After spending three weeks last summer waking up each
morning cramped and sore from spending the night in our little Crampervan, I
wasn’t really keen to do it again this summer.
But economics won out. This
little van is really the most economical, if not the most comfortable, way to
tour around England. So lugging our
suitcases and bedding we took a bus, two trains and a bus to Woolwich to pick
up our Crampervan. Fortunately this year
we were not given a pink van and we would not embarrass our friends, who last
year were tempted to ask us to park down the street when we came to visit.
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| Our home for two weeks - blue and gray is much better than last year's pink |
So on the road again down the M25 then the M23 to spend the
night at a little farm campground near Corfe on the Isle of Purbeck. Corfe is a pretty quaint town with the ruins
of a Medieval castle (thanks to Cromwell) overlooking the stone and slate
houses from the 16th Century.
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| Corfe Castle |
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| Corfe Village |
The next day we took a 5 minute ferry across the mouth of
Poole Harbour, a boating heaven, pass Brownsea Island, the home of the Boy
Scouting movement, and on to Bournemouth to visit Bob’s cousin, his only
remaining relative in England.
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| Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour |
After a very nice lunch and visit with Stephen, we went down
memory lane and visited Bob’s old primary and high schools. The primary school is now a children’s centre
and the high school went from a ‘failed school’ after Bob left to a very
desirable private C of E school. Both
buildings had people working in them and were happy to show us around. We also took a walk to the infamous Throop
Mill and River Stour, a notoriously dangerous river with lots of weed, where Bob as a 4 year old had ridden his trike (several kilometres
from his home) while his mother was frantically looking for him and his father
was called home from work to join the search.
Bob had happily returned home by himself oblivious to the gray hairs he produced in
his parents.
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| Throop Mill |
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| River Stour |
The next day we made our way to the windy cliff side of
Portland Bill going along beautiful countryside of patchwork fields lined with
hedgerows and through quaint villages of stone, slate and thatch. The weather was sunny and I do think that on
fair days like this the English country side must be one of the prettiest
places on earth.
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| Portland Downs |
Next stop was Chesil Beach along the Jurassic Coast. This is a wildlife sanctuary and amazing
geological phenomena. The shingle beach
is made up of wonderful round stones that are surprisingly comfortable to lie
on. Unfortunately no swimming is allowed
as the rips and waves are quite dangerous.
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| Chesil Beach |
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| Bob having a lie down |
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| Twitters of the non-electronic variety |
Onward to Torquay where we looked up the Gleneagles Hotel
which was the inspiration for the TV series, Fawlty Towers.
The hotel is now a construction site for
future retirement villas.
Never mind, none
of the filming of the TV series was done in Torquay anyway.
The series was filmed in Buckinghamshire
where there is no sea frontage at all.
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| The Buckinghamshire location |
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| The Torquay inspiration site 30 years later |
The last stop for the day was Brixham, a small seaside town
where we needed to pick up a part for our autopilot. We never would have stopped over at Brixham
otherwise but it turned out to be a lovely town with a small but lively working
fishing harbour. The town’s brass band
was giving a concert on the quayside and it all was quite cute and nostalgic.
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| Brixham Harbour |
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