Latest happenings

First and foremost, if you've been following the international news, you'll know that a volcano erupted in Iceland on Wednesday, and the ash cloud has proceeded to cover most of Europe. Although this doesn't directly affect me, it has come at a very inconvenient time for most of my housemates who have now had to scrap their spring break plans for this coming week, since, due to the ash, almost all flights in the UK have been cancelled.

Fortunately, none of my spring break plans involve flying so it's still a go for our grand backpacking adventure through Wales and the English Midlands this week. If all goes as planned, my friend and I will be spending the next few days hiking in the mountains and exploring small towns before we work our way back to London through central England by train and coach.

Most of today has been spent getting ready, but yesterday I tagged along with a few friends on a day trip to Canterbury, about 2 hours southeast of London.

The town center was quaint and touristy, like most we've seen, dominated of course by Canterbury Cathedral.

Our plan was to do all the free things in the area... which turned out to be not very much. Using some free maps from the tourist info center, we walked through a few parks, looked at the ruined abbey from afar, and for lunch we had a picnic at another local park, enclosed by an old medieval wall.

In one corner of the park was a tall monument on a mound, which we all climbed to take in the impressive views. It's a decent city, but there isn't a whole lot to Canterbury besides the few ruins and the cathedral.

A little wind-blown Blue Tit!

Nonetheless, we managed to make a full day of it there and especially had fun walking along the medieval walls along the park. It's very strange to see something like that right next to a busy city road!

Eventually we came upon an old Norman Castle, which I thought was really cool. You could go inside of it, and even walk up the spiral staircase into one of the turrets. Again, it was really funny to have something like that sitting in the middle of a city, literally in some peoples' backyards.

A pretty canal in another garden.

Eventually, we ran out of free things to do, and, with 3 hours to kill before our coach ride back to London, we finally gave in and spent £7 to go inside Canterbury Cathedral. And boy, was it worth it! The cathedral was massive. There was an enormous nave, quire, chapter house, a dark crypt, and a great cloister outside. It was all just gorgeous.

Once we had seen all of the inside, we wandered around the back, where we found even more. There was an old monastery and garden, and several large, empty rooms. It was just spectacular, and incredible how old and well-preserved everything was. It was definitely worth £7 and made our day in Canterbury just that much more enjoyable.

Well, tomorrow I'm off to Wales so I probably won't post again until next weekend.

Until next time,

Cheers!

Ireland, day 7

Our seventh day in Ireland was the busiest day I had the entire time I was there. I'll try to let my pictures do most of the talking so as not to make this too long (I think it's already too late to worry about length though!).

We rode the city bus to Cave Hill Country Park, on the outskirts of Belfast, much like Colin Glen (although fortunately this time we had a friendly bus driver who let us off at the street leading up to it and gave us good walking directions from there!). Belfast is situated in the Lagan Valley and surrounded by gigantic hills -- being from Florida, I thought they looked more like mountains, but everyone insisted they were hills. We were over 1,000 feet in altitude though, so whatever you want to call it, that's what we were hiking.

Belfast Castle stands about a third of the way up. It's a 19th century mansion that was owned by the third Marquis of Donegall (a family who owned/owns much of the land in Belfast).

It was open to the public, but there wasn't much inside. Apparently it's mostly used for weddings and rented out for private events. On the top floor, there were some really old informational displays, including the large taxidermy exhibit above.

This was the view of the city from the castle.

At the top of the hill is McArt's Fort, also known as Napoleon's Nose. It was really far up, but three of us decided to see how close we could get, which the fourth member of our group elected to stay behind at the castle. It turned out to be a long and strenuous hike, but I had an absolute blast.

It had been a couple hours and we were only about two thirds of the way to the top, so we decided just to hike back down so we wouldn't leave our other party member waiting too long. Just as we were about to turn around though, we spotted a clearing at the top of a sharp incline. With an exchange of glances, it was clear we were all in ageement: "Let's do it!"

It was SO worth it! Gasping for breath at the top, the trees gave way to a spectacular panorama of the entire city and countryside. Behind us, Cave Hill towered above (you could actually see all the caves from here) and in front was a glorious, grey, foggy vista.

Just as we were about to head back down, a couple of old Irishmen came up the path with their 5 dogs. After a few moments of small talk ("Lovely afternoon, innit? Are you Canadian?"), they suggested we go up a little farther to see the "big cave".

We took their advice and found the big cave just beyond a grassy ravine. It was a little farther than we had time to walk, but it was clear, even from that distance, how large it must have been inside.

Before we left, I wanted one last look at the great view. I scrambled up a steep outcropping that jutted up from the side of the hill. It was a great little adrenaline rush when I got to the peak and found myself balanced on what felt like the top of the world.

This was a map of the trails -- I highlighted our route in red. Needless to say, we were dead exhausted by the end!

But the day was far from over. We rode the bus back into Belfast and then got off at St. Anne's Cathedral. It was an interesting church, and quite beautiful inside, especially with the organ player practicing haunting hymns that echoed throughout the sanctuary.

When we got back to the hostel mid-afternoon, I fell sound asleep for a good hour or so before dinner. Afterwards, I had agreed to go with one of the girls to a photography club meeting for her research project.

We got a little lost getting there when we hopped off the bus, and realized it was not a great part of town. However, thanks to a friendly hairdresser who googled the place for us, we found it without much hassle.

I was quite exhausted by that point and felt very out of place among the dozen or so photographers with their big fancy DSLRs and studio equipment. It was interesting to watch though, and I actually learned a few new things about photography.

Getting back to the hostel was a little scary -- when we were walking back to the bus stop (in the rain and the dark), at one point we were followed by two men in a car who started get out and come towards us. However, we kept walking quickly and as soon as we got to the main road seconds later, they disappeared. It was extremely unnerving, but fortunately the only somewhat-dangerous situation I encountered on the entire trip.

It certainly didn't ruin the remarkable day it had been overall. I had climbed a thousand feet over the city, I had wandered down the aisle of a cathedral, and had spent the evening in the company of some brilliant photographers. What a day!