The Magic of Stonehenge . . .

The Sheers Family Hanging Out at Stonehenge.

It truly is an incredible sight.  Stones of such an immense size sitting in a little dip in fields of the greenest green grass. The wind blowing quite strongly across the landscape.  The A360 & A303 motorways within metres of the foot of the circle.  Boardwalks circling the stones with 9000 people a day visiting. 
It is a place of conundrums and irony and yet it still maintains a truly magical feel about it.
We all really enjoyed our couple of hours spent here listening to the history and theories behind Stonehenge. The most common being that it is a calendar using the sun to reflect the months and seasons.  As we walked around it was hard to believe that the civilisations of the Stone and Bronze Ages, between 6000 and 3000 years ago, once inhabited the area.

We're hoping to return to Stonehenge before we leave England, if not this time then when we come back in 11mths.

Tilly's favourite passage from the Audio Tour we did:  If you face Stonehenge and turn in a full circle, even if Stonehenge and all it's stories weren't there, there would still be something magical about this place - but its a secret.

The Motorways running alongside the World Heritage Site.
There are plans to have this all changed back to it's 'natural state' with the A360 road removed (the one on the right), the fences taken down and the visitors buildings relocated.  A shuttle would then ferry tourists to and from the site.  Anything would be an improvement - and from the plans we saw the whole area would be returned to and seen as it should be.

Once upon a time this was how the Stonehenge looked.

Can you see the faces hidden in the stones?

Tilly listening to her Audio Tour of the site.

We've Been to London to See the Queen . . .

The Girls Meet the Royals

And see her we did.  We don’t know if any of you had the chance to watch the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee but if you did you may have seen us!  On Tuesday June 5^th we were 4 of the 1.5 million people lining The Mall in London to watch the Queen return from lunch at Westminster to Buckingham Palace.  It was an incredible, sometimes life threatening, scary, squashy, amazing experience and we are so glad we braved the English weather and stuck it out for the umpteen hours we spent standing on the street.  The girls sat up on our shoulders so that they had a bird’s eye view of the whole affair.  They took some great photos, some of which I will tag on the end of this post.  After the Royals had passed in their carriages they made their way to the famous balcony at Buckingham Palace where they waved to the crowds (us) and watched the flyover of the Lancaster and Spitfires which was worth the wait.  We made it to within 10m of the gates to the Palace and although we couldn’t actually see the balcony we knew when the Queen was waving because the crowd would erupt in cheers and spontaneous renditions of God Save the Queen.  1 million people were waving Union Jack flags whilst the remaining 500,000 people were tourists like us. Taashi managed to find a couple of flags on the ground which we still have today. 



The 1.5 million people on The Mall



The photo Taashi took of the Queen.

The photo Taashi took of William, Kate and Harry.

We couldn’t have come to London at this time and not joined in some of the Jubilee Celebrations.  Every car, house, shop front, street front, building and person is decorated in all that is British.  Union Jack bunting adorns every single street throughout England.  Oxford Street Regent Street Piccadilly Circus and all of Harrods windows, Hamley's Toy Shop and the Underground and Overground Stations are all decked out in red, white and blue. When we come back to London in a year’s time the city is going to look very different.

Just one of the many Brit carts scattered throughout the city.

Regent Street in its Union Jack splendor.

These street parties were held all over Britian.

Once again we have become Metro Train experts as we ride the London trains every day to and from our campsites at Abbey Wood and Henley-on-Thames into London.  It takes about 30mins from Abbey Wood and 1hr from Henley and cost us £21.80 a day for Day passes for the 4 of us.  If you convert this into NZ$ (which we try not to) it’s approx $44 a day (yikes) and as a result a big chunk of our budget has gone on just travel – however – it’s reliable and fast and gets us to every part of London we need to go.  We’ve also discovered an amazing lunch deal at Tescos Metro in the city. For £10 the 4 of us can have chicken and salad sandwiches, chips or a chocolate bar and a drink of OJ each.  Great value and keeps us going as we walk the soles off our shoes. Check out some of the sights we have seen throughout London.  NB the puppets the girls have in some of the photos were bought at Harrods.  Tilly’s is called Harrod and Taashi’s is Ruby London.  The girls are going to see how many weird and wonderful places they can have photos taken of them during our travels.

Outside St Pauls Cathedral.

The Underground London.

Glenn the tourist.

Graffiti on a bridge on Farringdon Road London.

Heading down into London Bridge Underground.

Henley on Thames

The boats on the Thames at Henley.

Joy at being on London Bridge.

Viewing St Pauls through a big shiny silver ball.

On Millenium Bridge.

The road to Henley on Thames.

One of the many old stone bridges we've come across.

Original old Double Decker buses are still in use around London.

Biking it London style to Hyde Park.

Taashi takes in a Picasso at Tate Modern.

The Lock at Henley on Thames.

