UK NZ

5th March 2018
Headed for St Austell, Cornwall with a stop in Dorchester for some lunch and a couple of new tyres. Miserable weather with the aftermath of the snow storm.
Airbnb $70.46/night

6th March 2018
A day at the tip of Cornwall. A wander around St Ives before a quick stop at Lands End. Along the coast through Penzance to Mount St Michaels. Unfortunately closed for winter maintenance.

7th March 2018
Spent the morning attending to the car MOT inspection, then headed to Port Isaac which was the village Doc Martin was filmed. The roads out there are unbelievably narrow country lanes, with hedges so can’t see ahead (hold your breath and hope you don’t meet anyone coming the other way , they don’t travel slow)and we needed to ford a stream in one place. Nice rolling green paddocks with hedge fences so makes for interesting layout. A rugged coastline, but very picturesque.

Photos: Previous page:St Ives, Land's End,Mount St Michael,Port Isaac
This page: Fowey x2,Charlestown,St Mawes
Next Page: St Mawes,Looe

8th March 2018
On the recommendation of the locals spent the afternoon at a couple of small fishing villages on the south coast. Fowey was a very picturesque port town. Charlestown, a tiny maritime settlement with deep water berth age by the use of a lock. More recently it was one of the film settings for Poldark.

9th March 2018
A miserable day indoors. Predicated storm but just Rain & low cloud.

10th March 2018
Absolute rubbish weather in the morning but got out in the afternoon with a bit of sun to see St Mawes and Mevagvssey. Great little fishing villages.

11th March 2018
Out to Looe another nice walk around a port town for morning.

12th March 2018
Travel day tomorrow and another miserable day. Day at home

13th March 2018
A long drive up from Cornwall with a stop in Bath. Lovely town, not just the historic centre, but most of the town has a feel of affluence.
Airbnb $112.82/night

14th March 2018
A day of Cotswolds small villages built from honey-coloured stone. Starting at Bourton-on-the-water nice village made even prettier with river winrush running through it with lots of foot bridges and followed by The Slaughters, Stow-on-wold, Morton-on-marsh and Broadway. Each one very different, but all great. Back to Burton-on-the-water for afternoon tea.

Photos: Narrrow country roads, Bath 2x,Broadway
Next Page: Castle Combe,Burton-on-the-water, Cirencester
Church,Burton-on-the-water

15th March 2018
With fine periods forecast, we decided to take our chances heading for Castle Combe, a town we loved when we first visited it thirty years ago. I had thought there were more thatched cottages than there are now? The off to Malmesbury but unfortunately the Abbey was closed for organ tuning. Last stop Cirencester.

16th March 2018
Heavy rain during the night but the day shows distinct promise. Off to Bibury/Arlington(row houses on inside cover UK passport). Apparently two seperate villages, although the only thing that separates them is a 2 metre wide creek. The enormous historic hotel was in the process of having 14 million pounds spent on it by some rich dude (Apple) to turn it into his private home. Wandered the length of Buford, but with its busy Main Street it lacked the charm of many of the other town we have seen in this area. Swinbrook was so small we had drive through it still nice stone village, and as there was no sign of food (and I was hungry) we pushed on to Minster Lovell. Really pretty thatched house village, but the prices for the pub food not so pretty so again we moved on. At Witney and determined not to make the Starbucks error, we searched the town for a tea rooms. Success at last, only to find a better one 50 metres down the road afterwards. Have thoroughly enjoyed the Cotswolds area with its quaint little stone villages, but won't miss the narrow country roads but still not as many as Cornwall.

Photos: Minster Lovell, Castle Combe, Bibury,Minster Lovell,Arlington

17th March 2018
Woke to snow falling so decided to head straight to Manchester , just as well we did because by afternoon quite heavy snow, to Jim’s our bother-in-laws father (Nice dinner kindly provided by Corinne Rob’s sister)

18th March 2018
Woke to good layer of snow cover, sorting take home and leave gear, lucky Jim gets to have car and gear at his for a month, great for us. Snow melted on road so lunch out and nice dinner at Corinne’s.

19th March 2018
To airport for flight home. 11 hours to Hong Kong,10 hours at airport and 11 hours to Auckland. Back in Auckland didn’t feel like we had been gone just over 10 months , nice to see some of family straight away.

Travels begin again 22nd April 2018

Photo: Manchester

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