We Had a Wale(s) of a Time in England

It's been about a month since I last blogged. We've spent much of that time working on an organic farm in Melbourne, Australia, traveling around Tasmania with friends made during our July trip to Morocco, and I've been writing a post chock full of travel tips learned over the past few years so that you, my readers, can save money, travel smarter, and more thoroughly enjoy your next vacation. I'll be publishing that post in the coming days, so keep your eyes peeled. This post will mainly be pictures from the last month of our time spent in the UK.
Sara and I spent the majority of December, and the first part of January, traveling through Wales and England. The most narrow roads, on which I've ever driven, were found in England. While harrowing at times, I never did scrape any walls or cars. A testament, really, to how awesome a human being I am. In traveling through those parts at that time of year, as one could imagine, the weather wasn't spectacular. When it was though, it certainly showed itself to be quite beautiful. Wales has some of the best castles and fortified towns I've seen anywhere in the world, and getting to experience Norwich, and the Lakes and Peaks Districts through the eyes of my English friends, during the holiday season, was certainly a welcome relief from the typically hectic nature of our travels, which resumed with our county ending half-day blitz tour of London.

As a point of reference, I would highly recommend renting a car when visiting all of the British Isles and using a detailed paper map instead of your smart phone maps or paying extra for a rental car GPS. The paper map better illustrates all of the nearby mountains, waterfalls, bridges, famous landmarks, etc. and they allow you to get a better frame of reference as to where those places are in relation to your current location compared to using a GPS. Additionally, if roads are closed, the maps allow you to more easily identify the most desirable alternative routes to your destination. And perhaps most importantly, using the paper map and the well marked road signs at every roundabout will get you to your destination much faster than following the convoluted GPS directions. The GPS loves to send you through every little small town in the UK no matter which driving option you choose. Maddening. Absolutely maddening.

And now, the images:

Although this looks like a lake, there is actually only 1 official lake located in the Lakes District of England. There are all sorts of other unnecessary names for the bodies of water in that region which are all clearly lakes. This particular one is known as Wast Water.

This sheep posed quite nicely for us at Wast Water.

In spite of the lack of foliage during the winter, the tangled web of branches, brush, and grasses still made for nice images throughout all of the British Isles.

In my haste to photograph this fading rainbow, I wasn't able to put my polarizer filter on my camera lens. Luckily, my camera was still able to pick up this full arcing rainbow we encountered while driving through Wales. If any of you DSLR owners don't own a polarizer filter, that should definitely be your next camera purchase. When used during the right lighting, the colors in your photos will look much more vibrant.

Rhaeadr Ewynnol or Swallow Falls for those of you who don't read Welsh. As a side note, the Welsh language is quite possibly the most mind-boggling language in the entire world. Never, in your entire life, have you seen so many words with L's, W's, and F's. We stayed in a very nice B&B in the town of Llanfairfechan and quite enjoyed listening to each other's incorrect pronunciations of that, and just about any other Welsh word.

Aber Falls at Coedydd Aber.

Conwy Castle in the town of Conwy.

These are the fortified walls which surround Conwy. We had commanding views of the entire town from high atop our perch. If you look to the right upper third of this photo, you can see the Conwy Castle pictured above.

I wonder what goes through the mind of a sea gull, or any bird for that matter, when they hold their gaze for so long. Are they thinking about food? Are they enjoying the views? Are they dreading the fact that they are about to embark upon a journey into stiff, bitterly cold head winds? We may never know, but I know for certain I would never want to be a bird in the UK with the winds we encountered.

The Quay House in Conwy, as recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, is the smallest house in Great Britain. It measures 6 feet wide by 10 feet tall.

Cilgerran Castle. This castle dates back to the 13-14th centuries.

Carew Castle and Mill has a history dating back 2000 years.

Caerphilly Castle. Perhaps the jewel of the Welsh castles, it was built in the 13th century, is totally surrounded by a moat, encompasses over 30 acres, and is Britain's 2nd largest castle. 

Norwich Cathedral in Norwich, England.

The art deco facade of the Royal Arcade in Norwich. Many of the cities in the UK, including 3 Victorian ones in Cardiff, have these arcades which house higher end shops and restaurants. 

Though the sails had been taken down for the winter, this is one of the many mills that can be found throughout the UK.

Happisburgh Lighthouse near Nowrich, England.

The Crooked Spire Church in Chesterfield, England. The spire was built straight but it was built out of wood and then covered with 32 tons of tiles. The effect of the tile weight on the particular wood used is most likely the cause of the twisting which has occurred through the years. There is local legend that if a virgin ever gets married in that church that it will once again straighten. The church was built in the late 13th century and finished in 1360 and they're still waiting.

"I am Batman." This is Bruce Wayne's Manor, or Wollaton Hall, found in Nottingham, England. While currently a natural history museum, filming of "The Dark Knight Rises" took place here.

The Tower Bridge in London with a bit of skyline seen to the left. This is the bridge you want to see in London. The London Bridge is a big bunch of boring.

For all you Harry Potter fans, this is the Millennium Bridge.

The London Eye or the Millennium Wheel along the River Thames, with Parliament and Big Ben in the background. We did a blitz tour on London in essentially a half day. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing this (a full day would be my recommended minimum), it was pretty exhilarating doing a self-guided walking tour of all the bridges along the Thames, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, Parliament, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace.

The setting sun behind Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey (back right of the photo).

The setting sun illuminating the London Eye.

Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace

We are now currently in Perth, Australia. It will most likely be our last international city on this trip, unless tax return season is really, really good to us. It's not all sad for us as our first stop back in the USA will be Kauai, Hawaii. We'll be there for a week before spending an indeterminate amount of time in and around Seattle, Washington visiting family and friends. A return to the east coast will most likely occur in mid March, but who knows? Hope the start of the calendar year has been as kind to everyone as it has to us. Cheers.