Trips

Thurs., 6/2/16 – Tresco, Isles of Scilly, England
        We had some rough seas for three hours (6:30 to 9:30 PM), but my seasickness wrist bands worked like a charm.
        The Isles of Scilly are comprised of 55 islands and over 90 rocks at high tide.  Our ship anchored a good way from shore as it was again low tide this morning and many more rocks were showing.  There have been over 1,000 shipwrecks around these islands.
        A local water taxi took all 95 of us from our ship to the island of Tresco.

Tresco Island in the Isles of Scilly group
On Tresco we went to visit the Abbey Gardens.  Because the temperature on the islands only varies 9° from the average summer and winter temperature, Augustus Smith, the owner of Tresco, was able to begin 17 acres of gardens with plants from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Chile, etc.  We had a guided tour through the gardens.  I could not begin to name the flowers in bloom or recognize the trees other than several tall Norfolk Island pines.  The Aeonian cabbages were interesting.  The protea were only in bud.  We recognized Banksia from Australia.  There are ruins of a 1200’s stone abbey and a huge house with the 5th generation of the Smith family in residence.          There was a cute kiosk decorated with local seashells and a museum of ship figureheads from some of the sunken ships near the island.
Chinese pheasant	Chinese pheasant
	Aeonian cabbage
Aeonian cabbage	Kiosk of sea shells
	Banksia
Protea	Protea
Children at Play	Cube sculpture by Tom Leaper
Ship figureheads	Ship figureheads
Ship figureheads	We took an alternate path back to the pier and saw the fresh water lakes with swans, and walked up on top of some headlands to look out at the white beaches, sand dunes, clusters of rocks, and clear water.  It was another gorgeous day.
Beautiful beach and water	Main house
Beautiful beach and water	Beautiful beach and water
Beautiful beach and water	Fri., 5/3/16 – Poole to London             This morning we disembarked our cozy, luxurious ship and boarded buses for the four-hour ride from Poole to London.  We had one half-hour rest stop at 10:30 at a stop with KFC, McDonalds, Subway, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and Krispy Kreams.  It was like we were back in the USA.  The prices looked similar to those in the states until you realize the prices are in GB pounds.  With an exchange rate of 1 GB pound = $1.50 US you quickly realize the prices are high.              The traffic in London was horrible and our driver took us from the west side to the east side in stop and go traffic.             We arrived at the Tower Hotel at 1 PM and could not get into our rooms until 2:30 so we walked to a Tesco Express grocery and bought a nice pasta salad to go with the omelet sandwiches I had made at breakfast.  We ate in the hotel lobby, as did several others of our group.             Our room has a picture window overlooking the Thames just east of the Tower Bridge. It will be entertaining to watch the traffic on the busy Thames.
The Thames from our Tower Hotel room window	The Thames from our Tower Hotel room window

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