In the Neighbourhood and the Isle of Sh...White

Well we always said we would try our best to make the most of our time here in London and get out and about and see things. Considering we live on the doorstep of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London we thought it would be rude not to visit these places. Well at £16 each to get into the Tower of London we decided it was pretty enough from the outside for now and have put it on our "to do list" for when we are feeling flush with cash...

Tower Bridge is also a stunner and we love being able to walk 5 mins out our door and be walking across it admiring its beauty (might I add it isnt such a beautiful thing walking across it when a cold winter wind is blowing...I thought a Wellington southerly was bad!!)

Amongst the things that are right in our face and outside our door to do, we have ventured a little further in search of scenery and some of the English countryside we have heard of (and to try and prove it isnt a myth that it exists...). So off we toddled one weekend up North of London after Chris' boss recommended a lovely walk along a "river". River was a bit of an overstatement, it was actually a canal but was quite pretty with canal boats all along it and your token swans and ducks.

Seeing as the things closest to London weren't up to our spoiled NZ standards we thought we would try and find a beach to rate instead. We looked on the map and saw that there was an Island off the South Coast of England that didnt take too long to get to on a bus and that we could do on a Sunday - The Isle of White. Apparently this place is popular for family beach holidays in the summer with lots of caravan parks and plenty of opportunities for kiddies to make sand castles, there was even a zoo - now this time our hopes were high!

First impressions...well the first shop that greeted us when we walked off the ferry wharf was "The Codfather" and their motto was "we will batter anything". After a few moments contemplating how far they would honour this motto, especially when a fat tasty looking duck waddled by, we headed to the beach. Fortunately for us we had a glorious sunny day so we decided to bus to one side of the island and walk back along the beach as the waterfront wasnt the nicest with slimy seaweed everywhere.

Apart from the fact we felt like we had been transported back to an 80's beach holiday camp with the outdated looking beach shops, piers, novelty rides and ice cream parlours, it was quite a nice way to spend a Sunday...see look how excited we are!

So all in all it was a lovely day out, although we dont think we will be revisiting it in the summer to make castles and spend time comtemplating what to batter, although staying in one of these beach side boatsheds was a tempting thought...