Staffordshire - 5 August 2007

Stafford has a very attractive town centre. We spent time wandering round the centre and looking at the country's largest timber framed building, before a brief detour to see the Castle that turned out to be just the ruins of a gothic replica castle.

Before the day got too hot we did a 5-mile walk though the Shrugborough Estate and Channock Chase. Shruborough Mansion is very splendid, as is the Essex bridge, an attractive packhorse bridge of 14 arches across the Trent. The bridge connects the Estate to the pretty town of Great Haywood.

After the walk, we did a tour from there which took in several attractive towns, old ruins and two Stately Homes.

First was the romantic ruin of Lilleshall Abbey. Following this, one of the best-presented country homes we have seen; Weston Park.

Another very handsome Country church at Tong, sparse ruins of White Ladies Priory and Boscobel House where Charles II hid, from the Roundheads, in an oak tree. Hence, ‘Royal Oak’ and thus the name of many a pub in England and a suburb in NZ.

The final stop was Chillington Hall; built on a site that has been occupied for over 800 years by 29 generations of the Giffard family. Great-great-great-great …. originally came over with William the Conqueror in 1066.

The National Forest - 4 August 2007

The National Forest sounds impressive, but there seems to be less forest in the National Forest than in many places in the UK. When they dreamed up the idea in 1980s, this area was one of the least wooded areas in the country. So, if it weren’t for the many signs proudly proclaiming that you had just driven into the National Forest, you would have no idea that it even existed. It is a bit like the “New Forest”; it was ‘new’ in 1079, nearly a thousand years ago. Perhaps the National Forest has a thousand years to grow before it takes any real ‘national’ significance.

We spent the day having a good look at the area, and one of the most impressive features was the old and interesting churches.

We planned a visit to Melbourne Hall, and also did a walk from there. Melbourne in Australia was named after the owner of the day, Lord Melbourne.

Keeping the links between the landed gentry families straight is a mammoth task not helped in this instance by the fact that none of the family names associated with Melbourne Hall are pronounced the way one would expect: Coke, is pronounced “Cook”; Cowper, is pronounced “Cooper”; Kerr, is pronounced “Car”; and Lamb, naturally, is pronounced “Lam”. So the Thomas Coke (pronounced Cook), who landscaped the grounds, is not to be confused with the Thomas Cook of travel fame, another of Melbourne’s famous sons.

Dinner was at the Holly Bush Inn, which is apparently one of the oldest licensed pubs in the Country.

We finished the day at Stone, a pleasant canal side town.

Foxton Locks - 29 July 2007

We started the day at Foxton Locks, where we did a 5 mile walk, based around the locks and canal. It's a very picturesque spot, where Victorian engineers came up with a clever lift to raise wide boats up to a higher level. The narrow boats had to negotiate a flight of ten back-to-back locks. With such an arrangement there is no scope for passing so, once started, a boat had to ascend or descend all 10 before another boat could use the flight in the other direction.

Following this, we did a guided tour of Stanford Hall, as well as a tour of the Jaguars on show there: It was the national Jaguar gathering.

Kelmarsh Hall was open for teas and visits to the garden. We enjoyed the tranquil setting.

Our final stop was the attractive town of Great Brington. The church has very impressive tombs to the Spencer family.

Leicester - 28 July 2007

In the centre of Leicester, there is an interesting area called Castle Park that includes several historical buildings, some of which we visited.

Newarke House has several interesting displays: we especially enjoyed their period rooms and war displays.

On our walk around Leicester we came across the guildhall, the oldest building in Leicester, a real leap into the past; next door is the Cathedral, which has a warm and intimate atmosphere.


The markets were full of good quality fruit at bargain prices: we wished we had such a good market near us in London.
A short drive from the city centre, took us to Bradgate County Park from where we did an eight-mile walk past “Lady Jane’s” house. Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for 9 days before Mary Tudor took over, was born and brought up at the now ruined Manor House.

Tour de France 2007, Stage 9: Jumieges to Calais – 15 July 2007

We awoke to the familiar sound of thunder and set a world record for dismantling a tent and getting it into the car, just as the rain began to make its way through the tree cover.

Our rapidly changing itinerary had rather confused us and, as it transpired, we should not have chosen Jumieges as a campsite at all, we should have left Rouen in a totally different direction.

Nevertheless, we set off for Dieppe, as it was sort-of on our way to Calais. It was on this leg of the journey that we read other information that indicated the Somme battlefields were not where they were indicated on our map and Dieppe was not an appropriate waypoint. After a very cursory sweep through Dieppe we set off for Thiepval and ultimately traced a huge Z across France between Jumieges and Calais.

