Newport here we come...

The first in a series of trips to Newport, in Wales, UK. Mostly internal people from Alcatel-Lucent UK that have to get an full ISAM operator course.
Even though i arrived on saturday 16th of August from my trip to Marseille, i had to leave the next day towards Great Britain. I had decided to go by means of my own car. I was curious to see the environment of southern England, that i had to pass through. And i wasn't dissapointed.

Started of early on sunday, driving from my hometown of Ghent towards Calais, where i took the Eurotunnel towards Folkstone. First time on the Chunnel, and i was amazed at how fast it went. I think you are only underground for 25 minutes, which means they must be going at an incredible speed.

The moment is started driving away from the eurotunnel terminal the beautiful, green and hilly landscape appeared. I was lucky, it was a sunny day.
From Folkstone i followed the coastline. I stopped to have a look at the
Sea Wall, built to protect against attacks from the mainland.
I stopped to have a look:And continued up to Hastings, where i found my way to the little villag called Battle (see picture below).

There, on the exact spot where king Harold died during the famous Battle of Hastings, in 1066, William The Conqueror built the Battle Abbey, which was to become one of the richest abbeys in the British Isles. The first picture shows the impressive gatehouse of the abbey. The whole abbey was protected by a stone wall, most of it has now dissapeared.


Most of the church has fallen into ruines because of bad management over the centuries (especially with the dissolution, when King Henry VIII gave large clerical properties to friends, among others Battle Abbey, who didn't always treat them with a lot of respect)

The Abbey still overlooks the battlefield where the Battle of Hastings was fought. In the first picture you see on the left side the main building, which was used as a private house after the dissolution, and was hence preserved and on the right side you see the ruines of the main church.

The second picture shows more how these two buildings overlook a big piece of land, where the actual battle was fought and which the abbey later used to grow crops, hold pigs and fish in the nearby lake. It is a great walk by the way (see also the picture at the beginning of this post).


From Battle i went up north, just until Sevenoaks, but instead of jumping on the M25 i followed it for a while via a little parallel road. Driving through the small towns I noticed that all have one or more Inns along the main road. And most of them have one of the following words in their name: King, Horse, Crown or Rose. These words appear in easily 75% of all the "Free Houses".
Then i did take the M25, to exit from it again onto the M3, which took me, using the A303 towards Stonehenge.
All in all Stonehenge was a bit of a dissapointment. Don't get me wrong, i am very happy to have seen it, since it was something that i was curious about for a long long time. But the fact that the monument is sandwiched between two roads and the fact it is visited en masse by busloads of tourists, does remove most of the mystical idea that surrounded it in my mind. So don't be mislead by the pictures above, it is hard to get a view of the monument without people or cars on it.

From there i passed through Bath. It's on the world heritage list, and you can see why when you pass through it, its houses in stone are absolutly beautifull and the hilly surroundings while you are driving stunning.
I joined the M4 to go the south Wales and passed the southern of the two impressive bridges over the Severn: toll needs to be payed, but only when you drive towards Wales, asking the group in my class why that was so, an English guy replied that most people are racing so fast to get out of Wales that you can't expect them to actually slow down and stop to pay the toll, which prompted one of the Welsh guys in the class to no longer wanting to talk to him, luckely all in good humour :-)

I spend the week in Newport at the Alcatel-Lucent University site. It is cosy there, enjoyable to be there.
Since i wasn't feeling very well (bit of stomach ache), i didn't really visit anything during the week.
On saturday morning is left again, back to Belgium.

I passed by the nearby Chepstow quarry, where a lot of (technical) diving is going on. The facilities look very nice. Price is a bit steeper than in the quarries of Belgium (15 pounds for the day), but it is hard to compare the two. For one thing the quarry in Chepstow is huge and very deep, up to 84m, and it is actually allowed to go that deep (provided you have to correct certificate, since you need to use trimix gas mixture for this kind of depth).


I then followed the banks of the Severn, instead of crossing it toward Celthenham and onwards via a lovely road towards Oxford.
Oxford itself is magnificient! Always wanted to go there, and was glad to spend 2 hours walking around (couldn't afford more, since i had to get home the same day). The buildings in the city centre are so beautiful.

The picuter below is outside Christ Church (no not the one in New Zealand, the original one :-), where among others theology is given)
After Oxford, i took the shortest route towards the M25 and went straight for Folkstone, where i was able to took a earlier train towards Calais. After an hour i was in Loppem where is stayed the night at my parents place.