Roaming Through England – Avebury to Truro and all points in between

After breakfast and a shower we were on a mission…to find a boat. Funny, to come halfway around the world and end up driving down an unnamed country road, across a tiny bridge, park and clamber down a small path at the side of a river to find a boat. One of my Flickr friends has a boat and as luck would have it, he was currently moored up not too far from where we were staying. That we found him is a testament to GPS navigation! Lady River Mouse is a 50 foot long, 6’10” wide narrow boat and we wanted to meet up, say hello, and set foot on one of these vessels as we have thought about chartering one at some point in the future. Lady River Mouse is warm and cosy and welcoming, and so is David! David and his feline friend, Cookie, live on Lady River Mouse and ply the waters of the English canals waking to a new view of the world whenever they need a change. It is a fantastic boat and seems like an idyllic way to live. We can’t stay long though as we need to be down in Cornwall by 2pm to meet several other Flickr-mates at the Eden Project and it’s a long way off.

If we didn’t have a GPS navigation on the Mac…we would NEVER have found our way! Period! We weave our way on different levels of roads and highways, round traffic circles (and mostly manage to stay in the right lane) and zip through the most amazing little towns and villages. We make one stop to take a photo of one of the white horses of Wiltshire carved into the hillside. Amazing that they could make them look proportional when they couldn’t get into the air to look down from above. They aren’t exactly the Nazco sand carvings, but they are still impressive. Wiltshire is crop circle country and we had driven up to Windmill Hill earlier before breakfast, home to regular circle activity we understand.

Each town we drive through makes our heads snap around. The buildings are fantastic, the architecture wonderful and all we want to do is stop and explore and photograph each one…but we have no time. Frustrating! We wish we had more time here!

Eventually we wend our way to the M5 and fly down to past Exeter before we finally see signs to the Eden Project. We are about 15 minutes behind schedule and are looking to find a phone to call Mary, but can’t see one so we just push on and when we drive into the parking lot we see two couples replete with camera gear…they MUST be our friends. We’ve never met in person, only exchanges comments on photos and chatted online in a photo group on Flickr. And it is wonderful to finally meet and speak to them!

Bob and Fran have come 2 hours South to visit the Eden Project. Mary and Derek live closer in a small village called Ponsanooth. We have a wonderful time visiting the most amazing biomes imaginable. The Eden project is a massive botanical conservatory built into the belly of an old china clay pit. One biome contains the tropics while another contains the Mediterranean. Funny to be in England and see some of the same plants we left behind 24 hours ago! The project is like nothing we’ve ever seen and we are SO glad we made the trek down this far. No regrets.

Afterwards we follow Mary and Derek back to their home…and we would have been terribly lost if we had not. They have a fabulous little home at the top of a quiet lane with peaceful atmosphere. We spend the rest of the evening sharing the evening with them and they treat us to a fabulous dinner and even more fabulous conversation until we are all exhausted and need to turn in for the night. They generously offered to put us up for the night and we are ever so grateful.