Warwick Castle plc

My love of Castles knows no bounds and on a nice sunny spring day Sarah and I decided to head off to Warwick for an afternoon of fun (not that sort of fun!!). This was in part due to an offer i managed to get whereby i could purchase two tickets for the price of one. When you arrive at the ticket office you suddenly see why this is a necessity, as the price of the tickets requires most people on a normal wage to take out a second mortgage in order to get into the place. Also, rather ingeniously, these 2 for 1 offers are so common that we didn't even need to present the ticket to the lady in the kiosk, she just took our word for it, making me feel like it was purely a device to get me to the castle gate so they could start draining cash from me.

On top of this, you are presented with a variety of ticket choices which makes deciding what you want to do rather confusing as they seem to have changed the castle from a historical building into something like a cross between Alton Towers and Starbucks. "Can i have a standard ticket with a dash of the Dragon's Tower, with shot of Dungeon visit please". This ticket choice would probably set you back about £45. Not forgetting that we had to pay £5 car parking for the privilege of coming to this place.

The haunted tower, as it used to be known when i was a lad, was now the Dragon's Tower from the popular TV show Merlin (an extra £8 charge to go in here and get annoyed by 3D special effects.....i bet the ghosts have long since buggered off in disgust....).

However, it did have some redeeming features, namely entering the living quarters of the castle and entering a turn of the century dinner party where we were introduced as "Lord and Lady Beamish" to the assembled guests. Obviously they realised that anyone who could afford the entrance prices to the castle must have the wealth of a minor royal!! The turn of the century living history was actually quite good fun, but not nearly as much fun as Henry VIII who was walking around the castle grounds booming out proclamations that would make Brian Blessed seem timid.

The weather was wonderful, so we camped out on the grounds and watched a Bird of Prey demonstration, which always cheers up my "feeling ripped off" mood. It was not bad, and i enjoyed the Bald Eagle who would not listen to his handler and when released he flew up into a large tree and refused to come down. We then felt obliged to sit and watch a rather amateurish meant-for-kids sword fighting display in the main courtyard. After watching Henry VIII wandering around trying to marry some of the mums, and threatening to behead a few noisy children (which would have been most welcome!), we decided it was time to "head off" ourselves.

The day was compounded when i discovered that i had the camera set to "video" mode, so instead of getting any nice pics of an expensive day, i got some meaningless video clips! (hence why this is a "text only" entry)!! Anyway, to summarise, my advice for anyone wanting to go to Warwick Castle is: don't go unless you have won the Euromillions the night before!

Roaming Baths

This is a retrospective post, having visited Bath several weeks ago but, for completeness I thought I would write it up.

Bath is a place i visited when i was a child, but alas time has dulled my memory somewhat, and so we decided it might be a nice day out to pop over there and visit the Roman Baths. It is a strange town, merging the old and the new clumsily together, but I did enjoy the variety of knitted jumpers most of the residents of the surrounding area seemed to insist on wearing. It made me realise that Noel Edmunds was not wearing those jumpers on Noel's House Party for a bet/dare/charity, but because they are considered de rigueur in the West Country!

Still, you could tell when we got closer to the Baths as the knitted jumpers started to thin out and the number of people with expensive looking cameras started to increase in frequency. Obviously, being a major source of tourism dollars, the buildings surrounding the Baths were lovely and well maintained.

Sarah and I joined the queue of Asian tourists, and i was already moaning at the price of the tickets, which were £12 each. Now, i am not a skinflint, but shelling out over a tenner to see a place where the Roman hoi polloi scrubbed their spuds was excessive to my mind. It never ceases to amaze me how much we can charge for entrance to some of our national treasures (see future post on Warwick Castle!). For perspective, i paid ($40 or £25) for a three day pass to see all the temples in Cambodia. I need to remember though that our museums in London are all free, so it is not all bad...

Once we got into the Baths, it really was a surprise at how much you got to see and walk around. I felt slightly guilty for moaning about the £12, as i definitely got value for money. Yes, there were obviously Baths, but also we got to see the springs, some of the Roman finds they discovered when excavating the site, there were temples there too, and also a variety of people dressed in period costume mingling in with the crowd and trying to make us feel like we had stepped back into the past.

