After packing my pack, I strode purposefully out of the hostel and down the street to Edinburgh’s Haymarket station. Okay, so “strode purposefully” is probably an unfairly muscular-sounding description. But “staggered” wouldn’t be fair either. It was probably something between the two. Perhaps just “walked”. Anyway, I boarded the 09:44 train bound for Inverness, some three and a half hours away.

Just out of Edinburgh, the train went across the Forth Bridge, which goes over the Firth Of Forth. The bridge is utterly massive, a mile and a half long, a very impressive testament to the engineers who built it last century. Unfortunately, the best place to see the bridge is probably not from the train, where all you can see are the huge girders flying past the window. But the parallel road bridge looks equally massive, if not quite as picturesque.

The train continued north, and the further north we got, the better the scenery looked. Rolling hills, speeding rivers, remote farms, tiny villages. We stopped every so often at places with weird and interesting names, like Avie More, Inverkeithing, Dalwhinnie, and Perth.

We eventually rolled into Inverness, and I alighted and got my bearings, checked my map and figured out what I was going to do next. Plan A was to stay in Inverness that night, then head to the tiny village of Plockton to stay on Thursday, returning on Friday to Inverness, and catching the Friday night sleeper train back to London.

First I needed somewhere to stay in Inverness. Consulting the Lonely Planet guide stowed in my backpack, I decided not to stay at the official YHA hostel, which was a mile or two east of the station, down some side streets, left then left again oh no was it left then right oh bugger now I’m lost where did I put that map… Instead I decided on a closer hostel, which from the description sounded hospitable enough. I gave them a ring and they reserved me a bed.

But to make sure Plan A was feasible, I also had to find somewhere to stay in Plockton the following night. The Lonely Planet guide gave a handful of Bed & Breakfast numbers. So I found a phone and rang the first.

In the following dialogue, try to imagine, if you will, the accent of a middle-aged Scots woman. It’s my personal opinion that there is no more delightful accent than that of a Scottish woman. The adjective “lilting” was just made for it.

“I’m sorry, we’re full”, said the lilting voice. “Have you tried 220?”

I rang, with the appropriate prefix from Inverness, 220.

“No, we don’t have singles. But have you tried 287?”

So 287 it was. “Oh right. I’ll just get my wife. Hold on a second.”

“Hello?….. No, I’m afraid we’re full. Who have you tried?” I reeled off a list of numbers. “Ah, well try 282 or 356 - and if you get in there you’ll be very comfortable indeed!”

But no luck there either. The money in my phonecard was slowly draining away, and it looked like the entire population of the world had decided to stay in Plockton on Thursday night. So, I called an Extraordinary Daniel Travel Committee Meeting. I moved a motion, seconded by me and carried by a majority of my brain, to adopt Plan B.

Plan B was to just spend Thursday in Plockton, but return to Inverness and catch the Thursday night London sleeper train. The train timetable seemed to allow it, so I went and booked the sleeper compartment and paid the £29 the sleeper would cost me - in addition to my Britrail pass - and then put the backpack on and tramped off to the hostel.

My walk took me through the main shopping part of Inverness, where my stomach once again reminded me it was well past lunchtime, and that the quick consumption of food would be an ideal solution to hunger. So attempting to avoid a long walk around looking for food while lumbered with the backpack, I did the unthinkable and succumbed to the pleasures of the Inverness McDonalds.

Afterwards I kept going, up the hill past the castle, to an area where there used to be a plethora of various backpacker’s hostels, until the YHA one moved away. But there’s still two, and I found the one I’d rung, found the room and bed I was allocated (they all had names to make it easier), plonked down my pack and headed out again to explore.

Inverness was (and probably still is) a lovely little town. I looked around the town, making my way down any street that looked the least bit interesting. There was a lot of hustle and/or bustle around the shopping area until about 5pm, then things quietened down a bit, but as I walked around, there were still a few people heading for restaurants and pubs and the like.

I walked down to the River Ness, which leads into Loch Ness, home of the famous monster. Well, perhaps it is - I haven’t seen it myself. I had (perhaps foolishly) elected not to go up to the Loch for a bit of monster hunting, as I was determined to avoid doing too many of the really touristy clichéd activities.

