Tuesday June 17, 2014

We had a bit of lie-in this morning 6:45!  We didn’t have a long distance to do and we could not go to our warmshowers host until 5:30 pm. We followed our route really well again today.

We knew we might get turned around trying to find the route over the River Avon, but we only got turned around once and we were on the bridge over the Avon.

The cycle path across the river was  added with funds from Sustrans – the British cycle organization.

Our warmshowers host (Kirsty) told us about the Blaise Estate, where there are 600 acres of grounds, a café, a museum and a castle folly.  We decided to stop at the Blaise ground for lunch and explore the grounds a bit and then go to Kirsty’s house at 5:30.

We spent a while looking at all the different people in the park.

Ralf went for an exploration and I updated the blog on the steps of the museum, which used to be the Estate House.

We chatted to a lovely couple who were a wealth of information about the Estate and the grounds.  The Castle \”folly\” was built in 1766 and restored in 1982 with funds from the lottery commission.

The castle folly was built by the original owner as a place to take his guests for an outing.  Of course all the food and drinks were taken up there by the servants to cater for the guests.

This is cave was man-made by the original owner.

The view from the top of the castle over the hills was lovely.

Our warmshowers hosts were really nice, we had a lovely shepherds pie with fresh veges for dinner.  They are planning a grand adventure of their own.  In August they start their trip to New Zealand – all across land including going through Iran, India and the Stans (Pakistan etc).  They are a really nice couple, and gave us a great route to follow the next day to Norton.