Hello everybody. Hello. Um, sorry we’ve not been online for a couple of weeks, but actually we’ve both been a bit poorly, haven’t we? So, we’ve not been great, but uh, we are recovering now. We’re recovering. Yes. So, that’s why there’s been no video for the last couple of weeks, but we’re back. And this week, we are at a different place altogether. We’re back just near the edge of Maiden Head in Barkshshire, which is where we used to live. And we’re at a place called Amadan Caravan Park. And so far, it looks really nice, doesn’t it? It’s lovely. Um, you might be able to hear in the background the hum of the M4. And you, I mean, she was very honest on her website. She did say you can hear the M4. Um, and you can. Yeah. Um, but it doesn’t bother us. No. So, it’s the 1st of May. It opened today. And the campsite opened today. So, there’s at the moment, um, she was only expecting us. Uh, there is a Dutch couple, um, also staying here who just turned up off spec. So, and lucky them that it was open. Yeah. Absolutely. Exactly. Exactly. So, why are we here? We’ve got a busy weekend coming up, haven’t we? We have got a busy weekend coming up. Um, well, we’re here because tomorrow night we’re going to um a friend’s 17th birthday party. Um, who would have thought it was going to a 17th birthday. We kind of invited ourselves, which we’re very sorry, Chloe, so sorry about that. We We did indeed. But yeah, we’re going to her 17th birthday, which is tomorrow. Um, and we’re having a barbecue with the family tomorrow, aren’t we? We are. And then my brother is 60 today and he’s having a party at the pub that he lives at um on Saturday night. So Saturday we’re going traveling up to London and we’re going to camp overnight in the pub car park. Yep. Um and then Yeah. And then we’re going to go to his party on Saturday night. We are. And then uh we’re going to have three or four days in the New Forest after that. So um yeah, whilst we were up this neck of the woods, we thought let’s make the most of it. Yeah. So on Sunday we’re traveling to the New Forest and we’re having three nights at Hollandwood campsite, aren’t we? In Brockenhurst. So yeah, I’m looking forward to that. But this place is lovely. I mean, it’s got l and showers. It’s got washing up sinks, water, all the things that you need. It’s got black emptying as well, recycling. Really, really lovely. And it’s a beautiful little green oasis in the middle of a very, very busy area. I have to say, the weather does help. At the moment, we’re sitting in the shade. It’s now 4:00 or something. 4:00 and it is boiling out there. It was meant to be 29° here today. It was. It certainly feels like it when you sit out there as well, doesn’t it? So, we thought we’d sit in the shade. Yeah. Um but it Yeah. Really, really nice. We’re very impressed with this place, aren’t we? Yes. Um so, tomorrow our plan is to cycle into Windsor. Yep. Uh we have our bikes with us and um cycle along the river and hopefully back along the Jubilee River. So, um yeah, bit of a circular cycle tomorrow. So, we’re about to go and cycle into Maiden Head. We’re going to go to Balters Lock. Um, it’s an old Oh, it’s an old haunt of ours, I guess, really. We used to go there quite a lot when we were living in Maiden Head. And, um, it’s only a couple of miles down the river that, isn’t it? 2 and a half miles, apparently. Yep. And we don’t quite know how we’re getting to the river, but we think if we go out that way, we can get to it. And one way to find out, isn’t it? Yeah, indeed. There is only one way to find out. So, let’s go. We’ve just bought ourselves a new camera, which I particularly am very excited about. Uh, it’s a Sony a6700. And, um, the reason we bought it is because in a couple of weeks time, we are going to Namibia. So, that I’m exceptionally excited about. and we thought we’d come along and try it out. So, Jill’s just trying it out on Geese at the moment. So, here we are on Ray Mill Island, which is the island that’s just by Bolter’s lock. And actually, quite a lot has changed as well, hasn’t it? It has. The bridge behind us, there’s a new foot bridge behind us for a start. Um, which is quite impressive. We’ve just been taking some photographs of Egyptian golings, which is quite cute. And yeah, there’s there’s quite a lot of changes around here, aren’t there? But yes, it was two and a half miles here from our campsite of which the first two miles were either on the tow path or which was pedestrian only and bikes or the toe path which was a private road. Yeah. And it was only the last half mile that was actually on a on a road. Right. But actually it was quite a quiet road as well, wasn’t it? So it was fine. Just going over the bridge in Maiden Head was a bit hairy but it was fine, wasn’t it? So yeah. No, very nice cycle. And we’re going to go over that foot bridge and try and cycle back along the other side. Yeah, we’ll give that a go. See what happens. Never been on that. Well, we have, but not from this side. So, we haven’t walked over that bridge before, have we? So, so just down the river that way is the world famous Clifton. Yep. And a bit further on is Cookum. Yep. And then that way is uh Bray and Dorny and Windsor. And that’s the way we’re going to go tomorrow. So, we stopped