But I did train my video camera on the river and shoot a bit of out-of-focus footage of a stick in a doubtful attempt to convince everyone at home that I might have spotted the monster. I also spotted a grey heron enjoying some dinner, thanks to it having secured a place higher on the food chain than the eel it had found.

I began my own wander in search of food, which took a while as usual, but I got to explore a few more streets around the town. Eventually I settled on a cosy looking pub, and chose the intriguing sounding Macaroni Cheese And Chips from the menu. The appeal was not that macaroni cheese or chips were strange to my palette, because they aren’t, in fact my palette greets them like old friends whenever they arrive. The appeal was that the mix of macaroni cheese and chips in the same meal was not something I’d experienced before. The cheese sauce was sticky and gloppy, the macaroni hot, the chips on the side of the plate crunchy. They went together surprisingly well.

I chomped down my food to the accompaniment of one of Scotland’s fine lagers, pondering life in general, watching the other pub-goers trying their luck on the poker machine, and letting my palette have a big party to celebrate the unlikely coupling of these two great tastes in the one dish.

Then I strolled, in a relaxed state of mind, back to the hostel, and sat in the lounge, writing more postcards, chatting with a few other hostel-goers and listening to the bloke at the front desk greet people with his authentic Australian accent, which somehow sounded much stronger than it would’ve at home. Then I went upstairs to the room, settled down in my bed, which was called Mr Hyde, and dozed off to sleep.

According to my Tour Of Bits Of Scotland Masterplan, I had a full day to explore Edinburgh. The first stop after breakfast was Edinburgh Castle. I walked back the way I’d come the night before (did I mention I passed a street called Spittal Street?), gazing up at the castle as I approached.

The castle literally towers over the rest of the city, which makes sense; in the old days it must have seemed the most logical place to put it. They would have looked pretty stupid building it in the valley next to the mountain, especially since the valley was underwater at the time. In fact there is evidence of there having been civilisation on the mountain for almost three thousand years, and a castle for at least a millennium and a half.

And it’s more of a real castle than the one I saw at Arundel. Arundel looks like it was built to be a tourist attraction, it’s just a bit too clean and tidy. Edinburgh is mostly just as tidy and clean, and has many more tourists, but somehow manages to look like it was built to be an actual castle, for defensive reasons.

Near the entrance they were still taking down the portable seating from the Edinburgh Tattoo, which takes place annually in what looks like it is a carpark but which is actually a parade ground. I’ve seen the Tattoo on TV a couple of times, and it never ceases to amaze me how an event like that can make watching marching bands, which sounds as though it’s some kind of extreme insomnia cure, actually quite entertaining. I bet it’s a pain if you live nearby and are trying to sleep though.

After paying the entrance fee and walking past (and I confess joining in with) a row of tourists snapping pictures of a guard standing extremely still with his chest waaaay out, I went in. I spurned the offer of a taped audio guide, partly because I wanted to check things out for myself, and partly because everyone who already had a set of headphones on and a portable CD player around their neck looked like a complete dork.

The views from the top of the castle were very impressive. It follows that if you can see the castle from anywhere in the city, you should be able to see the whole of the city from the castle. I stood for a few minutes, gazing down at the people and buses busily rushing along Princes Street below, and looking out over the city to the not-so-distant Firth of Forth, glittering in the sunshine.

Then I turned around and realised there was another level of the castle to go, so I kept climbing and did it all again up there.

There are a number of buildings within the castle grounds, most of which are open and contain exhibitions, often about various aspects of Scottish military history. I poked my way through a few of these, one area containing rooms that over the centuries have been used as dungeons and soldier’s quarters alternately. Not surprisingly, the soldiers weren’t particularly enamoured with their quarters. The prisoners probably weren’t either, come to think of it.

They also had the huge old Mons Meg siege cannon, a weapon that turned out not to be particularly useful, because every time they wanted to fire it, they’d have to haul it to where it needed to go, build a structure of some kind to hold it up and aim it when it was fired, which would then frequently collapse with the force of the explosion.

Another building held two of the most precious relics of Scottish history: the Scottish Crown Jewels and The Stone Of Destiny. I overheard a guide telling some people that on no account should they take photos. Evidently the guards would immediately confiscate your camera if you did, and if they were anything like that bloke at the front gate with his chest sticking out, I reckon they’d rip the film and/or video out of the camera, stomp all over it, then dispatch it and probably you as well out of the nearest window.

