Friday 2 October 2009

Day 6, drivearound

Rather than exhaust ourselves on another walk on our last day on holiday, we decided to go on a drive around several places that we had on our list but which we never got around to visiting. Any future trip out this way, not unlikely given how successful this trip has been, might take some of these in more closely.

Day 6, drive around

Our first stop was Goudhurst, a village on top of a little hill. Definitely something of a nice stop for a hike, but a little empty for us in culture-vulture mode. As with many of the East Sussex / Kent villages, it has a great church bang in the centre of town. Although this, and the town in general, was under siege from Jehovah's Witnesses while we were visiting, we had a good look around and in it ...

DSC08459

Next up was Lamberhurst, actually immediately to the north of Bewl Water. We didn't stop in the village itself, but instead dropped by its church ...

DSC08475

After an abortive trip to Scotney Castle, a nearby, but dull-looking National Trust site, we then headed back east to Cranbrook, a much larger village that afforded lunch and another church visit. This time the church was all decked out in its harvest festival finest, as can be seen in the scattering of apples and adornments to the baptismal font here ...

DSC08482

Cranbrook also sports a great windmill near its centre. It's essentially a museum these days (one that was shut when we visited), but I believe that it's still functional when it wants to be ...

DSC08487

Our final stop for the day was at a nearby vineyard. We had a quick look around the vines (which were being picked while we were there), before exploiting its shop as a source of birthday / holiday presents. Rather nicely, we also got to sample a few whites, a red and a rose that they produce. The whites were very nice, but the red wasn't as full-bodied as we're used to - possibly on account of more limited growing conditions for red grapes.

Full set of drivearound photographs available here.

On returning to Burwash, we chilled out to make the most of another beautiful sunny day, before getting ourselves ready for the trip back to Southampton. Burwash has been a great holiday venue, particularly because of the barn itself. Needless to say, a round of holiday home snaps resulted.

Full set of barn photographs available here.

No comments: