Spring Time in England

We've added a few highlights from the last few months in England including local stuff around Felsted and trips to London to catch up with mates, see some sites, watch some footy and catch some quality live acts.

Davo fielding in slips with the local village cricket team, Lindsell. Their ground was voted best kept cricket ground in 2006 in the whole of England.

Fi and her amazing tutees at the annual Stocks' House Feast at Felsted School.

One of the best live gigs we've ever been to, Groove Armada at the Round House in Camden Town, London. We went with our mate from Felsted, Jaz.


Another great gig we went to the same week as Groove Armada, The Hilltop Hoods at the Carling Academy in Islington, London. We went with our mate Ren from vet school.


Highlight of the trip so far for Davo... watching the Hawkies, live in a pub in Fulham at 10:00am vs St Kilda, the Hawkies won and Buddy kicked a goal. Davo also caught up with some good mates from vet school, Benny G, The Stoff and Rob Dogs and randomly ran into Kate and Ezz, Aussie mates we met in Scotland who are also avid Hawkies fans. Legendary day. We were drowned out by the local Chelsea supporters who were piling in for the FA cup which was televised after the AFL.

Later the same day in London we had a big catch-up with vet mates Robyn, Elanor and RenDas joined the fray.

Davo, The Stoff and the Monument for the Great Fire of London, on a random weekend in London.

Shopping in the Camden Markets in Camden Town, London.

Overlooking Felsted from the flitch (the old railway line which is now a walking track) on a nice Spring afternoon.

Operating with one of the legends of the veterinary game, Mr Jerry Moloney.

Dining at Jamie Oliver's The Cock in Beazley End, down the road from Felsted.

School trip to the Peak District

26-28 April, 2007

Anyone heard of Yerba Mate? It’s an ingredient to an invigorating drink, discovered on a geography trip to the Peak District with a bunch of year 10’s.

Davo was based with the rivers team, who were taking measurements of rivers at different points in the peak district. At least that’s what they were doing when they weren’t covering themselves from head to toe in mud or staring in fascination and amazement at a herd of cows invading the river for a drink.

Fi helped out two other groups of students - both who were looking at the impact tourism is having on small villages and wheather they are likely to be able to cope in the future with growing numbers of visitors. Based in two rural market villages: Ashbourne & Bakewell, students had to take count of pedestrian and traffic numbers, analyse road and pavement congestion as well as asking locals their views on the state of their local area. Meanwhile Fi was able to enjoy browsing round the markets, enjoying the sunshine and eating good food!

Couldn’t be a Felsted school trip without some crazy shinanigans. It all began when one of the students copped a shoulder in the kidneys. It ended in a trip to the accident and emergency with a happy ending for everyone. It was complicated by the fact that the cricket world cup final was being played on the same day and that their were no TVs or radios that were broadcasting it where we were based. Neither was there adequate mobile phone reception to receive frequent updates from mates. So in after sitting in the minibus for periods on end listening to the only radio that could pick up the game, being able to watch the highlights in the a&e waiting room at the hospital was pretty sweet!

Punting in Cambridge

21 April, 2007

We went punting in Cambridge. It was fun and we didn't fall in. No worries! Afterwards we went to the pub for dinner. Surprise surprise...

The Battle of Hastings 2007

13-15 April, 2007

Our final destination for the day was Westfield (East Sussex) and the first ‘battle’ was won by Jess and Pete. They beat us there by 45 seconds! We stayed in an oast house for the weekend, which is a building that was used for hanging hops centuries ago. There are a heap of them scattered over the south east of England, most are not functioning anymore though.

Our oast house was located close to the town of Battle which is the site of the famous Battle of Hastings in 1066 where William the Conqueror did some conquering.

But William wasn’t about today. Instead there was Fi the… Davo the… Jess the… and Pete the… We had our own battle. It was ferocious. All that history that we’d taken in, listening to our ear pieces, walking around the abbey and the battle fields had got to us I think. As the images portray, no blood was shed and fortunately we were all able to have a beer at the pub after a hard faught Battle of Hastings 2007. History will remember this day.

We also checked out a few local castles, Bodingham and Pevensy and learnt a bit more history along the way which was very cultural of us.

Road trip to Devon and Cornwall

April 7-13, 2007

Our first stop on the way to the south west corner was at Pete and Jess’s place in Reading. We didn’t stay long since we were seeing them again the following weekend, but we did stay long enough for Jess to cook us a beautiful roast dinner and to polish off a decent number of Easter eggs!

We couldn’t drive past Stone Henge without stopping for a look with hundreds of other tourists. We also checked out the nearby village of Avebury which is famous for similar ancient stone arrangements as Stone Henge… and also for a good pub to stop for lunch called the Red Lion.

Driving through Wiltshire we saw a handful of the famous hill figures, massive chalk drawings of horses and stuff carved into the hillside. OHHH!!! Massive highlight… we met some Wiltshire Horns in Wiltshire. Fi was pretty stoked.

Our base for the next few days was Jaz’s auntie’s place in Torquay (Devon). It’s one of the sad realities, learning that a lot of Australian town names are not original at all. But this Torquay was a bit different to our Torquay. We had amazing Devonshire teas and discovered the best food ever, chip butties. Basically a bun with butter and loads of hot chips in the middle. Simple and effective, especially for the walk home from the pub at the end of the night.

There were no waves in Torquay though, so we went for a day trip to the surfing capital of England, Newquay (Cornwall). The beaches lived up to the massive reputation they’ve got over here, but the town was a bit tacky. We enjoyed beautiful sunshine, chilling surf and of course a Cornish pasty for lunch, followed by a Cornish clotted cream icecream.

We had fun being tourists for a few days. We caught ferry to Dartmouth, the home of the English navy and also a very beautiful English town and jumped on a steam train home again. Fi and Jaz spent hours one day in their favourite shop on earth… Primark.

Next stop on the road trip, East Sussex.

It seems a long way in the wrong direction to be going, but we had good reason… to meet up with our favourite travelling duo Pete and Jess for a weekend.

Since we were driving pretty much right across the south coast of England from west to east, we saw a bit of the country side and made a few stops along the way. One of our stops was the beautiful town of Salisbury (Wiltshire), which hosts the church with the tallest spire in England. All the churches over here are nice, but this one was special. The neighbouring town, Wilton, also harboured a beautiful church and although it wasn’t as grand as the Salisbury cathedral, it was unique in structure and we were given a very warm welcome by a lovely old lady. It was a bit like we’d landed in a story book.

We probably found our new favourite shop in the world, better than Primark because this one sold food. It was called the Udder Shop and sold all sorts of fresh produce, very ‘goormett’. And it wouldn’t have been a proper English road trip if we didn’t stop at a pub for lunch on the way. The Tippling Philosopher won our service this day.

Easter in Essex

April 6, 2007

The majority of our blog so far tells you stories and shows you pictures of our travels around the world, but has neglected to share with you tales from our home away from home, England.

We live here and work here, but we’ve also managed to be tourists here as well. Here are some highlights…

Upon arriving back to warm England from Finland, we met some good friends from college, Janey and Greg, for lunch on Easter Saturday at Jamie Oliver’s parents’ pub The Cricketers, 15 mins down the road from Felsted, in Clavering (Essex). Unfortunately, about a week later, The Cricketers was burgled and Jamie was offering a massive £150000 reward for the return of all the stuff they nicked! Wasn’t us.

Janey and Greg were staying with relatives in Little Hadham. They have an amazing old English house which has a wall that is twice as old as Australia. Crazy!