So, not for one moment daring to sneak a quick pic, I lined up for the Jewels and the Stone, both of which were spectacular. The Scots only got the Stone back a couple of years ago. Of course on “Hamish Macbeth” they claim that the original is hidden somewhere in the highlands. But this one looked pretty much genuine, at least as far as my expert eye for stones of destiny could tell.

By this point it was almost midday, and the place was beginning to fill up with tourists. Not the perfectly charming tourists like you or I, you understand. No, not the well-travelled people fascinated by the new experiences they are having, and with the good sense to keep their mouths shut rather than show their ignorance, the good sense not to carry too many (or too large) cameras or too much foreign cash, and to at least attempt to blend nicely in with the locals.

No, the castle was beginning to fill up with swarms of the rather noisier, more irritating breed, so I did my best to avoid them, bidding my leave of the castle (via the gift shop), hoping in vain not to meet their like again in this fine town.

I trod off down the Royal Mile, which is the street that leads straight down the mountain from the castle, and has all sorts of historic buildings along it. At this point I began my long quest for lunch.

I don’t know if this is a condition I have, I don’t know if I should be speaking to a medical professional about this, but I have a real problem choosing where to eat. If I’m with someone else and they choose, then that’s great. But if the decision is left to me, such as when I’m on my own, I tend to roam around looking at the menus in the windows of numerous restaurants and thinking “ah well, that doesn’t look too bad, but I wonder what’s around the corner?”

There would be times on this trip when this quest for the perfect restaurant would leave me wandering the streets for hours, my stomach steadily getting more impatient for some food. This was one of those times.

I walked down the hill to Princes Street, and along, noting the locations of various fast food places, but deciding that since I was travelling to experience the places and people of Scotland, I shouldn’t be eating too much McDonalds or Burger King (no matter how Scottish McDonalds might sound, it’s not), but sampling something that if it wasn’t unique to Scotland, at least was not run by some multinational corporation that had several hundred outlets within an hour’s drive of home.

Ignoring my stomach for a moment and paying attention to my watch, I noticed it was almost 1pm, so I went down into the Princes Street gardens to look up at the castle and wait for the 1pm gun to be fired. I found a nice place to sit, waited for 12:59 and 30 seconds, and aimed the camcorder up at the castle.

Malcolm in York had warned me that it was loud - very loud. I took heed of his advice, and attempted to prepare myself for an almighty bang. But when the almighty bang came it was significantly more mighty than I expected, and the camcorder footage that resulted shows the camera suddenly jolt and someone, I’m not sure who, cries out in a male Australian’s voice “Jesus!”

But it’s just one of those things that with today’s technology you can’t adequately record for other people to experience. Like the size of the Grand Canyon cannot be captured on photos, the noise of the one o’clock gun at Edinburgh Castle cannot be captured on video.

I kept looking around for a suitable food source that would meet my ever-changing and some would say slightly deranged requirements. Some of the places along Rose Street looked nice, but also far too crowded. I eventually found a little cafe - it might have been in Castle Street - where I bravely ordered something called a “toastie”, only to find it was just a jaffle.

I decided to explore Edinburgh’s suburbs, rather than just moping around the city centre. I headed back to the Royal Mile and boarded a number 6 bus. I had spotted one earlier, and noticed the sign said it was a circle route, which I thought would reduce significantly my chances of getting lost somewhere in Edinburgh’s suburbia.

The Day Saver ticket included the fact that I was an adult male, apparently to prevent people giving their used tickets to just anybody. I wonder how the driver would classify a cross-dresser? I took a seat at the very front of the top deck of the bus.

Leith was very nice. It reminded me a bit of Williamstown in Melbourne. Lots of shipyards and docks, but also an influx of upmarket restaurants and housing. And also, I suspect, much more life to it on the weekend than during the week.

It was pretty windy, but as I inspected a plaque of John Hunter (who just happened to be governor of NSW from 1795 to 1800), some sunshine peeked its way through the clouds. By the time I got back on the 6 back into Edinburgh, it was rush hour, and the bus somewhat crawled through the traffic back to the Royal Mile.

After getting off the bus more or less where I’d originally got on it, I started looking around for dinner. I thought I’d found somewhere good, and was very pleased with myself for having taken so little time to do so, and was just double-checking the menu when a gaggle of loud American tourists loudly came along the pavement and loudly went in, loudly proclaiming that they would be eating there. So I went elsewhere.

