Well it seems the the golden weather we arrived to has given way to a typical English summer, drizzly, a bit windy but not too cold. We still get the odd day of sun though.

We have been exploring a bit with a South African couple couple from work who also like to mountain bike so we have been seeing a bit of the island with them.

Chantel and Kyle

A few weeks ago we went to Port Erin and watched the soapbox derby (home made go-carts)then wandered around Bradda head, the tower and the ruins on the coast of the old mining buildings and tunnels.

Neil on the Bradda Head Tower

Karyn in the entrance to the Bradda Mines

Neil has just dispatched himself off to Scotland for the Six Day Orienteering in Tay. I hear the terrain is good though hopefully he has better weather as I'm not sure I would be so keen to be tenting now. Hopefully he will have luck in securing the place we are hoping to rent in Whitehaven on his way back as having a place to live from the weekend we head over will defiantly help the organising and planning side of things. At the same time he will start making enquiries about finding work - though at least he doesn't need a permit this time to wrestle with!

We managed to see a Shakespeare play the other week in the ruins of the old Peel Castle, Cymbeline wasn't one I had seen before and they made good use of the castle as props, all in the outdoors too so we packed a picnic and lots of warm clothes, shooed the sea gulls away. The setting sun was lovely even if the storm clouds were coming over the horizon!

The other day I went and explored the Laxey mine more - where the mountain bike race was that Fi and Stu did here. This was a nice piece of history as pretty much everything on the Island origionally came about due to the mines, the settlements, shipping to transport the metal, food grown to feed the families etc, some of the old structures were still about to explore a bit and the views from the top of the Lady Isabella (the giant wheel that pumped the water from the mines) was fantastic.

The Lady Issabella (The Great Laxey Wheel)

and Laxey town in the backgraound

kayaking

Hey again.
Have been up to more exploring over the weekend. We managed to fit in some kayaking (have been missing the boat for a while now) Neil had heard of some swimmers (relay team of four) that were attempting to swim nonstop from the northan tip of the island to the Calf of Man (southern tip) needing some volunteers to paddle beside them along the way. A few phonecalls later we managed to chat to a guy that was keen for us to come along for a paddle from Peel

to Niarbyl - approx 6 miles in his boats.

Up we turned and along we went. Although the pace was slow along we went. The boats have no rudders which took a bit to get used to but i am sure it will improve our skills over time. We got to see heaps of stunning coast, lots of birds, a nosey seal coming to see what was happeing and even a puffin. We had a blast! The swimmers finished 5 hours ahead of scedule too! We are heading along to the kayak club again tonight so fingers crossed it will become a regular thing. The next day we ran around the coast from Port Erin towards Port St Mary going via the calf of man (the fog lifted enough for us to see it too!) and up the top of the hill to see 'the stones'. The IOM has quite a rich background descending from the Celts and Vikings, the Manx (people form the IOM) have their own government, myths and practises and the historic sites are very well preserved so we are slowely working our way around the island seeing some of these sites too.
An early edition of our blog spot has finally got off the ground. When we have more time we hope to add more photos etc. At this stage most emails from me are done in lunch breaks or while waiting for the bus so its hard to get the blog going well. Still if you want to look at it the page is karynnneil.blogspot.com hopefully when we get more settled in Cumbria (official date of 1st Sept) we can sort out internet etc.
Hope alls well with you
Till next time
K and N

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Cumbria mission success

Hey there all,
It seems our long weekend trip to the lakes district was a success! I had a job interview in Whitehaven for a perminant post and just heard back from them offering me the job! Being in the lakes district of course I accepted! The role is a community post based in schools in South Cumbria (from town edge to Millom near Furness)with a small componant of inpatient and hospital work in the hospital at Whitehaven itself. Whitehaven is pretty small and a bit run down but there are somelovely areas near by that are a bit more affluent. Best of all it is near the Mountains, lakes and huge amount of mountain biking and walking trails on our back step. Being near the coast it is harder to get out (a long drive) for traveling outside the lakes area but still we are very happy. At this stage we are aiming to be there for Sept 1st.
While we were there we had a good hunt around the are spending a little bit of time in Kendel and more in Keswick. We stayed at a remote backpackers at Skaddaw involving a 3 mile walk into the hut.

The views were stunning and while quite touristy I think it will suit us to a tee!
Work here is still going well. I am slowely getting a handle on the new equipment and systems (as usual working with the kids is the easiest bit!). The 3 weeks of fantastic weather has given way to showers and wind but still it is nothing like the 'bad weather' of home. Other than that we are both well, exploring the island still. This weekend we hope to support (kayak beside) a girl who is swimming the lenght of the island for a few hours so it will be good to get back in a boat. Fi and Stu are looking at coming over next weekend so more fun to be had then!
I hope everyone is well (and keeping warm!)
Till next time
K

This post was brought to you by Davidson Isle of Man ice cream.

