Summer Sun and Family Adventures

Hello and welcome to another adventure with the Findlaters. 

As we always say if you adventure with us we will put you in our blog, so in this blog it is Findlaters + Auntie + Cousin ( the Malax-Etxebarrias! )

As I am writing this blog from the other side of this adventure I can tell you that I am still tired and that I am still thirsty. 
The weather in England these days has been hot... I mean "hot" for these parts. The temperatures seem to sit around the high 20's / low 30's. I can't remember the last time that it rained and the grass is a golden colour of dead. What is even more uncharacteristic is that there is rarely a cloud in the sky.

This blog is going to be a quick overview of what we got up to mainly on the weekend while we had my auntie and little cousin over but also some of the thing from the afternoons after they go home from their adventures. 

So lets jump into it! 

So with only two days of weekend to spend with them we decided to hit up our old favourite spots. The only thing is that I haven't been to see them in summer before. Basically I haven't seen it with sun and good weather!

So on the first day we went to the:

Durdle door

If you are an avid follower of our blogs you will probably see one or two other adventures down to see the Durdle Door previously! (Orange dot below)

I like it as it can be a long walk if you're up for a challenge or you can park closer to it and make it a shorter walk if you just want to pop in to take a few photos or chill out on the beach. The area is also known for it's fossils and hence lies right beside Fossil Cove and the southern coastal region called the Jurassic Coast (for more info take a look at https://jurassiccoast.org/).

On previous occasions visiting this place (I would guess I have been 3 times) the weather is always cold and raining (typically English) but with a wind chill factor that will make you want to take photos from the car. 
The water has always been so rough that if you saw a ship wreck washed up you wouldn't be surprised. 
I tell you this as you need to know the shock that I received when we arrived there on a hot summers day!

Here is a before from one of our previous visits and an after from this visit!

Hard to believe it is the same place!

So back to what we actually got up to. 

My poor little cousin has something wrong with her. I would like to say that it was puberty but the poor bugger was tired and sleeping ALL the time. I mean I was buggered after our adventures so I guess if she has been adventuring for a few days before so shes allowed to be a little extra buggered from that. But the poor Chicky wouldn't sit for 2 mins before you look back and shes gone to sleep again. 

But I digress - the point was that we were off to a late start as everyone needed to be motivated from our peaceful weekend slumber. I, on the other hand, had been up since 5am running to the office where I work to open it up for decorators to enter then coming home and doing my 1 hour English lessons (I'm learning to speak like the Queen aka "RP" English) and then I made breakfast for the troops. 

It does turn out that a well chilled piece of Ice applied directly to the undies seems to wake a dormant teenager. 

When all was said and done we left the house at 11am and the plan was to get to the Durdle Door and have a picnic. The drive there is usually 2 hours so that was fine we would be there for a 1 pm lunch. Not too bad.

Well there was traffic the whole way there so a 2 hour trip turned into a 3 hour trip and Kyran saw his life flash before his eyes from hunger. He was so hungry that he started slowly eating the tick tacs that were in the car. 

Now I never heard the other end of how that turned out for him but it says on the box that eating too many may have a laxative effect....

So we got there! It was hot and we were hungry - very hungry! And we had the entire picnic ready to go down to the beach. 

If you have been to the Durdle Door you'd know it is accessible by part of a cliff face walk, and you can descend in a steep and zig-zagging dirt track that is covered in loose rocks. Either side of the gravel path are multiple goat tracks that have been formed as people tried to avoid the loose gravel and dust/mud if it is wet. 

So my silly 'Tia' (Auntie in Spanish) was wearing thongs (to clarify, "flip flops", depending on where you are reading this from). So it took so long to get down the track that I too started to see my life flash before my eyes from hunger. 

So we made it finally!

As you saw the beach looked like this!

It was 3:30 pm, so we had to find a cave to eat our lunch in because I don't know about the British (well I do now, I will tell that story in a minute) but us Australians are sort of conditioned to avoid the sun if possible. Mainly because the sun in Australia is out to kill you, but here the English sun is a little less 'hot'.  

So we had to find a shady spot and have our lunch!

Now I shall tell you that story - over the course of many days working on this blog the weather in England has just got hotter and hotter. The day that I am writing this part on they reckon is the hottest days in the history of the country!! That's over 800,000 years if you were wondering.  

