Sunday, 12 August 2007

Maize Maze and Tarr Steps

The first of my touristy trips was to a yearly attraction called the Maize Maze with my cousins Helen and Sarah (the latter of whom is visiting from Ireland) and their children. The Maize Maze is, quite obviously, a maze mowed out of a field of maize. Every year has a different theme based on important events or milestones and as this year is the Centenary of Scouting (join SA Rovers: Go Hard or Go Home) the maze was in the shape of the man himself, Sir Baden Powell and the Fleur De Lys.
The aim was to move through the maze and find 9 brass rubbings that spelled out a message; there were also questions that gave directions if you got them right. Twelve years of Scouting helped a fair bit and there was even a question about Australian Scouts :D. (What is the youngest section of Scouts called in Australia).

Yesterday we (Sarah, her children; Martin and Rebecca and I) went up to Exmoor to see Tarr Steps, an ancient bridge made of large slabs of stone. An interesting thing about National Parks in England is that because the country side has been farmed for hundreds of years it has become the 'natural' state of the land and that is what is protected by the park. This means that the parks are full of small farming villages like the ordinary country side, although they have regulations that must be followed and only livestock may reside on the moorland.


Tarr Steps and the country surrounding it is awesome. I took a walk for a couple of hours up the river through some really thick, lush forest.
I took some pretty nice photos and walked pretty far before meeting a uni student and walking back with her and her aunt (or something).

















And here is a random photo of me and two of my cool little second cousins in my aunt and uncles spa, just to make you all jealous of the awesome weather we're having. Hannah 13 and Rebecca 8. :D



















6 comments:

Heatherez said...

LOL awesome!! talk about flying the flag!!! wootage thats soo cool!
hehe there was a spa at Waynes boot last nite :P

Anonymous said...

lol spasies aye!!!

the countryside in the background looks awesome!

deffinatly a place i want to visit

Checkout out spa pics

www.flickr.com/photos/chloes_007

Daniel said...

Wow... What a beautiful garden.

Skiittlez said...

I gotta say I hate you for the weather thing. But its great you happened to pick the one time of the year that Englands weather is warm enough to swim in and Australia's weather is cold enough to freeze, those who have outside tanks and such in the barrossa valey, pipes.
I guess the english gotta get a break every now and again.
On second thought, after our trip to darwin to see our lovely bush land, comparing our 'gardens' to your 'gardens' I'd swap any time.

Anonymous said...

Yeah nice flag flying :)

Anonymous said...

Look! I'm on the internet! ... my identity as an internet recluse has been shattered. Gorgeous flowers in the garden btw... that's such an adorable photo. Is it sad that I am actually that excited about the garden? Maybe I just miss the flowers here, which are finally starting to come out. Anyways, i shall read on...