3 Peaks in 3 Weeks - Volume 6 - Cambridge, Ely and time to head home

 We've made it to Cambridge. The Camping and Caravan Club Cambridge site just to the south of the city. It is a nice site, a bit dull as it is just an open field with a toilet block on one side and a few taps dotted around. It did have a small play area and Wi-Fi so my son was happy.

He actually managed to make a group of friends to run around, make silly games and pick berries with. Once set up under a cluster of trees we set our sites on looking for something to do around Cambridge. We knew we wanted to visit the Computing Museum but we didn't know much else about the city other than the famous University.

 

We decided to go to the museum on one day, then a hop on hop off bus would give us a good overview of the city without having to walk too much. 

The museum was amazing. They have computers from all of the decades that had them. PCs, laptops, gaming consoles, phones, tablets, TVs and even robots. It is a feast but not just for the eyes. Most of the items you can actually touch, and use. There are many items that are switched on and have a program of game running in them that you can play with......I mean test out and get all nostalgic. We had a great time looking back into the past and playing games on the computers and consoles of our Millennial and Gen X past. Because it was the school holidays they also had workshops running for children to get them into coding. We did one of these as there happened to be a space free and it was making music with code. It was a 90 minute session and my son loved it. We had a great time and it gave him a different insight into what code can do without any real prior knowledge. All of the staff were pleasant and all tolled I think we were in there for 3-4 hours. Well worth a visit for anyone who is interested in computers or history. 

The following day we parked at the local park and ride which was easy to find and park at even with the locals having a car boot sale in half of the car park. We took the bus into the city and quickly found the site of our hop on hop off bus. These are the red sight seeing tour busses that are used in cities the world over. Upstairs we had a good view of the city but Cambridge isn't all that interesting a city to look around. Now that's not quite true. There are loads of beautiful buildings, museums and the river is lovely. Well worth a look. But from the vantage point of a bus it doesn't add much to the experience. Cambridge town centre isn't actually that large and it is pretty flat. So going back, I would just walk around for myself. The information on the bus was interesting as it went into the details of what Cambridge University actually is and how it works. It is not what you might think and along with Oxford, actually works quite differently to all other universities. We also spent some time inside the Fitzwilliam Museum where we got to see Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Asian artefacts. It was interesting and we got to fill our water bottles. I love a place that allows this. It was all free and worth a look. We also got to see the supposed tree that dropped the apple on Sir Isaac Newton. Very cool indeed. Cambridge University has colleges that are centuries old and so if history is your thing you might get a lot out of spending time wandering around. 

We had a lovely time going around, seeing the buildings going round the shops and visiting the market. I bought a new hat which I am happy with because I don't like wearing hats normally. I like to wear my hair in a high pony tail and my hair is thick. When I wear a hat it makes my pony tail fall lower and make my head hotter than usual, making for an uncomfortable experience. But now I have a hat which is essentially a wide brim with a band around it with Velcro on. So I can wear my hair in any style and the top of my head is not heating up rapidly. 

We were very surprised by the local cows being present in the town centre. Well, next to the river where all the punting companies are. It was lovely to see them but just an oddity we were not expecting. 

Would we go back to Cambridge? Probably not. We've seen it now and happily done it. There isn't enough there for me to want to go back. 

The following day we took a trip to the nearby town of Ely. Pronounced Ee-lee. Our first lovely surprise was the car park I headed to. It was free! What town centre car park is free these days? The next surprise, it was also market day. There were lots of local sellers with food and arts and crafts. The high street has a lot of the usual high street shops and it also had a cathedral (again another cathedral, we weren't searching for them I swear). It was beautiful. We didn't expect much from Ely, I wanted to go on a whim because it was so close and I have ancestry history here so it was nice to be amongst it. But we loved it. A nice place to visit and we had a lovely time here. 

After 4 nights in the Cambridge area it was time to head home. Pack down was easily done in the heat of the weather we had that day and the tent went away dry, which we were worried about following the wet pack down from Scotland. The trip back to Bournemouth was easy enough although, very, very slow. We spent hours going 30 miles an hour on average. We don't know why particularly there was so much traffic but we were not in any hurry so it doesn't matter. We got home and it was a welcome sight. The house had been shut for almost 3 weeks. It smelled musty and old so we threw open the windows and the house breathed again. We had cleaned the house before we left so all we had do do was bring everything in, get the washing machine fired up and then rest for a while. 

I loved it so much that after only a few days of rest and recuperation and getting used to being in my own bed again, I was ready and raring to go on another trip. We had other things booked into the diary and school starting got in the way of that. So I decided to break out my small 3 person tent and pop it up in the garden. I spent a couple of nights out there to get my camping fix under control. 

Thank you for coming along on this journey with me. My family had such an amazing time, travelled through 3 countries, visited caves below the surface and climbed (well sort of) mountains. Saw crazy rain and scorching heat. Our car did such an amazing job doing almost 2000 miles over 2.5 weeks. You don't need the best or specialist equipment to do a trip like this. Just a sum of money, half a plan and a hunger for adventure. 

So now I am planning my next one. This trip has fired me up to do something new. Check out my 40 Before 40 series for my new project to live life to the full. 

Until next time 

xx