Tower Bridge and The Gherkin.

The Magic Fairy Tree in Hyde Park.

St Pauls and the Millenium Bridge.

Rabbits at Henley on Thames.

Tilly sizes up Big Ben.

Where is our (e) mail everyone?

Photo courtesy of Tilly.

The Long Awaited African Leg of our Adventure . . .

Here it is, finally, a catch up on what we have been up to these past 4 weeks.

AFRICA - the Land, the Animals, the People - we fell in love with every aspect of this incredible little pocket of the world. 

Very Special Friendships were made - HUGE shout outs to Rowan Moon (our amazing Acacia Tour Guide/Driver/Chef who made our trip to Africa a truly special one and whom we now consider family).  We still find ourselves looking out the window with our ‘Kruger’ eyes trying to spot that elusive leopard Rowan.  Hope you saw one on your next trip.    

‘Good Morning Acacia, Good Morning Sheers Family’

‘Good Morning Rowan’ . . . our 5.30am wake up call

More shout outs to our Acacia family – Ebony and Shaun (an Aussie gal and her Canadian man) who are making their way back to Canada to live via many wonderful places including Africa and Morocco, Jan (a wonderful guy from Germany) who when we left him was heading back down to Cape Town and then reluctantly on to home, and Colette ( a gal from near Te Kuiti in NZ now living in London) who joined our tour 1/2way through after having done a big overland up around Kenya etc.  The girls adopted Colette as their camping buddy/nanny.  Joel (the ever quiet man in the corner watching and listening and soaking everything up like a sponge) an Indian American who is lucky enough to travel to a different corner of the world every year and Frank (from Brisbane) who coped amazingly well with all of us and our loud chatting and music.

Tears were shed by the girls after saying goodbye to you all.  If you get a chance to read this we hope you’re all having a blast wherever you may be.  We had once in a lifetime experiences with you guys and made memories we will never forget. 

For everyone else out there - it would take a year of Sundays to write everything we did in Africa so instead here are some of the highlights via the many photos we took.

Suffice it to say – if anyone ever has the chance to visit any part of Africa don’t hesitate - just go!

You will never regret it and like us you will want to return again . . .

You can also go to youtube and check out our run in with an angry Mama Elephant when we got too close to her baby - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAr-JfmTjdc   (thanks to Ebony who filmed the whole thing)

The Sheers Family Aloft Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

Table Mountain from Lagoon Beach where we stayed

The incredible Cape Town Skies

A Long Way From Home

The Three Rondavels, Blyde River Canyon

From Left Shaun, Ebony, Joel, Jan, Glenn, Taashi and Tilly

A Salt Pan outside of Maun in Botswana

The Okovanga Delta from the Helicopter

A Battelier

Kicking up your heels and some dust at the Karma Rhino Sanctuary

One of the many ways to get around in Africa

Toilet rolls for elephants!

African sunset through an Acacia Tree

Broken down on the road to Botswana

Brown Chested Snake Eagle

BT at the Delta - one of our polers and our 5 hour hike Tour Guide

Elephant footprints in the sand outside our cabin at Elephant Sands Botswana

Everything including the kitchen sink!

Giraffe Crossing

Poling through the Delta from Tilly's perspective

Heading to our camp site in the Delta by Mokoro

Hiding behind Mum in Kruger

Impala taking a stroll down one of the roads in Kruger

Kruger National Park

One month old Elephant and Mum in Kruger

Lion spotted by the 'Best Lion Spotter ever' aka Mum

One of the 8 lions playing near the beach in Chobe National Park

Postcard pose at a water tank in Kruger

Rowan and the girls on the edge of the Kalahari Desert

Our Guide/Chef/Bush Mechanic Rowan

Running from lions - the Banded Mongoose

Sunset over Chobe

Swimming in the Hippo Pool at the Delta

Taashi on Mary

Taashi ready to take to the air over the Delta

The girls new Jo'burg friends Alexia, Arnica, Aiden and little Rascal

The Waters and Reeds of the Delta

The only kill we saw in Africa

On the road out of Jo'burg

The Sheers Family Executive Tent - which was just our two tents pushed together

A pretty female Kudu

The Mighty Victoria Falls - Mosi o Tunya or The Smoke that Thunders

The Zambia/Botswana Border



Walking the Savannahs of Kruger



Tilly on Ta Ta

Having a laugh on the way home from school somewhere near the Kalahari Desert

A midday shower care of the Victoria Falls, Zambia

A Little Bit of the Vic Falls

Walking home from School, Zambia

We love camping in Africa!

Two Cheetah we came across resting under the shade of a tree in Kruger

Mum and 1 mth old Bub at the Government Protected Karma Wildlife Sanctuary

A Very Cheeky Yellow Billed Hornbill aka the Banana Bird

Up Close and Personal with the Wildlife of Africa