Au revoir, Europe!

Well, we made it to the airport safely! Now all we need to do is make it home.

You can see some photos of today on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/

After getting mum to the train station well before 8, we headed to the Port of Dover, where we drove onto our ferry to Calais. This particular route is one of the busiest large ferry routes in the world - there are many, many crossings each day. The 90-minute crossing was fairly uneventful, although I did capture a couple of wicked photos of the white cliffs as we left:

The White Cliffs of Dover

See you later, England!:

See you later, England!

There was a complete absence of border control of Calais - you literally just drive off the ferry straight onto the motorway. We decided to go along the road nearer the coast, rather than just using the motorway. Our planned route took us past some spectacular scenery and over the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer. We wound up in Abbeville, where we had a brief look around:

Abbeville

After we found out the nearby Chateau was shut, we soldiered on towards Paris. By complete accident we went past Chateau de Chantilly around sunset, which was just magnificent:

Chantilly

After another hour or so, driving through some dense forests and sparse farmland, we made it to Charles de Gaulle Airport - the Renault lease car drop-off point, to be precise. It’s some distance to CDG, transport to which is provided free of charge with a transfer van.

I’ll upload a couple more blogs detailing our whole airport-airline experience until Brisbane. Au revoir until then!

The white cliffs... more of a dark grey

Our last day of travelling in Britain today, where we drove south all the way to the coast and Dover. Given that it was our last day and all, we decided to go straight to the White Cliffs of Dover, rather than going to our hotel first.

Dover on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157647343129007/

After abandoning mum because she didn’t want to walk the length of the trail, we headed off on our merry way. The weather was decent, on the walk over, and I was really impressed, not by the cliffs themselves, but by the ruggedness of the coastline. It’s hard to describe, it just “had that feel about it”, with just the right amount of flowering bushes mixed in with barbed-wire and wood fences and green grass:

Rugged White Cliffs

Of course there are the white cliffs, which are pretty spectacular, although you can’t actually go down to sea level any more - there was a landslide several years ago that they still haven’t deemed safe to traverse. I’m having flashbacks to Cinque Terre here:

The White Cliffs

The sunshine lasted until we reached the lighthouse, when we realised it was going to rain. We had a tour of said lighthouse, which was actually quite interesting. All the old machinery was still there, and we got to turn the old handle and watch one of the original mechanisms rotate the light. The lighthouse has long since shut down after the dangerous reefs shifted to the west by several miles:

The lighthouse of the White Cliffs

We power-walked the way back, not wanting to get too wet. As it turned out it didn’t rain too heavily, but the white cliffs had turned a fabulously mediocre grey in colour. Booo-ring!

Back to our hotel, where we walked around to a local pub and had another traditional British pub meal - our very last! Tomorrow we’ll throw mum out at the train station in Dover, where she’ll embark on the rest of her trip. We’ll get the ferry across the Channel and cruise on down to Paris. Until tomorrow!

Back to university?

On to Cambridge today, and one of the few places in England that I insisted we visit. Having never been before, I was keen to see some of the universities and their architecture.

You can see Cambridge on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157647343129017/

After picking a (relative expensive) car park, we walked along one of the major thoroughfares for a while, coming across the Fitzwilliam Museum. It’s a fantastic collection of artwork and historical artefacts, including an Egyptian sarcophagus (which I didn’t get to see). While going and seeing it properly would have been nice, we were limited with time, so decided against it:

The Fitzwilliam Museum

Then we got to the core of Cambridge: its universities. At this point we split up, as I wanted to do some exploring, whereas mum and dad were more content to wander around the other part of town. They weren’t free to get into - I suspect that may have had something to do with it.

First up I went into Queens College, one of the smaller universities, and walked through a few of its buildings and along the River Cam. Cambridge is known for its ‘punting’ along this small canal-like river, and I personally think it is way too commercialised. There are dozens of them in a continuous chain going up- and downriver, as well as a few causing havoc in their amateurish attempts at punting:

Queens College and the River Cam

My next target was Kings College. I ended up not going in, as not only had I forgotten my student card for discounted entry, but the entry fee was enormous. I think it was 7 or 8 pounds each. Something I can leave to next time - because I will surely be coming back.

A bit more of a cruise around later, I headed back to our meeting point at the Fitzwilliam Museum, as I was out of phone credit. We ended up walking back to the car the long way, when I had the good fortune to stumble upon Pembroke College. This college was almost the smallest of them all, but with the most fantastic colour contrasts in its buildings and trees:

Pembroke College

That was about the end of Cambridge for us. Mum and dad at least - there is so much here to see that I’ll definitely be back one day. We’re staying about a half-hour north of Cambridge tonight, and we’ll journey to Dover tomorrow. The end is in sight!

Some more from today

A drive through Norfolkshire

Today we needed to get from Croydon, on the southern side of London, around and up to King’s Lynn, where we will tour Norfolkshire for a couple of days.

A few photos added to an album for Ely:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157647545347302/

Our only stop for the day was Ely, a church city about an hour south of King’s Lynn. Its church is apparently a big deal, because as I stepped in I saw signs for admission prices of 8 POUNDS. The reason it’s so expensive is that it’s a mandatory 12-month ticket - you can’t just buy a single-visit admission. I contented myself instead with taking photos from just inside the front door, which is before the admission area, and outside:

Ely Cathedral

After that we went for a bit of a wander through the backstreets. There was nothing much to see really, but there were some nice buildings and streets all the same:

The rest of Ely

That took up the whole day, none of us really felt like doing much more at this stage. So tomorrow we’ll explore some local attractions. Until then!