Friday, 13 May 2016
Time for an overview of the trip; something more detailed than the map I posted a while ago but not as detailed as the travel guide I've put together which now runs to 66 pages (and is not nearly finished).
Travelling Up: We fly out of Auckland to Hong Kong where we break our journey for two nights - just long enough for Beth (our novice traveller) to see a bit of the place.
UK: From Hong Kong we head to the UK where we manage to squeeze into a four night stay book-related visits to Rye and Rye Harbour (Monica Edwards and Malcolm Saville locations), Arundel Castle (Elsie Oxenham), Ann and Clarissa at Girls Gone By Publishers (who reprint the books we collect), and Cleeve Abbey (Elsie Oxenham again). Two of these four nights are spent in Bath in the hope that we can squeeze in a little sight-seeing around the city in our free moments.
Channel Islands: We fly from Southampton to Guernsey for a four night stay on the island which is the location for two of Elinor Brent Dyer's series (La Rochelle and Chalet School).
Switzerland: We take the ferry from Guernsey to St Malo in France, then the next day take a train (or two) to Interlaken in the Oberland (Elinor Brent Dyer and Elsie Oxenham settings) and stay there four nights.
Austria: From Interlaken we drive to Innsbruck (three nights) and then on to Pertisau which is the goal of the trip - the original location of the (often moved) fictional Chalet School. We stay in Pertisau four nights before heading to Salzburg for an overnight stop to set us up for our flights the next day.
UK: From Salzburg the party splits up with Marianne going to her Austrian family for a few days and Beth, Gary, and I flying to London via Berlin. We have three nights in London before relocating nearer Heathrow for a night.
Singapore: The party changes again the next day when Gary and I say goodbye to Beth and Marianne who are flying home via Singapore where they'll stop for two nights.
UK: Gary and I then have three nights in the Lake District (Arthur Ransome books), before heading north to overnight in Perth to break our journey on the way to Rua Reidh lighthouse (a Stevenson lighthouse) in the far north of Scotland where we'll be for three nights. From there we head back down to Chester (Mabel Esther Allan location) with an overnight stop on the way. We have three nights in Chester before heading across country to spend our last two nights in the UK in Bengeo, near Hertford, with friends.
Los Angeles: We fly from Heathrow to LA to have four nights with Gary's cousin Pete and Pete's wife, Marilynne, in Laguna Niguel before we make the last long-haul flight of the trip back home to Auckland.
17 days to go.
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