The first bit.

After a long flight from Australia via Bankok we landed at Heathrow, faffed around picking up the hire car and set off. Turned out we had a bit more baggage than I first anticipated, so we kinda blew my chaep on-line pre-booking with an upgrade… But it turns out that the huge diesel Vauxhall we’re now hooning about in has Sat-Nav, an option I’d binned because it was going to cost too much as an after market thing. Of course we didn’t work it out till we’d done a good few km on Heathrow’s local roads looking for the first exit – but that’s traditional.



First stop, about 90 minutes up the freeway, Warwick Castle. We weren’t sure how we’d feel after the loooong flight, but we decided to have a go at the castle. Lots of walking, but worth it. Warwick Castle dates from the time of William the Conqueror, but is mostly Tudor in it’s past. It’s present is a bit slicker as it’s now run by the same people who run Madame Tussades in London, so shows ahoy.

Pooped as we all were, it was none the less brilliant, and the beauty was that there was lots of lush grass all around for us to collapse on from time to time. I think we put in a good four hours.

The off to Stratford Upon Avon – a very pretty town (but for all the tourists!! Chocker!) and the birth place of Shakespeare. We had it easier than he, for a measley three quid (cheapest thing we’ve done so far) the tourist info office phoned around and set us up in a B&B within walking distance of town. Cool! Dinner and a sleep! We walked through town with our eyeballs dragging on ye olde roade, to a kiddy friendly pub that the tourism people recommended to us. Not bad. The town is cool and has been for some years, bit is wrestling with the new age somewhat!

Indi says:

The plane was really boring. At least we had things like a tv, cd and movies. I spent heaps of time looking at how long it was to Bangkok. I found Bangkok airport was bizarre looking. It’s very new and reminds me of a circus tent crossed with civic! We had to fly with the sunrise and it was very long running. Once we got to London we got the car and drove to Warwick Castle. It was interesting there. I found that medieval people were immune to claustrophobia, however I’m not. We walked up the battlements it was very long. There was a really old part of the castle, called the mound, that was about a thousand years old. After that we drove to Stratford-upon-Avon to find somewhere to stay. I was so tired. We went to have dinner at the end of a long day about the same time as everyone at home was just going to school. Grandpa Dave was tired too. He spent a few minutes trying to work out what time it was in Scotland to ring his friend David Mollison…until we pointed out that it was the same time as here now that we were in England.