Our First Stop – England….. Well an interesting start to our holiday. Flights from Melbourne to Helsinki via Singapore departed on time and both arrived early. Our last leg from Helsinki to London was not so good. We were scheduled to fly on a brand new Airbus A350-900 but on approaching the aerobridge the port engine collided with the aerobridge ripping a rather large hole in the engine cowling. Fortunately Finnair had spare A340-300 for the flight so 2 hours later we were on our way. Picking up the car from Hertz was painless and once we worked out how to start the engine we were on our way to Norwich. 3 hours and 160 miles later we checked in to our delightful B&B and headed to the local pub for a typical English roast dinner.
And The Broads…. We spent the next day exploring Norwich even taking in an organ concert in the Norwich Cathedral. It was then on to Wroxham to pick up our cruiser for our adventure on the Broads. The Broads were a man-made accident. The Broads were formed by the flooding of medieval peat excavations which provided fuel to Norwich and Great Yarmouth. As the sea levels began to rise, the pits began to flood. By the end of the 14th Century, the pits were abandoned and the Broads were formed. Rather than a long winded narrative of our time on “The Broads” if you “click here” you will see a short video on our adventure.
“Click Here” For Video – Our Adventure On The Broads
A Return To Dry Land…. After 4 fantastic days on “The Broads”it was time for a change and some land based activities. We took the opportunity to go on The Bure Valley Tourist Train for a 1 1/2 hour return scenic ride through Norfolk from Alysham to Wroxham. This train is still used by locals from other villages to go to Alysham for shopping.
We then drove to our beautiful cottage in a tiny village called Barton Turf about 14km from Wroxham. The cottage was very homely and comfortable and had the most sophisticated entertainment system we have ever seen.
We spent 4 Nights in the cottage and each day took time exploring the Norfolk coast from Lowestoft to King’s Lynn.
We watched seals at Horsey, had drinks with the President and Captain of Royal Cromer Golf Club and visited the tourist town of Great Yarmouth which was interesting to say the least. A typical English holiday town with dozens of entertainment parlors, fish and chip shops on every corner and of course tacky tourist shops selling souvenirs.
From Barton Turf To Little Brickhill…. With a little sadness we left our lovely cottage at Barton Turf and drove to Cambridge. Couldn’t believe our luck in finding a multistory car park about 300 metres from the centre of Cambridge. We spent a couple of hours walking around admiring the beautiful old buildings and churches and undertaking some window shopping.
Our next stop was Grantchester made famous by the mini series of the same name. Much of the mini series was filmed in the village. We felt obliged to stop at the Red Lion Pub for a beer before driving on to our next B&B at Little Brickhill.
Bletchley Park – A Code Is Broken…. Bletchley Park housed the code breaking operations during World War Two and was the birthplace of modern computing. At its peak around 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park. They tackled the complex task of intercepting, deciphering, analysing and distributing the intelligence derived from enemy radio signals. Their work remained shrouded in the highest levels of secrecy.
Bletchley Park is now a museum and has recently come into prominence with the release of the film “The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch which focused on the breaking of the German Enigma code. The Mansion at Bletchley Park was used as the headquarters and recreational building.
The Enigma Machine had 159,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations. Later the Germans developed even more complex machines with even more possible combinations.To quickly decipher the German codes scientists at Bletchley Park developed a machine that could quickly decipher the codes. It was called the Bombe machine. The museum contains an actual working model of this machine and gives hourly demonstrations on its use.
We Leave England…. After 12 days we leave England for the next leg of our journey to Scandinavia. We have been blessed with perfect weather and a nice variation of experiences with the highlights being the Norfolk Broads boating, our beautiful cottage at Barton Turf and Bletchley Park Museum.