it’s wonderful – a perfect little city – and I kept thinking:…

  • Leicester

    We went to Leicester for the weekend. Leicester, I have learned, has something of a bad reputation in the UK. When I tried to find out why this is the case, it is simply that there is a large immigrant population there. This is certainly true but I did not feel unsafe there, the people…

  • Yorkshire Museum of Farming

    We cycled to the Museum of Farming on Sunday. It was just outside York so a fair distance for me on the bike but easily manageable and very, very enjoyable. I feel truly alive at the moment with all this physical activity. The museum itself was a great deal more than just a museum. There…

  • Knaresborough

    Today was a fabulous day. It was one of those days that was completely unplanned with the decision to go somewhere made at the last moment. This morning, on impulse, we caught the train to Knaresborough, a market town less than half an hour away. Knaresborough is a gorgeous and fascinating place and I thoroughly…

  • Cycling the Solar System

    Not often in my life, never actually, have I had people proclaim, “COOL!” just at the sight of me but when I go cycling on the bakfiets, it happens all the time. Ok, so they’re referring to the bike rather than to me but I’m not going to let the facts get in the way…

  • York Museum Gardens

  • Cycling in York

      The ease with which we can cycle around York has surpassed all of my expectations. Perhaps this is because we have come from car-dependent Auckland where bicycles are not catered for very well, so I really didn’t expect much. In York, however, there are many completely off-road cycle paths like this one above which…

  • Rowntree Park

    York’s Rowntree Park is an absolute gem. It is public green space which was gifted to the city of York by Rowntree (the chocolate company) in 1921 in memory of employees of the company who died during the war. It’s now a huge park with children’s playgrounds, bowling and putting green, skate park, tennis courts,…

  • We’ve got a bakfiets!

    We have been very busy here. So busy in fact, that I’ve neglected my blog. But I have some great news to report today: we have wheels! Just two, completely carbon-neutral wheels. This is an original Dutch bakfiets, a second-hand one, built especially for lugging children and shopping around town and countryside. I have wanted…

  • An English pub lunch

    Something missing from Australia and New Zealand is the cosy and characterful village pub. I have fond memories from when I used to live here of visiting English pubs on Sundays for a pub lunch. Today we enjoyed a Sunday lunch at The Black Swan in York, a 15th Century haunted house. It was wonderful.…

  • York…WOW

    I visited York briefly many years ago and saw the city centre, the Minster and the Shambles. I can remember thinking at the time, WOW. Coming back again now it is all just as WOW as it was back then. Here are some of the things we saw today.

  • More pics of the main streets of St Andrews

  • The Himalayan Putting Course

    Someone suggested to me this morning that we visit the The Himalayan Putting Course in St Andrews and by strange coincidence we just happened to be on our way to this very spot.  The Himalayan Putting Course is run by the Ladies Putting Club and is open to everyone, including beginners and children but only…

  • When in Rome…

    We’re in St Andrews, the birthplace of golf, and what better way to introduce the kids to the sport than by visiting the British Golf Museum? It’s not a free museum but I think we got our money’s worth. It’s filled with cabinet after cabinet of old golf clubs, golf balls, trophies and medals and…

  • St Andrews

    We are in the lovely coastal village of St Andrews, Scotland. The Ricoh British Women’s Golf Open is currently running (not the reason we’re here) and the place is heaving with golf enthusiasts. An English friend of mine who recently spent some time in New Zealand (you know who you are!) told me that British…

  • Day 2 in Glasgow

    We have word from a Glaswegian that it rains twice a year in Glasgow: for three months over the summer and nine months over the winter. I like a city that can make fun of itself. Today was a rainy day so we took the city bus tour which was terrific and I highly recommend…

  • Glasgow

    We are in Glasgow. I’ve never been here before and have wanted to visit the city for some time so yesterday we caught the train from London to Glasgow which was a very fast 4.5 hour journey covering over 540km. I love Glasgow. It has quite a distinctive look to it with lots of grand…

  • London: Day 3

    Yesterday was a day of museums. Our plan was to visit the Natural History Museum but when we got there we found an enormous queue to get in. So instead we went into the Victoria and Albert museum which is right next door and was queue-free. We barely touched the surface of this museum which…

  • London: Day 2

    Before we left Auckland, we went for a walk to Butterfly Creek to fill in some time and Elizabeth found a stick on the ground which she was determined to take on the plane. We tried to talk her out of this idea and so we told her that the people at security wouldn’t let…

  • We're in London. Be afraid, be very afraid.

    We are finally in London after a gruelling 44-hour journey from door-to-door. It didn’t start off so well as there was a five-hour-delay for our initial flight out of Auckland. This in turn meant we missed our connecting flight in Hong Kong. They fortunately put us up in a hotel overnight in Hong Kong but…