First real day in England...

It has been fun traveling but I need to put a word of thanks and understanding out there to the sisters that helped host us in both our destinations. We came over and invaded their lives and expected them to show us around and we were all far too indecisive.
We all wanted to go out and see the sights but no one wanted to make the decision and instead tried to pass the decision making onto our gracious hosting siblings. That was relatively unfair. Despite this burden they both did a great job helping us to take in as much as we did in a whirl wind tour. So if you ever travel to visit relatives make sure you have in mind what you want to do before you get there. My experience now tells me that making decisions is really stressful on all parties. The larger the group and more closely related the worse it is to make decisions and the greater the likelihood that some body is bound to have at least a little feeling of not doing what they wanted to do.
So thank you sisters for hosting and doing the best job you could to show us around. We all had a great time!
Our first day in England we took a trip from the hotel by car to visit Swanage and from there to Corfe Castle. We had to cross Poole Harbor by chain driven ferry from Bournemouth to Studland and from their we drove to Swanage. In Swanage we took a restored steam train.
We were headed to see Corfe Castle. The train is run by volunteers and basically operates as a tourist opportunity The rail fee is used to keep the trains running along with government assistance. It was a little like a bunch of grown up boys playing with a really big train set. But it was fun and a great way to see the countryside. It was certainly a unique trip.
Corfe is a working medieval village that has only been renovated enough so that people can live and work there. The big attraction are the ruins of the castle. This is really something that can only be seen over in Europe!


I don't know what these guys were doing. This train could not have been transporting anything so important that it had to be transferred while still moving. I just think that the volunteers liked playing with their really big train set.







Here we all are at Corfe castle! There are a whole bunch of pictures of the castle on my picture page but this one tells almost the whole story of our visit.
They were encouraging these snails to live at the castle to keep the lichens from destroying the rocks and hasten further destruction of the castle.

We then ate a delicious lunch at the Greyhound Inn. I took several pictures and then learned it was the most photographed inn/pub in England. I recommend the lobster salad that is served in the shell.
We knew that it would have been great to bring our girls (Coralee and S.A.S.E.) They even would have welcomed them in the restaurant. If you can't read the sign, it says "Open for Dogs!"
The meal we ate was wonderful. Even the meat pies tasted great but three slices of meat pie was a little bit much and didn't measure up to the other dishes we got. This was the first meal we ate that started the trend of eating way too well on this trip. For the most part we ate really great tasting food but the quantity began to get ridiculous at times. I don't know if I would take it back though. Mmmmm! But my waist line is still recovering.
This picture was one of about 25. If you want to see them all they are all on my picture site, but I wanted to get a good picture of the train entering the station and the castle behind. The lighting was good and I set the camera on Rapid-fire. The resulting 25 pictures could almost be used as a time lapse film.

When we got back to Swanage we learned that we had illegally parked and killed the car battery with the SatNav. We waited for a little over an hour to leave but we had a good time taking in the scenery and enjoying the beach views of the English Channel.More of my signature flowers and landscape pictures. I still have not perfected it but I like adding the color to my pictures. I really enjoyed watching the sailboat race going on. I wish I could have gone out sailing on the Channel at some time.

We decided that we had a little bit more in us and went to see Durdle Door on the Jurassic coast. When we got there we learned that it was going to be more than a mile long steep hike over the coastal bluffs to get to see this famous geologic formation. Marika was especially excited to conquer this hike as it seemed easy compared to the hiking we had done in Austria. Marika's sister the dancer did the walk with the stamina of a mountain goat but Marika's parents, still tired from their travels, and not used to the hiking found this to be a very tiring journey. The site was well worth it though. We all made it!
It was a beautiful time of day to arrive there with the sun low in the sky. The only thing that could have been better would have been a blue sky but I gather this is a lot to ask for in England.
This view was amazing from the top of our hike. The sun was shining through the clouds and the lighting was wonderful.
That night we ate heartly at a wonderful Mexican restaurant called Corrianders in Bournemouth. The food was great but the decorations in the bathrooms were questionable, as was the size.
This was basically the end of our day one touring England. There will be more stories to come when I get the time.

In the meantime, Enjoy!