Karyn's version of our long weekend in Wales

Well we had our first bank holiday (cause we have been working so hard!) in Wales with Fi, Andrew and Sophie.

We started off by driving accross to Wales and stopping off at the waterfalls (?Sgwd yr Eria) and walking along the valley for a way. Heaps of bluebells, some squirrels and lots of welsh countryside. From there we spent the night in a tiny wee backpackers near the Black Mountains (up and along some teany we one way roads I might add! - the names of these are unpronouncable in Gaelic so I won't bother). Fantastic pub meal at a family owned pub who were very obliging in feeding us after the kitchen closed as we were late - opps. Still very very good and very cheap. Have decided that cider here is a very good thing too!

Sunday we headed on down to Skomer Island to see the Puffins. Wandered on out to the heads, ate some lunch with the Welsh ponies (very hungus and wanting to be fed) with some simply stunning views (photos will come I promise). From there we headed on out to the island on a ferry cruise (they island had already reached the limit for foot traffics so we viewed from the sea instead). They are pretty cool/funny looking little birds. We got to see them up close on the remote web cams , some of the burrows and other birds later on from the information centre. After that we headed out to Dale for icecreams on the beach and a wee run around the forts and squiz at the harbour and sailing boats (big and small). Accom that night was Talybont-on-Usk in the Brecon Beacons. Despite being much earlier than last night we still were late for dinner as everything closed early on the bank holiday - still like last night the small rural pub pulled through with the best sunday (literally) roast dinner we have ever come across (sorry Mum). We almost needed wheelbarrows to get our bellies home again.

This morning we hiked up some pretty steep hills near Pen y Fan admiring the peat and bracken on the way. This meandered along the ridge way with some lovely panoramic sights, before we off trailed it down the valley - for furure reference anything not on a ridge in Wales is usually boggy. Still it wasn't bad at all and lots of fun. Picinic by the stream then back to Fi's place in Bristol.

We will stay here the night and repack before heading to Liverpool and catching the ferry to the Isle of Man on Wednesday. It will definately be good to get the bike out for a ride and to get in to earning the pound for a while.

Till next time

KN

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Wales

We hired a car and went to Wales. The other Whales we took were Fiona McUnbridled, Andrew Butterworthy and Sophie. This is us here...

Anyway the weather was good and the Horses were cute...

Also we went walking/running in the Freaken Breacon Beacons.

Fwd: Portsmouth

Well we managed to get through the first few days without a hitch.

Been to see the bank, sorted the working agencies and got the job in the Isle of Man all signed off (start there on the 1st of June). So far things have gone smoothly which I understand is not the usual so will wait and see what happens from here.

So far we haven't gone too far. This weekend we are in Portsmouth with Shannon and Andy which is lovely to see them again after so long. We have pretty much just been taking it easy and trying to get over the jet lag. Hopefully tomorrow we will so some sightseeing etc along the coast and see some war ships and castles.

Monday I have some training stuff before i start work then we are free for the next few weeks. Im told we can't ignore doing the london tour to see all the sights so we might do that Tues before heading off with a rental car for the next few weeks. The idea is to catch up with Fi in ?Wales to see the Puffins and hopefully do some riding. After that we will mosey around before heading to the Isle of Man a couple of days early to set up a bit.

Hope everyones well and enjoying themselves

Till next time

Karyn and Neil

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Walking tour of London

Yet another group email.

(Don't worry soon we will get a blog up and running which you can then voluntarily visit rather than being subjected to the group e-mail thing!)

Yesterday we did the walking tour of London. Walking up along the side of the Thames seeing the sights and basically people watching all the weirdos along the way. We walked along the London Tower bridge (avoided the war ship and tower of London as we had done similar in Portsmith and there were so many tourists around - ironic) and through the Tate Modern. From there we headed along the side streets to St Paul's Cathedral, what an awesome sight that was! I highly recommend going if you get a chance. Fantastic views of everything from Big Ben, the London Eye, Shakespeare's Globe, Buckingham Palace, all the bridges etc - thankfully if had stopped drizzling by then so we could see it all! After that it was on down to Trafalgar Square then the park by the palace and Buckingham Palace itself - probably the most unimpressive of the lot, although we did get to see the guards move (they marched a bit but no changing of the guard). The grand finale I guess was catching a show at the theatre at the end of the night. The Lion King was just incredible, the costumes fantastic, characters hilarious and a great way to end the day!

From here we collect the rental car and visit some of Neil's rellies near Gloucester before catching up with Fi in Bristol and all going on to Wales to see the puffins (and other things too like walks etc)

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