England - Black Ferns Game #1

Across the Irish Sea we flew into Heathrow Airport, picked up a car and started another phase of the adventure touring around the other part of the United Kingdom.

After navigating the roads out of London, we were soon cruising along the M1 North towards Northampton where we stayed the night and then onto York where we put on our black jerseys,

caught the bus to York Community Stadium to cheer on the Black Ferns in their first game of the 2025 Rugby World Cup against Spain.

Our seats happened to be in the middle of a lot of Spanish supporters who were a lot of fun.  They cheered whenever there was good play on both sides and gave a huge cheer when Portia Woodman-Wickliffe came on the field, obviously in awe of this wonderful NZ player.

The York community definitely supported the event with over 7000 spectators there and of course, the Black Ferns came away with a great win 54-8.

The next day was about exploring the fascinating city of York, which is was founded by the ancient Romans, but has a strong Viking past.  Again, the hop on, hop off bus gave us a good insight into the city including the York Racecourse, which is just recovering from a 4 day meet!  The main centre is surrounded by ancient walls and in the middle is a huge 13th century Gothic cathedral, York Minster.

It has so many tales about highway men, such as Dick Turpin

and is deemed to be the most haunted city in England.  We went on a Ghost Trail and heard a few scary stories about various characters and how they ended up haunting various parts of York.

We also visited The Shambles which is the alley that inspired Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter series.

 If you are into wizards and magical stories etc, then York is definitely a place to visit.

Back in the car again, with Rosie's superior driving skills, we headed to the coastal fishing village of Whitby, where Captain James Cook began his seaman's training, and it is also where the Endeavour was built. 

We didn't have time to visit his museum unfortunately.

Further north we came across Hadrian's Wall, originally built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in AD 122 to secure the Roman Empires' northern frontier. 

It featured ditches, forts, and watchtowers of which some of them are still standing today.  We just had a brief look and walked along some of the wall.  You can actually walk along the whole length of the wall, on a hiking trail, which takes about 6-9 days for the 135km.  We walked about 20m of it due to time constraints! 

Not far way from the wall, we crossed the border into Scotland and stayed at a little village called Melrose.  It was there that Rosie had her first taste of haggis!