After a long night of backing black we had no time to lose as there was still 99.9% of the world to see and we were about halfway through our trip – the odds were stacked against us seeing it all in the one trip right from the outset but it was now coming apparent that the most we could hope for was about 99.875% remaining by the time we went home – however we were ready to hit the home run guns blazing and check out what this place called England was all about, apart from hosting Rugby World Cups & not making it out of the pool stages – that may sound a bit harsh however as you are all aware I am writing this a number of weeks down the track and by this time all England players have resumed club duty & the All Blacks have settled into England’s home camp for the RWC final that they had sunk millions of dollars into upgrading for RWC preparations.

From Newcastle we travelled West along the path of Hadrians wall – built Romans years & years as requested by emperor Hadrian who decided to draw a line in the sand after conquering most of the U.K. and leave the crazy people that in future years would be known as the Scottish to their own devices – they must have been pretty wild for the Romans to have no interest in entering into battle with them! We stopped at one of the many old fort sites that a present along the wall as it stretches from coast to coast and went for a wander around however there wasn’t a lot left to see after years of decay apart from the stone bases of walls where the buildings used to be. The toilets were largely intact and you could see the draining system they used, which simple drained the waste away down to the bottom of the hill – speaking of which must have been the reason for the ancient fort site as on a clear day like it was the view stretched for miles! Our end destination for the day after a long drive was Chester – home to one of the Worlds best Zoos (or so I am told), on the way bypassing Manchester & Liverpool – because all I know about them is they play football.

  
Chester Zoo, like many things on this trip, was the best I have ever seen – although I didn’t have a lot to compare it too with only having visited Orana Park & Wellington Zoo in the past. The best way to tell you about our experience at the Zoo is with the snapchat video below (which also includes a little from the RWC fanzone in the town of Rugby – I’ll talk about that shortly). The video does not cover all however – probably one of the most unique parts of the Zoo was the Bat Cave. Although we did not see Bruce Wayne or Alfred wandering around we did get a first hand experience of what it is like for them in there with low lighting and plenty of Bats flying past you once you are in the room, only recognisable by the distant outlines of them hanging from tree branches. At the Zoo Sam also showed what a Crazy Cat lady she is at one stage running off after a neighbouring households domestic cat which had jumped the fence into the park when we were off to see the Lions funnily enough!

 

The day was actually a highly influential day for Rugby for the All Blacks Rugby World Cup hopes – one could almost argue that it was more important than when they played Tonga a few days ago – as the loser of the match would be playing the All Blacks in the quarterfinal that we had tickets to go & watch. The match wear between Ireland who have run the All Blacks close in the past (although never beaten us) and France who is one of the All Blacks biggest World Cup foes responsible for our worst ever finish back in 2007. Now we could have chosen to watch the Rugby anywhere but we thought what better place to watch rugby than in Tthe town of Rugby itself with our good mate David the English Chap that we met on our Contiki. Being the birthplace of the game (which they are not afraid to tell you) they had a decent Rugby World Cup fanzone set up. It seemed on the day the fanzone was full of Irishmen however that may just have been due to their success at taking apart the French that they were making themselves known. Unfortunately the victory for Ireland came at a cost with a number of their key players succumbing to injury which would eventually result in their downfall.
  
We spent the evening with David reminiscing about exciting times with Contiki & listening to the infamous Day Song (that was played at the start of every day on Contiki before we heard about the day’s activities) while exploring all that the small English towns had to offer late on a Sunday night. We had dinner at one of the next towns over where some guy invented the jet engine back in the day before returning to David’s stomping ground to sink a number of English Bitter beers with the regular locals as well as some of the local gypsies that had been camping out in a nearby field for some time now apparently. David not only spoke like a true English gentleman – he was one too – after taking us in off the street for the night the next morning he also cooked us up an amazing English Breakfast (not just the Dilmah tea) to send us on our way.

Before moving on to our next destination we spent the morning back in Rugby town, where the entire population gets behind the birthplace of the game hype (especially during the rugby World Cup), so that we could do a bit of site seeing including the statue of the rebel who first picked up the ball & ran with it – William Webb Ellis (affectionately known as Bill), the Rugby Union Museum – after first accidentally going to the Rugby (town) Museum and Rugby School where all the History happened. Rugby School had got behind the event too offering tours & having as hop open however there was something that didn’t feel quite right about buying items which can only be described as the current school uniform from somewhere that you have no real connection to – it was basically just a school uniform shop with a few extra pencils & mugs emblazoned with the school logo. I found more interesting souvenirs at the local beer shop where I was able to pick up a number of Rugby themed beers including one called ‘Sin-Bin’ that had a photo of Richie McCaw being given a yellow card on the front…what are you trying to say England?

  

We said our final goodbyes to David (for now!) & Bill with a quick lunchtime beer (as we were still full from breakfast) then Sam & I were off on another adventure – this time back North to the old English town of York to learn about the Viking settlement discovered beneath the foundations of the walled in Township sitting in its place today. At first we just though the Viking museum smelt bad but we later found it was actually part of the attraction. The tour started with by you walking down a winding staircase into a room with a glass floor and beneath you the foundations of a couple of old Viking huts are visible – we originally thought this one room was it but once we headed towards the exit we noticed there was some sort of chair lift system which you sat onboard as it wound around a recreated Viking village with audio commentary & working robots for each of the visitors (some of which were even modelled from actual discovered skeletons & the different areas of the village had artificially recreated smells. After the chairlift there was one more section to the museum where they displayed many of the archaeological discoveries from the Viking settlement including old weapons/armour, skeletons with autopsy notes and even a piece of fossilised Viking poo! – Apparently the poo was quite special because it is very rare to find it all in one piece and it helped researchers discover what the Vikings used to eat.

  

There was so much history to see in York whether you were interest in Vikings or Kings & Queens however in Europe it is hard to go past a good attraction that is Free (because they are so hard to come by!) and we were therefore really impressed by the Worlds biggest railway museum which included all kinds of trains (such as the Flying Scotsman)  & carriages (such as private carriages of past Queens & Kings) apart from the Hogwarts Express which we would see later on our trip) and much more.