See the following article if you want to read about it!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-weather-forecast-live-updates-heatwave-latest-rain-thunderstorms-traffic-sun-health-a8464131.html

So on with the story I think that because of the 'happy' 'friendly' sun that the English are used to have gone on holidays and the Australian sun is filling in the Government had to issue an "Amber" alert for the heat. 

Let me explain an amber alert: 
Amber means there is an increased likelihood of bad weather affecting the public.

This potentially means cancelling plans, having to deal with travel delays, road and rail closures, interruption to power and the potential risk to life and property.

Keeping in mind that this is the country of "keep calm and carry on". 



So this is the 3rd Amber alert that has been issued in England this year! the last two were for the snow and this one because the Brits needed to be told the sun is hot, get out of it!

***

OK back to the adventures. 

So we needed to have our lunch and a short relaxation time and then we had to get moving again we had only paid the parking till 5pm and we got to the parking at 3pm, AND there was another place along the beach I wanted to get to (Yellow dot on map above). 

If you have read our previous blogs the plan was to head to Old Harry's Rocks again. Kyran has never been there and so I thought that it would be a good opportunity to take him and the rest of the troops there. 

In retrospect it was a big day and I probably pushed it a little too much because by the time we got to the rocks it was 7ish at night which is fine as the sun doesn't go down till 10pm but it was going down and the air was starting to cool off. I have told my cousin that we could swim here but my Auntie was dying for a beer. So Kyran and my Auntie went to get their drugs of choice and little cousin and I went for a 'swim'! I didn't go all the way in but it was nice and refreshing. 

Here are some of the photos that I took while we were exploring the rock pools and with Old Harry's rocks in the background. 

OK well I think I should leave Saturday's adventures there and move on to Sunday where the plan was to head up to Cambridge. 

***

This is another to-do on my list of England. It is nice to see Cambridge from the punting boat with a knowledgeable young fellow pushing you down the river telling you all about the different colleges and the historical figures who once studied there. 
The map below show where we started and how we headed up the river and then turned around and back down to where we started. 

So we had another late start to the day for much the same reasons. We didn't leave quite so late but I had planned to make a stop at an old manor house or castle that we came across on our way. So we needed to see the house and then get to Cambridge before the punting boys finished for the day. 


AUDLEY END HOUSE AND GARDENS

So our detour ended up being to Audley End House and Gardens. It was once a prodigy house, a palace in all but name and renowned as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England. Audley End is now one-third of its original size.

For you reference a Prodigy house is a term for large and showy English country houses built by courtiers and other wealthy families, either "noble palaces of an awesome scale"  or "proud, ambitious heaps" according to taste.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_house
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audley_End_House

I am just going to do a quick dump of information about the house here and then we will continue with out photos and our adventures.

• Audley End was the site of Walden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery that was granted to the Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas Audley in 1538 by Henry VIII. 
• The abbey was converted to a domestic house for him and was known as Audley Inn. 
• It was demolished by his grandson, Thomas Howard (first Earl of Suffolk, fourth creation, and Lord Treasurer), and a much grander mansion was built, primarily for entertaining the king, James I.
• The layout reflects the processional route of the king and queen, each having their own suite of rooms. It is reputed that Thomas Howard told King James he had spent some £200,000 creating this grand house
• In 1619, Suffolk and his wife were found guilty of embezzlement and sent to the Tower of London ( and this is where I start getting two different stories here

1. ...but a huge fine secured their release. Suffolk died in disgrace at Audley End in 1626, or (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audley_End_House)

2. he died while imprisoned in the Tower before his execution in 1572,(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Howard,_1st_Earl_of_Suffolk)

**** the references don't match up but I suppose that is what I get for using Wikipedia  ***

• At this time, the house was on the scale of a great royal palace, and became one when Charles II bought it in 1668 for £50,000 for use as a home when attending the races at Newmarket.

Photo stolen from Wikipedia (link)  




































We finally got on the road towards Cambridge. I don't remember what time we left or what time we got to Cambridge but I do remember that I had pretty nearly given up on the possibility that some poor university kid would still be out pushing punting boats up and down the river on a Sunday afternoon. It was probably 4 or 5pm while these thoughts were running through my head. 