Actually they might have been Canadian - or come to that they might have been any nationality, but they were definitely talking in North American accents. Loudly.

Instead I ended up in a nice little Italian place, far enough up the street that I couldn’t hear them, and I merrily ate spag bol and wrote postcards, though not necessarily at the same time. After that I walked at a leisurely pace back to the hostel (via the Net cafe again), and sat in the hostel lounge, pondering tomorrow, reading a newspaper and watching BBC2, and wondering why something as funny as “Shooting Stars” has never made it onto Australian TV.

It’d been ages since I’d spent a night in a YHA bed, and it was surprisingly comfortable. I awoke not particularly bright, and not particularly early, and prepared for the day, chatting with my room mates and rummaging around in my backpack trying to find things. Then I showered in a cupboard-like shower - wearing, if you can picture this, nothing but my thongs, as recommended by Lonely Planet to avoid hideous foot diseases. Then I shaved and got dressed, though I don’t recall if it was in that order.

The shower gave me a chance to try my Magic Towel, a small, flannel-sized towel of strange absorbent stuff, which I had been given for my birthday a few weeks before, and which was meant to be as capable of taking care of my towelling requirements on the road as a fully sized bath towel. The recommendations I had got were so glowing that I had, perhaps foolishly, elected not to pack a “real” towel.

The Magic Towel very nearly succeeded. It did get me almost comfortably dry, except for the fact that after a while it was damp enough that as I kept rubbing it over myself, I was more moving the remaining damp patches around than actually drying them. The other problem was that the towel had to get dry again. I hung it up on the end of my bed, in the hope that it would at least partially dry in the hour or so before I planned to leave.

I went to the cafeteria and handed in my breakfast coupon. “Toast?” “Yes please.” “Bacon?” “Yes.” “Eggs?” “Yes.” “Beans?” “Yes.” “Black pudding?”

Ah. Black Pudding. It brought back the memory of a million repeats of the Goodies episode about the ancient martial art of Ecky-Thump, and in particular that scene where Graeme goes tumbling into the black pudding goo.

Oh what the hell, I was on holiday, and it would stop me feeling guilty in Scotland for not daring to try haggis. “Yes please.” It was quite nice actually, though I admit I tried not to think about it being made of blood as I gulped it down.

After breakfast, which included a chat with the late-to-bed Dutch cyclist bloke from my room, I went back and attempted, mostly successfully, to fit everything back into my backpack. Except the Magic Towel, which was still damp so I decided I’d carry it, letting it wave around in the wind, in the vain hope that a few more drops of water might evaporate.

Checking out, I made my way back along the river to the station, stopping every few hundred metres to adjust the straps on the pack to some position that might render me slightly less in need of a chiropractor, or to wave the Magic Towel around in a particularly strong gust of wind.

Back at the station I found the left luggage counter, where I left the pack for a few hours while I finished up my visit of York. A railways bloke took the pack (with Magic Towel now safely and damply stowed inside - in its special waterproof pouch of course) and my coins (exact change please) and went and worked the automatic locker for me, and returned with my receipt. No doubt this is for security. The English are wary of terrorists who would stop at nothing to blow up their luggage lockers. Perhaps someone should have thought more carefully about the security implications before they went and bought an automated locker system.

I went for a short walk around the town again, ducking along ancient streets, gawping up at the old buildings, taking pictures of the extremely scenic river Ouse. I took a look at Clifford’s Tower, the remains of an ancient castle tower, sitting in a corner of the city centre, on top of a little hillock which the builders must have presumed would afford the guards a good view of the surrounding countryside, so they could be ready to defend the city against any travelling minstrels.

By this time it was almost 10am, the opening time of my next port of call, the National Railway Museum.

Most of my friends know this, but it’s time to admit it to the world. I’m a bit of a gunzel. I have an interest in rail vehicles which is marginally above that of the average person. Not so much that I go around with a notepad and an anorak noting the numbers of passing trains and trams, but I do take mild interest in such things, and I try to keep up to date with issues surrounding my local public transport services at home.

It’s probably at least partially because I grew up riding trains and trams because my family didn’t have a car, and in fact I never had a car either until earlier this year. I also fervently believe that public transport has an important role in big cities, for moving large numbers of people quickly, quietly, cleanly and efficiently.

