Late summer and early autumn in England and Iceland!

We have always maintained that the best time to visit England is late summer/early autumn when the weather is at its best, the kids are back at school and the trees are beginning to change colour. Quieter (for England!) roads, warmish and mostly dry days and the gardens are still lovely. Mind you, traffic is never far away, even when driving down narrow country roads bordered by high hedges.

We have traveled all over the UK this trip and never cease to be delighted by the beautiful cottages and villages and green and leafy vistas we have seen on the way.  The place names are so descriptive like Upper and Lower Slaughter near Bourton on the Water, the Puddles - Allpuddle, Tolpuddle (of Martyr fame) and more.

Saffron Walden

While in Devon, we made the trip to Cornwall to see the Eden Project, where a disused quarry has been brilliantly coaxed back into life as an educational and participatory experiment with plants from throughout the tropics and the Mediterranean growing in huge biomes with the rest of the space planted out in vegetables, British trees and shrubs.  We did find a few Kangaroo Paws and Everlastings which were tucked into the South African display – they obviously haven’t heard about the thousands of amazing wildflowers we have in Western Australia!

 

We stayed with friends in Bristol and just outside Gloucester and enjoyed wandering the old docks in both cities where warehouses now house inner city workers and their families and gardens, old boats, bridges are now next to restaurants, bars and cafes.  

Some aging mods revving up for a cruise - lots of 2 stroke burnt up!

 We joined the Australian National Trust  before we left which gives you free entry into National Trust and English Heritage properties in the UK too. Great value as the cost is more than recouped by just a couple of free visits to NT UK properties on your travels and you can get involved in the NT when you get back too!

Over a couple of weeks of travelling through the south of England on our way to visit friends and relations, we visited a varied assortment of properties filled with all manner of furniture, collected knick knacks and paintings and some marvellous formal & informal gardens including Arlington Court in Devon ; Westbury Court Garden and Tyntesfield in North Somerset; Snowshill near Gloucester; Wimpole near Cambridge, with the final visit yesterday to Winston Churchill’s home at Chartwell.

Snowshill where Charles Wade kept his eccentric collections

Cambridge is a favourite family spot and we were lucky to have lunch at Trinity College in the Great Hall with some illustrious living Fellows and with Henry VIII looking down on us as we ate. Just a bit different to good old Murdoch Uni!

Yet another highlight – a family trip to Iceland!

Rugged up for an Iceland autumn!

Iceland is so named for a good reason although our first day proved a false start as the sun shone brightly unlike the other four days, albeit with a top temperature of 10degrees. Thermals, beanies and coats are de rigeur although we spotted a few locals in shorts and the odd tshirt. Aside from the weather, the scenery is superb - wide open spaces, mountains and fiords, waterfalls and geysers, lava fields, glaciers and lakes. Reykjavik, the capital houses over 60% of the 320,000 population so once you exit the “built-up area” it is very like parts of the South Island of NZ. Fences along the side of the roads keep horses, sheep and cattle in and every few kilometres you see a farmhouse and out-buildings or two and little else but sea, lava fields, mountains and sky – so much space!

In order to sample this wonderful scenery you need to travel long distances.  You can take bus tours but we chose to hire a jeep which would fit the six of us. The roads are pretty good and weren’t busy.   

Solheimajokull glacier, part of  http://www.icelandontheweb.com/articles-on-iceland/nature/glaciers/myrdalsjokull/

Pingvellir rift in the fissure zone

Tourism is a major source of income and seems a natural fit for Icelanders, they are friendly and happy to share their country and, luckily for us, are natural English speakers because their language is not easy to pronounce or even spell. Try Pingvellir when the p is sounded as th, or Myrdalsjokull.

With a geologist amongst us, we learned about the different sorts of lava which cover the landscape – the main landscape colours being green and black – black lava/rock and sand.   At Pingvellir we saw the rift in the fissure zone which runs through Iceland, being situated on the tectonic plate boundaries of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Then on the south coast, the bridge between the Eurasian and North American plates on Reykjanes Island.   All this and shots of steam from hot pools and geysers everywhere.  Iceland is self-sufficient in renewable energy with geothermal power stations dotted around the landscape. 

With one final visit to the New Forest, our stay in the UK is over for another few years and we are now on the boat steaming past wind turbines in the channel on a flat and misty sea towards the Hook of Holland! Just one thought to leave you with from Sculptures by the Lake