Clearly these people were frustrated thespians, who just loved hamming it up for the tourists, who loved the interaction. I did enjoy the priest character who was offering up a human sacrifice to Oceanus (i think), but i was not brave enough to go up to him and get my photo taken in case he offered me to appease the gods!

Take Caer Leon

The final day of our weekend saw us heading back to Sarah's friends to collect her two dogs, Lola and Lacey. We then headed off the beach for them to stretch their legs before taking them on the long journey home. A small bit about the dogs; Lola is a bouncy, yapping Jack Russell, with a penchant for killing letters; Lacey is a laid back Labrador who has an appetite to put Mr Creosote to shame.

Lola Monkey - looking for something to bark at

Lacey Pups - looking rather exasperated at her sister

We walked them on the beach, but it was not actually that much fun as the beach was a pebble beach rather than a sand one meaning every step was precarious. So, we admired the view for a few moments before heading back to where we came and after meeting up with a friend for lunch at a local pub, we made our way slowly back to England.

On the way back though i couldnt resist stopping off at Caerleon, a Roman town with a lovely ampitheatre and garrison. It is also a place steeped in Arthurian legend, with Arthur being crowned there (allegedly) and the ampitheatre being a possible source for the "round table" part of the legend. I always love monuments that you can clamber over, and the ampitheatre was one such monument.

Source of the round table? It was more egg-shaped to me

We clambered around the ruins for a short while, and visited the remains of the garrison just across the car park all to the dulcet tones of a Jack Russell yapping at everyone who dared to pass by the car, before deciding we really should head off and return home.

Sarah likes clambering as much as i do....perfect match!

Llandeilo

The second part of our Wales visit was to a famous place called Gigrin Farm. OK, i admit to most people who are reading this, they will have never heard of Gigrin farm, but in the birdwatching fraternity it is actually very renowned for being a great place to spot Red Kites.

This is in no small part due to the fact that the landowner has gone against normal farming convention of poisoning these wonderful birds and instead encourages them with meat offerings on a daily basis. Kites are scavenger birds and have been accused of killing lambs and the like, but judging by the hoards of disinterested sheep all around the feeding site, i suspect this is more of an urban myth (much like badgers posing a TB threat to cattle!). This campaign left the Red Kite extinct in almost all of England, and down to a few colonies in Wales, but following a successful breeding programme their numbers are increasing once again.

We arrived at the appropriately named Red Kite pub, and it was at this point i started to feel inadequate. There is something curious about males comparing themselves to other males, and i fell slap bang into one of those scenarios right now. Up until that point i was entirely proud and happy with my 300mm telephoto lens, thinking this was a lens which would make me the envy of the rest of the people wanting to see the birds. I could not have been more wrong as men sat at the pub with whole assortments of lenses that were so large they needed their own tripods to balance them.

Suddenly, i started worrying if my lens was big enough for Sarah, and thinking maybe she will wander off with a man with a bigger lens than me.....bless her i think she was entirely bored with the whole sitting in a hide thing though, and was not paying any attention to any of these other men (thank goodness!), so i decided to out my worries to one side and focus on the birds.

Now all that meat being fed to these kites on a daily basis must add up to a fair few pounds of money, and so the owner charges £2 to go and see the kites, which i thought was entirely reasonable. Also, there is a concept in Wales called Honesty boxes, which i have not really heard of in England, but it was wonderfully refreshing as it shows an inherent trust in people - i liked this idea a lot and actually paid more than necessary.

Once he collected the cash, the landowner proceeded to throw out some meat. These kites are clever buggers though, and had already been gathering for the past half an hour knowing what was coming, as soon as the man entered the field they were swooping around excitedly.

This is one of the early diners waiting for his food

A lot of Red Kites swooping down and grabbing food from each
other. It reminded me of the all-you-can-eat buffet at Pizza Hut......

Now i am only used to seeing one or two kites in my limited English experience of the birds, so i was totally blown away by the 30 odd kites that were swooping and diving all around us. I started snapping away like a crazy Japanese tourist, and thank goodness for the quick fire setting as i must have fired off over 400 pictures in 10 minutes. It was a truly amazing experience, and one that left me grinning from ear to ear for the rest of the day. In fact you could say i was as high as a kite.....