Well we were tired and we hadn't had any lunch yet, and the troop essentially went on strike until I would let them stop to eat. So we looked around and...  well there were not as many places that catered to the Vegan diet in Cambridge as I would have thought! 

We found respite at a Wagamama's for a feed, and afterwards we decided that we were going to do what we came here to do and so we set out to see if we could find a punting place that was still open and would take us up and down the river. 

To my surprise there were a few companies that were all still contending for our business to take us down the river. It turned out that the company that usually has boys on every corner had been strong armed into closing down by the local council of commerce. So when I saw there were no boys on any corners I had thought they had all closed up for the day. 

The trip down the river was lovely as always but alas the poor guide didn't speak Spanish so I tried my darnedest at translating some of the stories about the different colleges as we went up and down the river to my aunty and cousin.

With the boat trip done it was already 7pm-ish so it was time to start our 1.5 -  2 hour journey home. 

That brings us to the end of yet another adventure. Thank you for coming with us and maybe one day you can come visit us and we can go on new adventures with you. 

Until next time I will leave you with a list of some of the famous people that you may have heard of that have attended Cambridge and some extra photos from the adventures.

***

The following Information comes from:
 http://uk.businessinsider.com/cambridges-most-successful-alumni-of-all-time-2016-11/#sir-david-attenborough-clare-college-1947-5

Oliver Cromwell — Sidney Sussex College, 1617

After dropping out of Cambridge, Cromwell went on to lead the Roundheads in the English Civil War, which they won. In 2002, Cromwell was ranked one of the best Britons of all time by a BBC poll.

John Milton — Christ's College, 1629

The "Paradise Lost" author ranked fourth in his year of graduates. Not a fan of his Cambridge peers though, Milton said of his fellow students: "They thought themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools."

Charles Darwin — Christ's College, 1831

Often coined the father of modern biology, Darwin was sent to Cambridge by his father to study the Arts, in the hope that he might one day become an Anglican country parson.

Alan Turing — King's College, 1934

"The Imitation Game" protagonist unsurprisingly read maths at Cambridge — he was elected a college fellow on the strength of his dissertation.

Sir David Attenborough — Clare College, 1947

The infamous broadcaster has collected 32 honourary degrees in addition to his bachelors in natural sciences from Clare College. 

Stephen Hawking — Trinity Hall College, 1965

Hawking returned to Cambridge post graduating to lecture, which he did for 30 years in the same post that had previously been occupied by the likes of Isaac Newton.

Sir Martin Sorrell — Christ's College, 1966

Sorrell studied economics at Cambridge, and the advertising mogul is now the highest paid CEO in the UK. In 2015, his annual income was estimated to be £42,978,000.

Charles, Prince of Wales — Trinity College, 1970

After graduating with a 2:2 in archaeology, anthropology and history, Charles became the first heir to gain a university degree.

***

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ROAD TRIP to the south of Spain - Part 4 Gibraltar, 2018

Hello and welcome to the Gibraltar leg of our journey.

Straight away I can say that this was the biggest culture shock of our journey so far. 

Gibraltar is technically part of the United Kingdom, so you think "yes we are heading to somewhere where I can speak English somewhere with customs that I am more familiar with!" 

Well Nope!

We didn't know this till it was too late and we were nearly there but we were told by a Guardia Civil guy in the Bla Bla Car that Gibraltar has a massive drug problem! Because this is the closest point to Morocco this is the entry point for a lot of the drugs that get to Europe - specifically I am told Cocaine. 

The trip started with this new found information in mind and with the warning that you could walk through the wrong neighbourhood and get jumped by 20 guys in broad daylight!

So now that I have painted the picture that we were running around with the hairs on our backs up on ends, lets jump into the adventure!

The Journey to Gibraltar: We arrived from Seville by Bla Bla Car to the Spanish side of the 'Linia de Conception' which I got the vibe that this was as close as our driver wanted to be to Gibraltar.

The driver pointed us in the direction of the border/frontier and told us that we had to get there by walking. 

The last time I had an experience like this was when I (Mercedes) was 12 years old and my family decided to visit Mexico via the USA border...There is a definite area that only the brave enter, something along the lines of no-mans land. Then you come to the official looking fence and guard posts and then you start to get processed. 