So a visit to the National Railway Museum was definitely on the cards for my stop off in York. I ended up spending several hours there, poking around in the displays, checking out all the ancient and impressive preserved engines and trains, and just generally pottering around, wondering why on earth the museums at home devoted to this topic are nowhere near as well organised and funded.

Rather than do my usual thing of wandering around for ages trying to decide what to eat, I sat in the museum cafe, consuming a delicious chunk of bread with an equally delicious chunk of butter on it, and some very tasty tomato soup.Then I looked around at the geek merchandise the gift shop had to offer, and headed back to the station.

Next on the agenda was a train to Edinburgh. I had been wondering if I should plan to be at the station at a particular time for the train, but as it turned out, from York there’s a train to Edinburgh about every 15 minutes. So after recovering my backpack, I didn’t have long to wait before I was once again whizzing northward through the countryside.

The train sped along, through countless little towns, the signs proclaiming their names just a blur. In bigger towns it would slow down and stop, a steady stream of people joining and leaving the train, no doubt taking the conductor’s frequent advice to check that they had all their belongings before leaving.

As we glided into Newcastle I noticed a row of identical streets with identical houses, very much reminiscent of The Meaning Of Life. Then the train went over the Tyne and I saw the brilliantly picturesque (boy am I overusing that word on this trip) view of the bridges that cross over it.

The train headed further north, and I happened to be glancing out of the window when I saw a sign zip past, indicating the location of the England/Scotland border. We had entered Scotland. Instantly the heather seemed thicker, the nearby coastline seemed more craggy.

The train rolled into Edinburgh, and I got out. Waverley Station is Edinburgh’s main station, and is probably chaotic enough at the best of times. I had caught it in the middle of renovations, and it was doubly chaotic. People were roaming all over the place, obviously well aware of exactly where they were going, which gave them a distinct advantage over me, who didn’t.

I consulted my map, with particular reference to the location of my YHA booking for the night. It was actually much closer to Haymarket station than Waverley, so rather than traipse the two kilometres or so with the backpack (masochism has never been my strong point), I found another train that would take me to Haymarket. I found the hostel, tucked away in thoroughly charming side street called Eglington Crescent.

After checking in and dumping my pack (top bunk again, in a room of six on the first floor, a lovely cool breeze coming in through the wide open window) and re-hanging my still-damp Magic Towel, I went out to explore Edinburgh.

Clutching a small map I’d found in the hostel, I made my way along West Maitland Street to Edinburgh’s main shopping strip, Princes Street, stopping every few minutes to admire the views across the road of the gardens and the very imposing looking castle above.

After a while I tired of McDonald’s Virgin Gap, and crossed the street and roamed around the gardens. It was yet another meal time, and I found a stall in the park selling what they claimed was the world’s best hotdog. Well, I hadn’t come halfway across the world to eat crappy substandard hotdogs, so I thought I’d better try it.

I’m by no means the world’s most seasoned traveller, but I have eaten quite a few hotdogs in my time. Probably some of the ones I’ve enjoyed the most were back in my uni days at the corner shop. None of my mates would touch them for fear of contracting exploding-bowel food poisoning, but I thought they were pretty tasty.

As for this “world’s best” hotdog, well, I’m not quite sure that the title was justified. But that’s advertising for you.

I kept walking, through the gardens, up a street charmingly titled The Mound, and up Ramsay Lane, which could have been called Mountainclimber Alley, it was so steep. I found myself at the entrance to the absolutely incredible looking Edinburgh Castle. I made a mental note to come back tomorrow when it was open, and walked down the hill, back in the vague direction of the hostel.

A bit further on I found a very nice Net Cafe in Bread Street, which was having a happy hour, so I slurped on a hot chocolate as I caught up with my e-mails from home, and read The Age for a bit of news from home.

It was well and truly dark by the time I left an hour later, and for the most part the streets back to the hostel were deserted enough to make me wonder for the first time if I ought to be at all concerned for my personal safety. For all I know they might have a thousand muggings a year in that street, but nothing in the least bit worrying happened while I was there, and I made it back to the hostel in one piece.

