The first week campervanning!

Day 4 in London-Day 1 in Campervan 

28/3/2011

Today was our last day in central London. We started off by going to the London Dungeons where we went on a tour. It was not a guided tour but directed by actors acting out people from medieval times. The actors told us about all the terrible things that have happened in London over the years like, the Plague, the London fire, Sweeny Todd, Bloody Mary (Queen Mary 1) and Jack the Ripper. How they told us the information was by acting out scenes from that time. There were two rides along the way, a boat ride through Traitors Gate and a Hanging ceremony. It was a bit scary and Sam had to leave half way through crying. 

Next we went to Westminster Abbey a church where lots of rich, famous and royal people were buried. We looked at the tombs and Memorials of Queen Elizabeth I with Queen Mary I under her, King Edward III, King Henry VII, Mary Queen of Scots, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer and Handel. All the Royal tombs were very imposing and pretty.  

We went to the train station and caught the train to Harpenden, then we went to a farm where we picked up the campervan. We drove to the New Forest and set up the campervan, then had dinner (we nearly got lost) and went to bed.   

29/3/2011  

Today, we went to Stonehenge which means hanging stones. It looked like kinda like a group of arch ways meant to be something bigger but left abandoned. It isn’t though, around 3000 BC early inhabitants of Britain built a huge construction made out of rock with a large circle of archways around the outside of a smaller circle, with some small stones in the middle. No one knows what it was built for but some think it was a calendar or a very early observatory used to study the movement of the moon and sun. I think it was a calendar and a place of worship, maybe it was. Anyway it was really cool, really big and really interesting. 

Next we drove to Cheddar but on the way we saw the White Horse, a carving of a horse on a chalk hill. It was cool. 

We drove to Cheddar then, walked around the town, through the gorge, bought some Cheddar from the Cheddar Cheese shop, had dinner and listened to the church bells ringing (lots). 

30/3/2011 

Today was our second day in the Cheddar and we drove to Bath and went into the Roman Baths. The Roman Baths were built by the Romans in 100AD, they believed that the water from the hot springs the baths were filled was the holy water from their God Minerva. They believed the water had healing powers and made sure that the wounded, old and sick people bathed in the water. The spring water was very hot, so hot that steam was constantly coming from it. The Romans built the baths in very tall buildings with arched roofs to keep the hot air in, they also had a 50cm gap between the floor and the ground so the air would go under the floor and heat it. It was really cool to see the original baths and stones from the Roman times. 

Then we drove back to Cheddar and had our first meal in the campervan, Spaghetti! It was good to have a meal in not out. We also had our first game night where we had two rounds of Uno and two rounds of Monopoly Cards, it was fun.   

31/3/2011 

Today we drove from Cheddar to Windsor to see Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle is HUGE! Out the front of the Castle is a big statue of Queen Victoria with her small crown on, we saw Victorias small crown at the Tower of London with the crown jewels. We also went to the start of the Long Walk, it’s a long walk to a statue of Queen Elizabeth II’s dad on a horse. The walk looked really long but luckily Mum and Dad have done the walk before and didn’t make us do it again! We looked at the Edon College for boys which is the school that most of the Royal boys went to, it was also really big and looked like a school where you have to wear  ties. 

Then we drove to Henley-on-Thames, it’s a old town on the Thames (tems), the same river that London is on. We went for a walk down the river, it was really quite pretty. We saw a lock which is two gates used to level out the water so that bigger boats can go down the river. We walked for about 1hr 30min along the river then we went to the Angel on the River (a Bar on the river) and had dinner. I had a cheese burger with chips and salad, it was nice. 

1/4/2011 

Today we went to LEGOLAND Windsor, it was awesome! When we first drove down the driveway we were greeted by around 70cm tall LEGO men carrying around 1m tall LEGO letters. Then when we got to the end of the driveway the same LEGO men with the same LEGO letters were all in a row spelling WELCOME, it was so cool. We got to the gates at around 9:30 and had to wait around for a bit because the gates didn’t open till 10, but luckily the LEGO Big Shop was open. When the gates finally opened we went down the hill on the Hill Train and go to see the first sights of LEGOLAND. 

Miniland was the first place we went to, it was so cool, there were LEGO models of the main buildings and interests in Scotland, England, Holland, France and Germany. There was even a model of the NASA space shuttle and it went “ this shuttle will take of in T minus 30 seconds”, then when it got to 0 all this smoke came from the bottom. 

Then we went on some rides, we went on the Laser Raiders ride where you were on a rail car and you had little laser guns and you had to shoot the the 70cm LEGO people with lights on them. There were 3 other people on your car (in my case Mum, Dad and Sam) and it was a race to see who could shoot the lights the fastest and who could shoot the most, of course Dad won. We also went on the Scarab Bouncers which is like the - ride at the Kelmscott Show, the Jolly Rocker (is like the Bounty’s Revenge at Adventure World), the - ride (is like the little boat ride at Adventure World), the Spinning Spider (is like the Sizzler at the Kelmscott Show), the Dragons Apprentice (a little dragon Rollercoaster) and the Dragon (a big Rollercoaster with LEGO displays in the castle), that was awesome we went on twice!  

Also, we played Mole-in-one golf, it was really good but we forgot to get a score card so we didn’t find out what the score was. All throughout the course there were little brown hills that were the Mole Mounds and on the sides of the course there were little LEGO animals, they were so cute! 

finally we went back to the Big Shop and Sam bought 3 Ninjago sets and 2 Star Wars sets, I bought Mum some Mothers Day Gifts (she is getting two Mothers Days because the English Mothers Day is the first Sunday of April (3/4/2011) and ours is the second Sunday of May) and a LEGO Dobby the House Elf key ring (it’s so cute). 

When we got back to the Henley camp site Dad and I walked to the shop to find wrapping paper, scissors and Sam’s Doctor Who magazine. We came back with other stuff and the Doctor Who mag. but not the wrapping paper and scissors because we couldn’t find any!