The below image was taken from the Spanish side of the border walking to the official crossing fence and guard posts - you can also see the Rock of Gibraltar in the background.

The next photos follow the journey on the other side of the boarder where you then have to walk across a fully functional airport runway and then you are on your way to town.

O

If you remember from our previous blog Kyran had impaled himself on a tandem bike, so once we arrived in Gibraltar our first priority was to ditch our bags and get into town where we were to meet a doctor that had kindly agreed to see Kyran and give him a tetanus vaccination. 


After being delayed with our accommodation issues we headed into town but the doctor had to go somewhere and would come back later. 

So we went in search of food. 

Kyran insisted on the need to try some Ben and Jerry's Vegan Ice cream (I think it was comfort food after our accommodation debacle)... Yes we ate all the ice cream in one go.

So I guess we should tell the story about the accommodation. I do make a point of not being negative, but I guess this is worth a tell as it adds to our experience of Gibraltar. 

We found it on Airbnb, it was cheap and IT.WAS.CHEAP! The apartment was advertised as being on the English side of the boarder. It turned out it was on the Spanish side, the guy said he had advertised it like that so that he didn't have to pay taxes in Spain, he also reckoned that he was a police detective but also that he owned a few original picaso art works. I don't think a police salary covers much and probably not a few Picasos - or at least not a corrupt one!
To describe the place in two words I would call it a 'drug den'... Things like "Wolf Creek" come to mind. The bed was broken, there was no internet, the window shutter was rusted in place. The hall lights were missing, the sink was full of dirty dishes, he walked around the entire apartment smoking and in the morning there was a broken ceramic spoon on the table with something black burned in it and white powder on the table. 

Kyran was so uneasy that he went out and didn't want to come back until as late as possible, I guess that is why he went and bought a tub of ice cream and ate 2/3rds of it!!

So we survived the night - we ran out the door as quick as we could the next morning and only returned to pick up our suitcases after we had been out to the Rock of Gibraltar all day. 

Photo to the left: Kyran attempted to sit at this restaurant as long as possible to avoid going back to the apartment!








The Rock of Gibraltar

We had been told that there were "1000" steps that you could climb up to get to the top of the rock and by doing so save us the 25 pounds per person that it would cost to get up the cable car.
Me being frugal decided that that was something we could do, and Kyran for reasons unknown decided that he could probably do that too. 
So we caught the bus from the border to the base of the Rock, and standing at the bottom looking up I decided that £50 to get to the top was not so bad after all. 
As the saying goes: Is this the hill that you want to die on? or in our case die trying to climb!

So we paid the money which included a visit to the caves and tower all of which we will talk about later. The cost of the ticket included the cable car and the national reserve entry tickets needed to go and see half of the attractions up there anyway, so it wasn't a bad tactical move in the end.

The way up

The view was amazing! and everything looked very civilised from up here and less like the wild west that we decided it was more like. 

As we came into the station at the top the first thing we did was to take a selfie the second thing we did was spot one of the infamous monkeys that inhabit the top of the rock.

The monkeys we were told would steal whatever they could. We initially found them quite placid and they kept to themselves as they basked in the sun. The adults were de-liceing each other and the youngsters were fighting and eating flowers. 

 Note: For videos for of the monkeys check out our Facebook page: Findlater Travels or our new Video Blogs!

Above: Kyran had to show the monkey his was bigger 😁

I could have sat and watched the monkeys play and fight all day but alas time was moving on and we were not. So we made our way down the hill, to a Glass walkway

There were a lot of things to see so before we get to carried away let me show you the view that we have from all over the Rock of Gibraltar!

Above: It is hard to see in this photo but this is the view out towards Morocco / Africa. We could see it! only just, but we could definitely see it!!

 We came across various fortifications and bunkers while we walked along the trails. Most looked like artillery bunkers or ammunition stores. All of them were in a pretty poor state, and covered in Graffiti.

We came across "O'Hara's Battery" which was a large artillery installation near the end of the Rock, out close to the sea. There were two large 'turrets' which were basically massive cannons mounted on swivel bases and covered in an armoured shell. The cannons had a range of about 28,000 yards, or about 26 kilometers. They can hit the other side of the Straights of Gibraltar, which were only about 13 kilmeters wide. 

