Bank holiday van-trip!

Taking advantage of the August bank holiday long weekend, we rented a van and set off on a road-trip round the English countryside with Mitch, Kelly, Gemma and Callum. Having heard several horror stories about long queues of bank holiday traffic, we left London at 7am, but arrived at our first destination (Stonehenge) pretty early having encountered hardly any traffic at all! Next up was a lunch stop in Salisbury, where we saw the impressive cathedral and took a quick stroll round the town market (which has been running since the 1300s!). After that we piled back in the van and headed towards "Wooky Hole" (not far from Bath). Note no-one knew what "Wooky Hole" was, Mitch just found it on the map and thought it had a cool name... And actually it was kinda cool, if a bit random! There was a big cave system, some of which we were able to walk through as well as an old-school little amusement park. From there we drove to Bath for dinner and an interesting night out on the town for the boys. On Sunday we spent the day in Bath and went on the Bizarre Bath comedy walking tour that night which was lots of fun. All relishing our day off on Monday, we headed on for a drive around the very pretty and quaint Cotswolds villages before we reached our final stop (Oxford) before returning to the joys of London.

(Apologies in advance for the lack of order in the photos - for some reason I can't change their positioning today.)

The sun came out late Monday afternoon in Oxford, so we took advantage and went for a relaxing punt along the Thames. Unfortunately we couldn't get six in a boat so we split up, the girls getting a chauffeur and the boys opting to "self-drive". Above is Kelly having a go.

Callum and Mitch relaxing while John does all the hard work!

Before getting a little too close to the bank...

and steering them into the trees!

The girls' chaffeur.

The boys on the boat with one of the University colleges (Magdalene) in the background.

The girls enjoying a wine on their punt.

The beautiful buildings in Christ College.

Mitch and John in the Christ College quadrangle.

We climbed the tower of the St Mary the Virgin church which has a primo view of the university colleges and surrounding city.

View of Oxford from St Mary the Virgin church.

A cool gargoyle on the St Mary the Virgin church.
The outside of Christ College, Oxford. And Watty ruining another photo.

The dining hall of Christ College which was also used as the Hogwart's dining hall in the Harry Potter movies.

Christ College.

Chimneys in Bath.

Bath Abbey by night.

One of the quaint Cotswold villages (Bourton-on-the-Water).

Bourton-on-the-Water.

A miniature model replica of Bourton-on-the-Water's town centre. And John pretending to be a giant.

This photo is a bit out of order - Gemma the mermaid at Wooky Hole.

Bath Abbey.

Callum outside Sally Lunn's - apparently the oldest house in Bath. Not sure what that thing he's sitting in is though.

John in Bath.

The river in Bath. And Watty ruining another photo.

Wooky Caves. Apparently the Witch of Wooky used to live there.

A garden with lots of random stuff in it at Wooky Hole (see below...).

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Stonehenge (if you couldn't tell).
John, Mitch and Callum outside Salisbury cathedral.

Inside Salisbury cathedral.

This really should have been the first photo! Trying to take a timer shot outside our place before we set off.

More Stonehenge shots.

So that was our Bank holiday excursion, and also our first time actually driving in England which was nice for a change. Even if the sat nav did take us on a few wee interesting detours!

We don't have any more trips planned at the moment, mostly because John is supposed to (if he would ever get round to booking his flights...) be going back to NZ in October or November and won't be coming back till January after going to Vanuatu with the rest of the Morahans for New Year (congratulations Chris and Erin by the way! - MC is glad you didn't wait for John to go first Chris - you probably would have been waiting the rest of your life...). We are thinking about hiring a car again and spending a week in the Scottish Highlands before he goes but no definite plans for that yet. So MC will be a bit lonely for 2 or 3 months but is looking forward to December and seeing Mum and Dad!

The weather is back to typical grey and rainy London and we are both still in the same jobs. We have our final week of touch this week - unfortunately we lost our semi-final last week but MC didn't mind too much as she scored her first (and probably last) try of the season! Although we are apparently entering our team in a "touch olympics" day in London next weekend so might have some more try-scoring opportunities there. John will also be starting Saturday football again soon, he had his last summer league game last night.

No other news I can think of right now, hope everyone at home is good and happy birthday for Sunday Nadine.