Wednesday 20th afternoon departed Detroit late overnight flight to Frankfurt, down there for two hours and then onto London, arrived in London pretty much on time but sat on the tarmac for an hour waiting for our gate to free! Finally got out of the airport and caught a bus to hire Wow!! are we shocked at the price of diesel here 2.08 pound a litre thats hitting up nearly $4.00AUD a litre, anyway it is what it is. Freeways are a mess everywhere with lots of just crawling along even right out in the middle of UK, first stop was 4 hours out of London at Llangollen in Wales, a beautiful little town on the Dee River, famous for its Pontcysyllte Aqueduct! We came to know about this because of our mate Mike Leicester who has done the canal boats over the top of the Aqueduct, we had to see it for ourselves, absolutely magnificent! A UNESCO site being described as a masterpiece of creative genius, 18 arched stone and cast in 1805. Pictures do not do it justice it is 300 metres long and rises 38 metres. We stayed in the Hand Hotel which
was a lovely, typical English hotel with the big English breaky. Friday its raining and it rained all the way to Manchester with traffic chaos, arrived in Ulverston around 2.30pm after heading down to Barrow in Furness to retrieve some Qantas Cash from another Western Union no problems getting it out of them! Met up with Roger and Paul (C151 connections) in the Farmers Arms Hotel for a few drinks then out for an Indian meal. Roger is hobbling after his hip replacement which he only had a week ago, so lovely to see their smiling faces. Rogers mate owns this pub and has spent around 1million pounds doing it all up in the last couple of years, its a16th century inn. After dinner called into the Piel Castle Inn for some live music and another drink. Saturday still raining off and on in Ulverston so had a walk around town to see The Laurel and Hardy statue, Stan Laurel was born in Ulverston 1890, great to see snippets of them around town. In the arvo went to visit Paulas Mum and her husband Mick who we havent seen for about 10 years, so and Olive is the best
cook, she whipped up an absolutely yummy quiche for our visit and of course with a glass of wine, a very fun couple and then back to Paula and Rogs for the rest of the day, had a lovely night together. Sunday first up was a walk to the Hoad Monument for Sir John Barrow,built in 1850, sitting high up on the hill it looks like a lighthouse, we walked up one side and down the other, certainly knocked the cobwebs out of us and Lady the beautiful little dog of the house joined us, then down to Barrow in Furness to visit Paula and Rogs old nightclub from before they came to Australia and a few other sites including the impressive remains of an abbey over 900 years old, a view of their nuclear power station and also the area where the nuclear subs are being built to Australia. We are all feeling hungry by now so head up to Lake Windermere and the township of Bowness for a traditional Sunday Roast Lunch, delicious lunch and Lake Windermere was so pretty, being the largest natural lake in England more than 18klms long, but up here in the
Lakes District there are lots and lots of lakes. Wonderful three days with Rog and Paula and sorry we are leaving.
