The adventures of little Geoff & Shell

Firstly the flight, Ryanair to Bristol airport, boy talk about hard sell, right from the moment you board the airplane. They have everything, scratch cards, calendars, I'm sure that if the flight was longer they would have tried to sell me the plane. Hertz gave us a nice little Ford Fiesta,so it was off south to Dorchester.

On the way to Dorchester is the Fleet Air Arm museum. Whilst it is primarily a collection of military aircraft they did have some civilian aircraft notably a Concord.I think the stand-out for me though was the Sopwith Pup, a 1916 first world war biplane fighter. It was fantastic to see the construction up close , it's definitely a fine line between the foolhardy and the brave flying in one those aircraft. The girls were saved as the museum had great tearooms although they enjoyed walking inside the Concorde.

It was approx. an hours drive south before we hit Dorchester, a very picturesque little town. There was some very beautiful architecture, stuff that you cannot hope to see in Australia and its surprising the mood that it evokes, that cliched small English village. My romantic notions of village life was quickly shattered. As with all european hotels it took a while to get use to the amount of stairs one has to traverse in order to get to your room (might do me some good). The first day was coming to a close, time for a feed and sleep, it had been a long day, 3.00am start.

Early rise and a big breakfast. As part of the Hotel booking they throw in breakfast, and for me that means the full English breakfast, eggs, toast, pudding, beans, bacon, hash brown etc. drowned with plenty of coffee/tea. The girls had serious shopping to attend to whilst Karl and myself were off to the Bovington tank museum. I pleaded, successfully for a lift to the museum prior to their shopping marathon. It is at this point that I have to whine about that crap english road signs. There are signs but they just don't correspond to the directions of the road, for example 'A37' straight ahead but as you go around the round about straight ahead is grass and you really need to go right. My advice, if your going to drive in rural England have a navigator or a Tom Tom.

Bovington tank museum: we eventually found it. It was a fantastic day, a great collection of vehicles with alot of history, was too much to take in. Michelle and Laura finally found us in the afternoon somewhat sodden but very happy with the days adventure.

Day 3, another big breakfast under my belt it was time to hit more museums. The town museum was only several hundred yards down the street, well planned eh! and proved to be a real treat. It a lot of modern sculpture and the inside of the museum reminded me of a small Royal Exhibition Building They also had a great section of the roman period of occupation, notably a skeleton recovered from Maiden Castle with a ballista bolt lodged in the spine, maybe a victim of the Roman Legion Augusta II that besieged and subductated this area in 43AD. Maiden Castle lies just outside Dorchester (5min) and is the largest iron age hillfort in Europe. Luckily the sun was shining and the walk of the Maiden Castle perimeter provided a fantastic vantage point with which to see the surrounding countryside.The earthen ramparts, their shear size is breathtaking, something that no picture or text can could adequately describe simply something to behold.