Travelog for: Barclay

Wow! This was fun for a city boy like me! Nik thought it was strange that anyone could get so excited about feeding some chooks and collecting the eggs (fresh, yummy real free range!) but it was great! I've never been this close to a real chook - actually, I've never even seen a real chook before!

I've been having some fun with Phileas...hehe. I have been trying to teach him how to play Rugby League. First I had to explain that Rugby League is different to Rugby Union; people outside Australia and New Zealand don't seem to understand they are two different games
Anyway, I didn't have much luck....

Well I finally managed to convince Phileas to taste Vegemite!
Delicious stuff, delicious!

I read about the bushranger Thunderbolt (John Ward) because he was married in the church I saw last week, St John's! I didn't know that! There is a big statue at the end of Thunderbolt's Way, the highway between Gloucester and Uralla, because he died at Uralla.
But he was married here in Stroud, to a local Aboriginal girl named Mary Anne Bugg. They had several children, and their descendants can still be found all around New South Wales.

Hmm. I'm getting a little bit tired of this small town (please don't tell Nik!) I'm ready to move on to my next host in Slovenia. This is nice, but I really want to leave Australia.


*Nik here. Barclay spoke to me and said he felt ready to leave, so I will be sending him to his next host tomorrow. I'm going to miss him! Barclay has been such a gentleman and a very good guest. I hope maybe he can visit me again one day.
Good bye Barclay! I hope you find everything you're looking for!*

Got a little lost on my way to Slovenia, but luckily found my way back home.



Got a chance to visit Bec's school. I really liked these pictures the kids did of themselves after learning about Picasso's blue period.



Back on track, and going to Slovenia today. Can't wait!!

Aaand I'm back! After spending the night at the local post office (my new host, Tina, appologizes deeply), I can finally see the light of day again! And what a different light it is!

Did you know that Slovenia is on the other side of the world??? But I was just told they have a mammoth here (admittedly, made out of plastic and not life-size), but I will see it tomorrow and have my photo taken there. Can't wait!

Now I'm off to play with other ToyVoyagers... Daisy (the cow from Hungary) and Frankie (the giraffe from the Netherlands).

Hello!

I've been a busy elephant these past few weeks... I've visited Ljubljana, Kamnik and a mammoth site!

Here's me bothering a mammoth... A bit small, but local!





And this is where the real thing was found...



In case you can't read the board...



And, this is where the mammoth was found (the white dot behind me), I'm sitting on the top of the Small castle hill (Mali grad), right here in the center of Kamnik!



Basically, this means that every night, I sleep about 2 kilometers away (aerial line) from a mammoth home!

Hurrah,

today I arrived in England. My parcel was just a bit too big to fit through the door so Steve had to collect me from a place called a 'sorting office'.

I love travelling but I do like to see where I'm going.

Helly had great fun reading through my Travel Diary and planning what she'd show me during my stay.

Reading thrugh my Travel Diary Helly saw I am from Padstow in Australia. What a shame I didn't arrive a couple of days earlier, I could have visited the Cornish Padstow with Elephonse at the weekend.

Helly went and got Elephonse out of his car.

Wow, another BLUE ELEPHANT! I was SO excited, there aren't many of us blue elephants around and he told me all about Padstow in Cornwall.

Although the photos don't all show Elephonse I asked Helly to put a couple of Padstow, England, on the travel log so becka_kate could see.

Last night I got a good night's sleep as I was tired from all my travelling. It was noisy though. It was Guy Fawkes night when, all over England, people light bonfires and have fireworks to remember the day Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament. I looked out the window but couldn't see any fireworks.

Eventually the noise stopped and I got to sleep.

This morning Helly took me into work. We set off early so she could show me a mystery of ancient history and so I could help her release Leonard Lion. I was SO excited!

We stopped on the way to Avebury so I could see Silbury Hill.

Silbury Hill is the largest man made hill in Europe. It is  40m high and covers an area of over 5 acres. It was first begun around 2660 BC and the core of it is chalk.

The most exciting bit is that no one really knows why it is there!

There are various legends attached to it concerning ancient kings but it has also been suggested it was built as an effigy of the Mother Goddess and is associated with fertility rituals.

It may also have been a solar observatory. The meridian line from silbury runs straight through Avebury Church which also stands on a ley line running between Stonehenge stone circle and a stone circle at Winterbourne Abbas. The same ley line also runs through Silbury Hill itself.

I got a bit lost understanding about ley lines and meridians but that didn't matter.

The fact that it's purpose is still a mystery is amazing!

On the way home from work Helly took me a different route so I could see Silbury Hill close up. It's not been possible to climb the hill for many years and currently it's undergoing vast reconstruction work. Many years ago archaeologists explored the centre of Silbury Hill and unfortunately did not fill in their tunnels properly. If you look carefully at the top of the photo you'll see fencing on the hill. This current work has been going on for months.

I spent some time reading the information which has been put up, telling people about the work.

Today I went with Helly to her work. She's recently changed jobs and is a training manager for a trust which has 14 houses for people with learning disabilities.

We were in the office all day, except for a brief trip out at lunchtime when I helped her release another toy voyager into the wild. Fraser was left 'somewhere near Wroughton'. Helly also checked the 'Toyvoyager' website and 'hurrah' discovered that Leonard Lion had been found! She was SO excited.

I couldn't really help Helly with her work so I spent much of the time looking out of the window. There's a big tree with beautiful leaves which are turning golden, which was so pretty. I also saw squirrels and a jackdaw kept siting on a light and looking through the window at me. I waggled my trunk and startled him.

The main reason for going with Helly today was that she wanted to show me Caen Hill Locks.

Over a two mile stretch of canal there are 29 locks, sixteen of which are in a straight line at Caen Hill. It can take over four hours to navigate Caen Hill by narrow boat. I didn't walk up the flight of locks as Helly didn't want me to get lost on my own and she wasn't wearing walking shoes. However, I looked up the flight from the bottom.

Helly told me two secrets . . .

First, this was where she released Denis Duck who she tells me was last seen floating up the canal on a narrow boat.

Second . . . lock number 36 was where she and Steve kissed for the first time! Ahh!

Apparently no body else knows that, so I'll keep it a secret.

Shhh! Don't tell anyone.

Wow, another mystery!

When Helly & I arrived at her office today there was a little teddy bear waiting for her by her computer.

He was left with a note, it read:

"I want to be a Toy Voyager".

Who left it?

By the end of the day we still hadn't found out. I sat and told the little bear all about Toy Voyaging. He was ever so excited but a little nervous. He doesn't know yet if he wants to be released into the wild or if he wants to have adventures with everyone at the office.

We'll wait and see.