here because this is actually a very famous railway bridge. This was built by Isabard Kingdom Brunell in the 1800s. And it has the widest brick span of any bridge in the world. He was going for, wasn’t he? He was going for it. Um, and it’s called the sounding arch because it makes a fantastic echoey sound as well when you stand if you chat underneath it or anything like that. So that is the widest brick arch spanned river in the widest and flattest which I’m not quite sure what they meant by the flattest. Well, presumably it means it doesn’t go up like that very much. It just goes across. Yeah, possibly. And so yes, it’s the widest span arch in brick in the world apparently. We are at today we’re at the world famous Eaton College. Um, everybody’s heard of Eaton College. This is Eaton College Chapel, which actually I’ve sung in on quite a few occasions. Um, and it’s been a lovely cycle ride here. We’ve cycled along through along the Jubilee River, which is a flood relief channel that was designed to protect homes in Windsor from the Tempame’s flooding. Um, it’s been interesting in places. It’s been very narrow and very um attacked by the the shrubberies, but it’s been great and it’s been a lovely cycle ride so far. We come through Eaton College playing fields right into the heart of Eaton and Eaton College itself. So, we’ve made it to Windsor Castle. Harrah. Yeah, we took a bit of a security route. We never go through this the best route, but we made it anyway. But it was very nice circle, wasn’t it? It was. It was lovely, actually. And behind us is the oldest inhabited castle in the world. Yep, absolutely. Is it the oldest or the largest? It’s the oldest. I think it’s the oldest. Okay. And yeah, either way, it’s it’s an impressive building. If you’ve never been in there, it’s very worth going into. It is. It’s lovely in there with the castle just there going slightly away from it. You then come to this building here, the shambles. And as you can see, it is a little bit riveted. But my favorite story, every time we came to Windsor, I always used to have to tell Jill this story. And this is the Guild Hall. And the Guild Hall was built by Christopher Ren. And when he built it, it was decided that not only did we need pillars around the outside, but we also needed pillars in the middle, too. And Christopher said, “No, we don’t need any pillars.” And um the people who um owned the building won the argument, so he put pillars in the middle, but as you can see, those pillars don’t actually reach the ceiling. So Christopher Ren said, “Okay, you can have pillars if you like.” But I’m amazed actually when um it was built that they didn’t say wait a minute those pillars didn’t reach the top but they didn’t you know so obviously nobody looked up they just saw the pillars and thought that’ll do so you used to love that story every time every time we came to Windsor Roger would say did you know I’ve got a story about this build this is one of the iconic views of the castle and the reason for that is that it’s taken from the long walk so this is where the king drives down when he’s coming out of Windsor Castle to go to Ascot. And at the far end, I think there’s a statue of George. Well, there is definitely a statue of George. I think it’s George the Fourth on his horse. So, it’s a lovely walk in a nice sunny day like today. Unfortunately, you are not allowed bicycles down here and you’re not even allowed to wheel bicycles down here, but still a stunning view. So, we just stopped by the side of the long walk at a pub called the Two Brewers, named after the fact that it was actually started by two people called Ramsbottom who were the original brewers in Windsor. There you go. And this apparently is the oldest street in Windsor and also used to be the main road from London um out to Stains and it used to go through Frogmore through the great park and all the car all the traffic would have come along this way which is why there were so many pubs along here. There was also a pub next door that was shut down in the 1890s for being disgraceful and being a brothel as well. So, that’s fair enough really. The Victorians never liked anything that was not very good, did they really? So, but it’s a lovely street, isn’t it? It is fantastic. And this is just such a stunning, gorgeous day as well, isn’t it? And apparently the average house price along here is about6 million pound. Yeah. Not the cheapest street in the world. No, definitely not. But that’s Windsor for you, isn’t it? It is. So, we’re cycling on our way back to Amadan where we’re staying. And um this is very close to the caravan site actually. And this is the Dorny Lake. This is the Eaton College rowing center basically. Um and this was built about 20 odd years ago. Um and it was used for the Olympics in 2012. Roger and I came here to watch some of the rowing in 2012. Um and yeah, it’s I mean and now it’s just mellowed in so beautifully into its environment. It’s really pretty. It is. And I was saying earlier it’s amazing, isn’t it? This belongs to a school. Yeah. Yeah, that is amazing. Yeah. But it’s not just any school, let’s be honest. Any school? But no, it is. It’s lovely. It is. And on a day like today, you can’t beat a bit of water, can you? No, not at