Sun, 15 Sep 2002

author Tim	location Fridaythorpe, England
posted 21:43 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/North and Central England ( all photos )

The Wash ( No photos )
Leaving Wisbech this morning, we headed first around the south side of The Wash - a bay of sorts in the east coast of England.
We made it along to Hunstanton, before turning and heading back around The Wash in the direction of the famous Carlisle. Once again, all the good vantage points were tourist havens, including the cities of Skegness (very similar to Blackpool in its lights and "amusement" parlours.
We took in lots of gorgeous countryside before heading back through the city of Hull which we visited the other day. We accessed this via the Humber Bridge, at the rather extortinate toll price of £2.50.
North through Hull, we eventually ended up at Fridaythorpe, another great little one pub town in the middle of nowhere (a little to the right of York on your handy UK map). We had a walk around the village, but you can only walk for about three minutes in any given direction before you hit open farmland.
Another long-ish driving day, we filled Percy up once again, noticing that we've done about 1500 miles in the short time he's been with us. We had a great lunch at yet another small pub-town somewhere, partaking in what seems to be a huge institution over here - Sunday Roast Lunch. Yum!
A few small observations on English life that don't quite fit in anywhere else:

• Warm beer isn't that bad
• You will get a maximum of five minutes driving between all country towns. This place is dense.
• Forget translating into Australian Dollars. It's too scary.
• People here know how to use roundabouts but have no idea about speedlimits. Even when doing 80mph on the motorways, expect to be overtaken by people doing more like 110mph. The police don't seem to care.
• Even though the Premier League Football (aka Soccer) is world-famous, it's not on TV here. Pay only. God love media monopolies.
• The English are scared of Australian sporting prowess. Barely a moment went by in the recent England vs. India cricket test without a mention of how they would have to shape up before meeting the Aussies down under.
• People don't even understand the term "Gday" here. I've got some strange looks. I mean, I understand when they greet me with "Wot u wont?", but they don't even understand our one unique greeting!
• Everyone here watches either Neighbours or Home and Away. Everyone.
• They don't have your good old-fashoned two-tap showers like we do back home - everything is high-tech, push-button, select temperature and flow-speed. We haven't found the same type twice and are yearning for the tried-and-true Aussie-style taps.
• The weather isn't as bad as everyone says. Yet.

author Tim	location Wisbech, England
posted 07:57 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/North and Central England ( all photos )

A few days on the road ( No photos )
Since we left Elswick, I've been quite slack updating this, but luckily Liz has been doing her "real" journal fairly dilligently, so I can read about what we have done!
The night of Friday the 13th saw us staying at a B&B in Thornhill, nestled in the Peak District National Park. Our way there saw us typically following some main roads, missing a turn-off, and then following lots of back roads to attempt to get back. It's a wonderful way to see around the place - try it sometime.
We have been through some great landscapes - plenty of villages in hills, pine forests, around Ladybower and Derwent dams (where the noisiest things were the sheep), and some great straight fast driving along canals.
Yesterday morning we took a trip to one of the many caverns near Castleton, which was named "Divilarse" in Old English. No prizes for guessing what it translates as. Quite similar in concept to Janolean Caves (except without the horrible entry road), we went on a tour of the caves which had around eight hundred years of documented history. Very interesting.
We are currently in a town called Wisbech, which is not many miles north of London - so we've come a long way. The place we're staying in is the most expensive so far, and the least nice. The B&Bs seem to be much more sparse over this part of the place, so we're on top of a pub called The Angel, which it definately isn't.
Food has generally been very good at the small B&Bs - great breakfasts, and easily reached good lunches and dinners. We're getting reasonably good at eating fairly cheaply for the day. However, we were tired last night after looking for so long for somewhere to stay, and ended up with a couple of bags of grease labelled fast food. Not good.
Today we head back to Carlisle up the East Coast - not sure how long we are going to take, but we have the motorways if need be. These can get us all the way back in a day basically, which is great for when we've had enough. But we haven't yet!

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