Some individual close ups i managed to get; I may have taken 400 pictures, but only a handful were any good!!

Carreg Cennen

Now, England has a fair few castles in it, and some of them are quite impressive, but i have to confess that nothing prepared me for just how wonderful my first real Welsh Castle visit would be! I am lucky enough to have a friend who knows a good few things about British history and Castles in particular and he recommended this one to me.

Boy was i not disappointed. Sitting atop a promontory, was the spectacular Carreg Cennen castle. We could see it from miles away, showing just why it was built in this location, the chances of sneaking up on this were about as low as Ross Kemp's brow.....I stopped off to get a couple of nice distance shots of the castle, and to finish the scene perfectly, we could see buzzards and kites circling on the thermals around the castle. It was enough to put goosebumps on my goosebumps!!

Carreg Cennen approach

The dots you can see in the sky are buzzards and/or kites - not some bits of grit on the lens!! If you are sitting there thinking "what dots? i don't see any dots." then you clearly have not expanded the image (click on it). As i am getting the hang of photography, i am slowly learning things about composition too, and i know this photo is not very well composed, as i am showing too much sky (ooo i almost sound like i know what i am talking about ;) ).

Anyway, i digress (you will find that a lot in the blog), we popped back in the car and drove up to the castle. I was not disappointed. It was a steep enough ascent to the castle, but well worth it when you got there as it is set against a sheer cliff.

Sarah (my girlfriend) is not a big fan of sheer drops, but i could not resist leaning over the wall and looking down at the wonderful scene below. Sarah is from Wales, so i suppose these sort of things are much of a muchness to her, whereas i come from the fens (not born and inbred there, but spent all my life) where we call speed bumps hills, so this was a real novelty to me!

The castle has some really good history to it, ranging from iron age hill fort to strategic castle in the War of the Roses. It also sits on top of some caves which appeals to the Morlock inside me! I was a little disappointed with this to be honest, as when i got there the caves didnt seem to go very deep, and there was no lighting to guide your way or anything, so i turned back (i was too tight to spend the extra money on a helmet with a torch!!). My lack of enthusiasm had nothing to do with having watched The Descent: Part II only a few days before!!

the descent....

I was half expecting to see a strange sub-terranean cave dweller on the camera screen, having taken this picture in complete darkness.....that would have been a real Hollywood moment!

First post of a new blog

Ok, i am really missing blogging, and thought that i would widen my presence on the blogosphere. This blog is going to be a focus on the things i get up to while i am on my travels around Britain, which will mainly involve me visiting historical buildings (castles and churches). Those of you who know my other blog will realise i love climbing on old things - although don't worry that doesnt necessarily mean i will be clambering all over your Grandpa should i get the opportunity to meet him!

The blog will also include pictures of wildlife I see on my journey around this Sceptred Isle. Since my Egypt tour, i have discovered a fondness for photographing wildlife, in particular birds. This love really started when i went to Wales for a weekend with my girlfriend. The scope of the weekend initially was to visit a couple of her friends out that way, but as we made a weekend of it, we decided to stay in the Brecon Beacons and see a Carreg Cennen castle as well as heading over to Llanddeilo (pronounced "clan-die-low" to Welsh speakers, not "landy-low") where there was a Red Kite feeding station.

I have always been something of a twitcher, marvelling at the vast array of birdlife that we seem to have; i confess, i struggle with some of them as one brown looking bird is much like another, but i am learning slowly! Anyway, rather kindly, my friend let me borrow his digital SLR camera, which saved me trying to take pics with my trusty compact that has accompanied me on many a journey. It was a revelation! The pictures i managed to take were unlike anything i could have snapped with my compact camera and from that point on i was a convert!

So, i have managed to get my hands on a digital SLR and i find it rather relaxing to wander the English countryside with a zoom lens. So, in summary, this will be a blog of Birds and Buildings.

Anyway, enough wittering, i will write up my Welsh weekend in a few moments, including some thoughts.