all. And it’s just been a lovely cycle all around so far, hasn’t it? It’s been fantastic. And we’ve cycled by the river on the way back. We cycled over Eaton Bridge and then all down by the river and now we just come off through to Eaton College rowing centered by Dorny Lake here. And it’s just Yeah, it’s just glorious. And it’s so peaceful everywhere as well, isn’t it? You get the planes going overhead and you got the M4, but you know, apart from that, it’s pretty peaceful. About 90% of the journey’s actually been off road, hasn’t it? Yeah, it has. Yeah. On tracks, on other bits and pieces. Yeah. Like this. This is actually quite a nice surface, isn’t it? So far. Yeah. It’s lovely. And we just seen red kites as well. We have. Although they don’t want to be photographed, so they won’t be gone as soon as you got the camera out. There you go. Obviously not. So we cycled into Windsor and on the way back you might have seen on the video that we stopped at the Eaton College rowing lake which I have to say it was it was lovely and there was nobody else around. No, there wasn’t. It was very quiet. So peaceful. It was we had a banana there. We sat on the side of the lake side of the water. We saw the red kite. It was lovely. Yeah. However, however, indeed, we were just cycling around the top of the lake trying to find the way back through to the um tow path and we were flagged down by a man in a car who said, “Um, we’re not open. How did you get in?” Basically, he was very polite, wasn’t he? He was a lovely man, actually, wasn’t he? Very polite. Lovely young man. He said, “Don’t mean to but we’re not open. How the heck did you get in?” So, we said, “Well, the gate was open by the river.” So, we just cycled in because the gate was open. And Google Maps told us to go that way as well. It did. It did. Uh, yeah. Yeah, he was very pleasant, but basically we shouldn’t have been there. And then we got to the ent exit gate. Yes. We were chatting to the security guard bloke, weren’t we? Yeah. Who also was very nice. He was He was a lovely man. Um, basically they used to be open all year round, but unfortunately people have misused the place and they’ve had barbecues, burnt the grass, they’ve left rubbish all over the place. They’ve been drunk and disorderly. So now they don’t open between April and September. April and September to the public. So in the winter you can go in there, you can walk your dog and you can wander around there if you want to, but you can’t go in there in the summer at all, which is really sad. It is because it’s a lovely place. It is. And he said they’ve been closed for about 5 years in the summer these days. Yeah. Um which is, you know, I think it’s a great shame because you certainly used to be able to wander around there all the time, didn’t you, when we lived here. And again, the few ruining it for the majority. Yeah. But we had a very nice time cycling through there. Sorry college. Um but yeah. Yeah. No, it’s it was a great cycle actually um back through um or along the temps, wasn’t it? It was. Yeah, it was lovely. We’ve just been for another little cycle actually. And yes, so between certainly between Maiden Head and Windsor, it’s a lovely cycle. It is. And you can cycle all the way along the toe path between both towns, can’t you? Yes. And it’s, you know, I mean, there are signs that say don’t cycle on this particular bit. There was signs that went through a garden, weren’t we? Where it said please don’t cycle. But you can cycle on the rest of it. And it seems to be quite accepted, doesn’t it? Very much so. So, yeah, not a problem at all. But yeah, very nice cycle. Although I can feel on the bottom a little bit, but there you go. Let’s not go there. No, let’s not go there. Definitely not. So, this is Amadan Caravan Park. This is where we’ve pitched here. Um, there were two other people here last night, weren’t there? There was the Dutch people and the German people in the middle. And there’s another Brit who’s arrived today as well. Um, but it’s just such a lovely little place. It’s perfectly peaceful. Um, the people are lovely. The the lady and the man who run it are absolutely lovely. We’ve both had a chat to both of them and yeah, it’s got washing up places over there. It’s got l and showers. It’s got recycling. It’s got black water disposal. Everything you need really. And its location is just absolutely fabulous. So it is. Yeah. You come out of the entrance which is literally straight ahead. Turn left and within 50 yards. Yeah. You’re on the toe path. Yeah. Really can’t argue with that. No. So, as we say, you can get into Maiden Head, you can get into Windsor and beyond if you wanted to and without actually going on any roads at all. No, it was about five and a half miles, wasn’t it, on the way back, I think. Yeah. From Windsor back to here and about 2 miles into Maiden Head. Yes. So, not very far at all. Um, yeah, it was lovely. Really, really lovely. Yeah. Highly recommend it. The, as we say, the motorways just there, but certainly didn’t keep us away. No. And because it’s a constant noise, you don’t really notice it after a while anyway. No. Um, and there’s lots of birds and things around here as well, which is always good.
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