York

Castle Howard - pretty grand

We re-visited York, about a year after we had first been there. It's a really cool city, in a great part of the country. I think I will have to visit this area a bit more. There's just so many places to go, and so many things to see!

We were here for another 10km race, really we treat these races as an excuse to travel somewhere we may not normally go. It was in Dalby forest and I would definitely go back for this race. It's by far the toughest 10km I've ever done. It was insane. It was about 500m long, which is already pretty tough, but it was all on either single-track, or up dry creek beds, or across churned up mud bogs. It was crazy, and never flat. You were either slogging it up a steep hill, or worried you were about to seriously twist your ankle coming down. It was really awesome!

Castle Howard across the lake

Roses in the walled garden

But as well as that excursion into the forest we also did a bit of sight-seeing further afield. Since we had a car this time, we could check out a bit of Yorkshire. There is a lot to see in this area, and we didn't even see either the moors or the dales.

We visited Castle Howard, definitely worth a visit if you are in this area. It's massive, both the house and the grounds. And they have certainly spent some money keeping it looking nice. They are an off-shoot from the Howards of Anne Boleyn's times, the Duke of Norfolk who was always causing trouble is a distant relation of the current Howards. Though they don't seem to make much of that family connection, perhaps they didn't like Wolf Hall.

Another view

Temple of the four winds in the distance

I wouldn't really call it a castle, perhaps more of a palace, it looks a bit like a shrunken version of Buckingham. What's even cooler is that it was designed by Vanbrugh, and we live on a road named after him in London. I always thought Wren was the English architect everyone loves, but this Vanbrugh guy is all over the place. Even better is that he had no formal training in it, so it's impressive that all these Earls got him to design stuff for him. Castle Howard was the first thing he built, and he didn't do too bad a job with it. It looks pretty impressive, and the gardens are really nice too.

The temple up close - love that honey coloured stone

I usually like the gardens in these places the most, so long as it's not raining when I visit. They love creating these vistas and they'll often build these things which you can't use, you can't go inside, just for the effect they create. So there was this temple of the four winds right on the boundary of the gardens, and walking up to it had this nice effect, with this bridge in the foreground. You couldn't actually cross the bridge though, or go in the temple. But they did look very pretty.

And then there always has to be a good flower garden. I am really starting to appreciate the flowers living here. They do a good flower. In Australia the flowers never seemed that impressive, or perhaps it was more the oppressive heat that detracted from the admiration. Or maybe it was that they seemed really hard to grow, here it seems you stick anything in the ground and it will flower. So of course there was a walled garden, again with gates you couldn't open, and little buildings that seemed to serve no purpose, but all very nice.

Useless gate in the walled garden

Distant view of the puffins

But it wasn't all impressive palaces around York. I think the place I enjoyed the most were the Bempton cliffs. It's this bird sanctuary consisting of 6kms of cliffs. But what's best is that they have puffins there, and it was breeding season! We didn't even realise we could see puffins when we were heading there. And it was a bit of a drive, just to maybe see some birds. It could certainly be better sign posted. So there were moments when we are thinking, should we really bother. But I am so glad we did. 

The cliffs at Bempton - the white dots are birds

We get there and the volunteers have set up telescopes focused on the puffins nesting on the cliffs. It was crazy how many birds were there, not just puffins, but gannets, which are massive, like 1.8m wingspan, kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills, to name a few. Even if you aren't really into birds it's definitely worth a visit, though beware of the stench. That was the first time I had seen puffins, and they are much smaller than what I thought they would be. But you could really see their orange bill. The cliffs themselves are also pretty impressive. They are something like 100m high, and stretch along the coast for around 10km. I imagine it's a bit like what the white cliffs of Dover look like.

The final stop on our York tour was Kirkham Priory. Another monastery set in a really pretty location, those monks really had an eye for beauty.


Next time back I'll have to investigate these dales and moors. There must be some good hard walks somewhere.

View from the priory

Bournemouth

The English at play

We have been a bit remiss in visiting the English coastline, in fact I'm not sure we have been to even one famous English beachside town. We have been to a few in Wales, which has a fantastic coastline. But I think places like Bournemouth and Bristol are probably more famous than Tenby. We finally got on a tiny little train down to Bournemouth. It was only 4 carriages so I was glad not to be travelling Friday night, that could have been messy.

It was quite hot, England was having a summer to speak of for once. I thought I might have even gone for a swim. But I hadn't checked the water temperatures before I left London, the average in July is something like 15 degrees. For comparison I grew up in the tropics where the summer sea temperature was 31 degrees, and it would drop to a chilly 25 in winter. That's when people didn't swim as much. Lets just say I was not prepared for 15 degrees, next time I am definitely taking my wetsuit. Or maybe I'll go to the Canary Islands, where even in December the water is still 20 degrees.

Cool stained glass at Russell-Cotes Museum

The English are definitely different from the Aussies in how they approach the beach. For them it seems more like a carnival, so they have permanent rides set up, a roller coaster and that sort of thing, as well as this long pier with cafes, that you have to pay to walk along. There is also a busy road running right up against the beach, so you can literally park and from the boot of your car throw your stuff onto the sand. I wasn't expecting that. It didn't feel very natural for me, it felt a bit as if maybe the sand was imported. I don't think it was, it's just the sense of unreality I had there meant I wouldn't have been surprised if it was. So we didn't spend a lot of time on the beach, we went for a run along it, which was nice. And had some great sea food.

Apart from the proximity to cars, and the weird roller coasters, the beach was pretty nice. It's certainly massive. It's something like 10km long I think. Most people seem to cluster together around the roller coasters. But if you walked a bit further down you would definitely have a nice patch of beach all to yourself.

We also visited the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. It's this old house on the cliffs above the beach that the owners donated to the city. It's a really cool building and it's just full of stuff. This is definitely worth a visit, if only to warm up after a dip in the freezing water.