Our Sunday, 12th June included a drive to the Felixstowe market which was a bit of an eye opener compared to what we'd experienced in the London market scene. Felixstowe has the largest container port in the UK and is a stones throw from Ipswich.
Felixstowe:
- Walk along the esplanade and wonder why there are so many amusement parks.
- On Sunday, the amusement park owners and operators run a market....
Sunday night we were invited up to Orwell Park house (where we'd done some gardening the previous week) for a meal. Gillan, the senior shareholder of the Estate provided us with tea as she told us a few stories about her family, some history of the Estate and showed us some notable artwork of her family members who've played some significance in the history of Britain i.e. E.G. Pretyman Gill's grandfather. It was a pretty special experience.
The house (almost mansion) was built in the 60's I think after they moved out of the original Orwell Park Mansion in the 30's to which they turned into a private school.
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| A whole deer went into making this seat - Orwell Park House |
John gave us the day off because the week looked as though it was going to be a wet week and wanted us to make the most of seeing the area, so we dropped into Ipswich for some extra exploring while we had the chance.
Some fun facts, Ipswich is one of the oldest established towns in London. It is the largest town in the Suffolk area comparable to Ballarat - pretty much a city.
Some fun facts, Ipswich is one of the oldest established towns in London. It is the largest town in the Suffolk area comparable to Ballarat - pretty much a city.
Notable Ipswich sites:
- Christchurch Park & Mansion
- Ipswich waterfront (which includes a marina controlled by lock)
- Ancient house
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| Christchurch Mansion - big house, small door. |
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| Christchurch Mansion - Unfortunately some renos.... |
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| Another pub, another warm beer :( - Isaac Lord Ipswich Jammed some pulled pork nachos for lunch which was possibly my favourite feed to date. |
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| Ancient House Ipswich - 1500th century building. The building includes four panels carved with impressions of 'the world' depicting Asia, America, Europe & Africa. Australia is not featured on the building as it had not been discovered yet. |
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| Trapped and captured a Mole |
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| Exploring wet potato fields |
Wednesday 15th June - THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEW CAMERA
The weather turned finer than predicted today so we headed back up to the Estate House to garden for the morning to help Trish, followed by a coffee with Gill. Gill is 82 and speaks proper english I suppose you could say (with a plum in your mouth).
We got back to the decoy house to the delivery of our replacement Olympus camera 2 days after buying it. Pretty stoked given our recent run of bad luck we expected delivery to be late....
In the arvo John took us for a drive north to an old malt factory called Snape Maltings. Not sure how long ago it finished fabricating malt, but now it is an arts complex and retail area featuring galleries and antique shops. It's most notable now for its large concert hall which was opened in the 60's by the Queen. This place was pretty bloody interesting considering it was in the middle of nowhere.
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| One of the Snape Malting buildings |
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| Snape's Dove Cove - ruin built into a pretty trendy new building |
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| John and I enjoying some fine art |
That night we went to a tiny village called Newbrough which essentially only had a pub - The Fox Inn.
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| Frothing over a cold froth! |
Odd jobs.
I did odd jobs with John, Ame finished cleaning windows inside The Decoy. Weather warnings were predicted (yeh, they have a weather warning here if heavy rain is predicted), but it turned into a pearler!! Their weather predictions are rubbish.
After the odd jobs we took the dogs for a swim in the decoy pond. One of the highlights of this workaway has been hanging with these dogs. They are beauties, love the water and just want and love attention. Their breed is Toller, John's website is worth a look - tollers.com
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| The Decoy's - Millennium Bridge |
Thursday arvo John dropped us up to Alton Water Park, Ipswich's main reservoir to drop some watt bombs.
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| Alton Water Park |
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| Riding over Orwell Bridge - The River Orwell |
We finished off our Thursday with dinner at the Nick's - the Estate owner. Nick is deep into the EU referendum, campaigning strongly to leave. Considering the significance of the Estate and essentially the wealth Nick has, he is really grounded, enjoys the simple life was a genuine good bloke.
Friday 16th June
Last day of work on the workaway. Rain predicted so we quickly mowed and edged around the decoy house gardening etc.
Today's big event was the passing of Gemma - John's oldest Toller at the age of 12. Was a bit of a dampener.
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| RIP Gemma (and the ball she carried with her everywhere). Legend! |
We finished off our last night playing a card game Trish had taught us called Demon Race. Trish flogged us but we had a blast.
We're pretty chuffed with our first workaway. It was a very rewarding experience and a great way to spend a couple of weeks in the British countryside getting a taste of it all. Trish and John were great hosts, we felt extremely comfortable the whole time and we really felt like we've made a great contact. We'll most definitely catch up with when we return to the UK after our next few months in Europe. Thanks guy!
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