The first memorial we came across was one commemorating the Newfoundlanders and was a preserved piece of the battlefield with trenches and so forth. A foresighted Officer had purchased the land from the farmer to preserve it, just as it was. It is now a Canadian park. Clearly, over time the contours of the trenches and foxholes had softened but the effect was still incredibly sobering.

Over one million men lost their lives in this four and a half month battle in 1916 and there are cemeteries and memorials dotted across the landscape.

We stopped at the Ulster Tower – the Irish Memorial, the Connaught Cemetery and then at the main memorial for the area at Thiepval. It was there that we got accurate instructions for finding the NZ memorial, out in the middle of a field. Our last stop was the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery where, among the other Commonwealth dead, New Zealanders soldiers are buried and the names of the 1205 Kiwis whose graves are unknown are inscribed.

The Kiwis arrived in the Somme from Anzac Cove in the Dardanelles and moved on to Flanders in 1917. One cannot but leave a place like this humbled at the dedication and sacrifice of these brave men: Dardanelles, Somme, Flanders - names that will forever ring down through history.


It was time for the final sprint stage to Calais, so we left the byways and back-roads of France and paid our toll for the privilege of ticking of the final kilometres at 130 per hour.

Tour de France 2007, Stage 8: Chartres to Jumieges – 14 July 2007

Our reason for heading to the south of Paris on our westward trip was to visit Monet's Garden, so that was our first stop for the day. It would be a really great spot if you could get rid of the tourists cluttering up your photos.

Several dozen lily-pad shots later, we set off for Les Andelys. Petite Les Andelys is right on the Seine and is very attractive. The main town is not worth a stop. The area is overlooked by the Chateau Gaillard, built by Richard the Lionheart in 1197 to defend Rouen from the French.

On the route to Rouen we stopped at Lyons-la-Foret, an extremely attractive half-timbered town favoured by the Dukes of Normandy as a hunting base. It was easy to while away time there ambling around the streets snapping photos.

Our intended destination for the night was Rouen, so that was our next waypoint. The Cathedral is a grand gothic masterpiece with the tallest spire in France and is the burial place of Richard the Lionheart. The west face of the cathedral was the subject of a series of painting by Monet. The town had an extensive pedestrianised centre so we wandered around admiring more old half-timbered buildings. In stark contrast was the new Church dedicated to Joan d'Arc who was burnt at the stake a few metres outside. It replaces the church destroyed in 1944 and is a fabulously beautiful modern structure incorporating the stained glass windows of the original church. The architect has achieved a truly inspirational building that one was loathe to leave.

Since there were still a few hours in the day we decided, after looking at it, not to spend a night in the Rouen Municipal Campground and pressed on towards Dieppe. The next campground was not much more exciting, seemingly right next door to a busy motorway, so we dropped back down to a loop in the Seine to find, eventually, the campground at Jumieges.

Tour de France 2007, Stage 7: Chaumont to Chartres - 13 July 2007

Tonnerre is famous for the Fosse Dionne, a spring that the town was built around; and as it was on our westward route, it was our first stop.

Next on our way west was Chablis. Clearly one cannot drive through Chablis without stopping and having a glass of Chablis. We visited a 'Cave' where they offered tasting and sales and heard the potted history of the Chablis area and the four regions within it: Petite Chablis, Chablis, Premier Cru and Grand Cru. We sampled one each of the first three and purchased some Petite Chablis and two bottles of a very fine 2003 Premiere Cru that will keep for 25 years and is thus destined to be opened on some very special birthdays.


Next stop was Auxerre on the Yonne river. The town fathers have organised a very well executed town trail which we followed, from time to time; picking and choosing our sites and routes. Although there are many fine buildings, the overall effect was not as good as Troyes or Colmar.

On, then, to Joigny, for a brief stop at another town that the real Tour de France had just passed though. I am sure that the cyclists appreciated the fact that they were there before the temperature soared past 30C as it did for us. To go from 4C to 34C in so few days was quite amazing.

Kilometre after kilometre of boring flat cropping land followed but, as the harvest was in full swing, there was the excitement of having to overtake large, non-see-through farm vehicles: always a challenge when driving a RHD car on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. Tractors and trailers notwithstanding, we finally arrived at our destination for the night: Chartres.

After checking in at the campground we staked out our territory by pitching the outer fly of our tent then drove into town to visit the Cathedral and have a walk around the historical centre. The cathedral has amazing carvings around the choir, a true 'Bible in stone' and is famous for its stained glass windows which they are still re-instating after removing them for the two world wars.