The cannons didn't look like they were very serviceable, all the parts were rusty and unkempt and it would probably take a lot of effort to restore them back to service! Lucky there are no wars on nearby... 

OK well that is enough about big guns. On the walk down the mountain we also came across St. Michel's Cave here is a plaque that was at the entrance. 

I don't know why but in all our travels we seem to be drawn to Caves. Most of them are off limits for protection but this one was the complete opposite. They added lights and concrete, and let people walk around freely! Now is is a concert hall!

A Lime Kiln!

Below is a picture of the last remaining lime kilns (ovens) in Gibraltar. Here's an exerpt from the Gibraltar Tourism website:
"This is the last remaining Lime Kiln that has survived in Gibraltar. It appears that this type of Lime Kiln must have abounded in Gibraltar as there is even a street named after them, proof of their usefulness to the local community.

These 'kilns' or ovens were used to produce lime for which were a variety of uses. Lime was used to whitewash buildings, to paint water cisterns so that the water was free of bacteria and perhaps most importantly in times of plague, to pour over dead bodies in mass graves to prevent further spread of disease.
This particular lime kiln is estimated to date back to the late 19th or early 20th Century and the heat resistant bricks were made in England." Source

The Moorish Castle!

Photograph by G.W. Wilson in late 1800's

We neared the end of our epic walking adventure in and around the Rock of Gibraltar, and finally got to the Moorish Castle we saw as we first entered Gibraltar, down at the airstrip. It was a pretty neat building, on a dominating cliff with commanding views down the slope and across into Spain. The tower there today was rebuilt after the Moors re-captured Gibraltar from Spain in the mid 1300's over the top of the old one which was destroyed. The tower was purely a defensive structure, and was located at the end of a pretty awesome curtain wall which sealed off Gibraltar peninsula from the mainland of Spain. There isn't much left of the curtain wall anymore though, it's been absorbed into the town over the centuries. 



A very narrow walkway into the tower - the only way in and out!





























As you walk up to the entrance, this plaque is above it:

Typical castle windows - deep and thick

A square spiral staircase for us dirty tourists to walk up and down the tower!

Baths and Hygiene! 
There were baths, and pools, and even rainwater collection features for this castle tower. Very cool! (pun intended). Pictures below show the bath stalls

A Prayer Room:

The domed roof of the prayer room in the castle. Castles often had chapels and prayer rooms, but this was more of a defensive tower than an accomodation, so it was probably the mayor/lord of the town's last place to pray before the tower got taken in siege? 

The Gibraltar flag is flying high above the castle on a beautiful day! The flag is actually showing a castle, and a "key" representing the key to naval trade between the Mediterranean and the rest of the world (in my opinion).

Peekaboo! Mercedes has come to seee you! We got to the top of the tower at last!

After a pleasant look around at the top of the castle and lots of pictures, we made our way down the castle and back into town and headed back to our Airbnb and creepy host to get our bags and flee!


















Once we got our bags and left the bus station to Algeciras we could finally breath a sigh of relief. As we had a few hours to kill before our Bla Bla car ride to Granada we decided to look for food. Which was an amazing idea as we managed to locate this quaint little vegan restaurant that was not too far out of the way from were we were/had to be.

The food was amazing! Here are some of the photos that we took. The sun was quite strong (bad for photos!) but you can see the great options that they had available, with a hint of the Moroccan spices from over the water.

After eating (we could have eaten more, It was so tasty and the prices were reasonable) we headed back towards the water to take in some sun and wait for our ride. Kyran being the workaholic that he is took the opportunity to get some work done.

All in all we had an good enough time in Gibraltar. We did leave with the thought that “Yep we have been there done that, Check it off the list and never come back”… but with time who knows, we might go back with a little more money and have a completely different experience.

Thanks for reading this blog I hope you enjoyed the photos and the stories. Stay tuned for the next part of our adventure where we head to Granada to see another cousin and check out the sites.

Also don’t forget to check out the Video blog that accompanies this and see all the monkey business. 

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If you want to contribute to keep the blog full of adventures I have set up a Paypal account that you can donate to. 

paypal.me/findlatertravels

Also if there is anything that is around where we are and you want us to see it/review it please do let us know! we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at:

findlatertravels at hotmail.com