It was Sunday morning, and time to say goodbye to my grandparents. We did the customary photo-taking in the garden - it’s compulsory for everyone who visits to come home with a picture of themselves plus Grandad and Gran standing in front of the house. Then we drove to Bognor Regis station so I could catch the 0957 to London.

We lined up at whatever they call the booking office nowadays (it might have been “Service Point” or something like that) to validate my Britrail pass, which I’d bought in Australia before I left. It was part of my attempts to spread the costs of this trip over several credit card bills, rather than just one great hulking one when I got home.

As the train rumbled its way through the countryside, I gazed at the window, marvelling, for probably the ten-millionth time this trip, how amazingly far from home I was. From time to time a ticket inspector or a bloke with a trolley of food would go past. People got on, people got off, the usual train behaviour.

Eventually we were zipping through the suburbs of South London, went over the Thames, and arrived at London’s Victoria station. I would be heading north from London, which necessitated a trip on the tube to King’s Cross, on the other side of central London.

Last century, when the railway companies were going crazy criss-crossing Britain with railways, they built huge terminal stations in London to serve their lines. No doubt they would have loved to have ploughed through central London destroying all in their path, presumably to meet somewhere in the middle, but for the most part they were forbidden to by whoever was in charge of things at the time (presumably the formidable Queen Victoria and/or her Prime Ministers).

Resisting the latest fad in transport seems to be a trend that London has continued to follow - no motorways penetrate the centre either, which is just as well, because they’d have made an awful mess of it. Presumably in a hundred years when solar-powered superjets and teleports are all the rage for travelling into London, you will still need to change onto the tube to get to Piccadilly Circus.

Before heading to Kings Cross, I did what I had been unable to do at my grandparents’ - something for which I could suppress the urge no longer. I went to a net cafe and read my e-mail. My grandparents might have hearts of gold, but when it comes to the Internet, they are probably so technologically challenged that they don’t even know they’re technologically challenged.

It was well past lunchtime by the time I got to Kings Cross. I checked the train times to York first, which were every half hour. My stomach knew it was well past lunchtime, and was making my brain aware of this, so I found the quickest reasonable meal I could find: Burger King, over the road from the station.

Then I went back and boarded the 1400 (they all seem to use 24 hour time in Europe) train for York (and Edinburgh, and eventually Aberdeen, if you wanted to go that far in one day). This train was very high tech, all glistening navy, red and yellow company colours, and with superbly luxurious seats (yes, even in Economy) and an in-flight, umm that is in-train magazine! It zipped along at a fair rate, too, reaching York, a distance of about 300 kilometres, in a tad under two hours.

From York Station I phoned ahead to the Youth Hostel for a bed, before slinging my pack onto my back and heading over there. As soon as you walk out of the station you see the city walls, which are a magnificent sight. I walked down to the river, taking my time because I was (a) in no particular hurry, (b) wanting to see some of the local scenery, and (c) weighed down by the pack, which had seemed pretty light and small when compared to other people’s bags on the carousel at Heathrow the week before, but after a few minutes on my back seemed as though it had an elephant sitting on the top of it.

Eventually I found the road going over the river which I presumed (thankfully correctly) would be Water End, the road for the Hostel, which I found a couple of minutes up the hill. I checked into the room, a dorm for four - a double bunk on each side of the room.

One bed, the upper right, was already taken, its occupant out somewhere enjoying the sights of York. I presumed that whoever had chosen it out of the four available knew what they were doing, and so chose the left upper, hoping to gain the same advantages of being on the upper bunk, whatever they might be.

After a quick walk around the hostel to familiarise myself with where everything was, and to generally have a nose around, I went to go explore. The way back to the centre of the town was via a street which had a variety of names as it went along, something which I could just imagine my friend Brian - who detests such practices - ranting about if he’d been with me. Clifton becomes Bootham, which in turn becomes High Petergate, Low Petergate, Colliergate, Fossgate and Walmgate as it goes through the town. And all in the space of a couple of miles.

Gate in York actually means street. And Bar means gate - as in city gate, a spot in the wall where formerly no doubt there were fearsome looking guards who would stop, interrogate, frisk and quite possibly beat to a pulp anybody who wanted to come into the town. Nowadays the gates are physically still there, that’s where pedestrians and traffic make their way through into the old part of the town, with little or no risk of being beaten to a pulp by guards.

I was at Bootham Bar. Starting to feel hungry again, I decided that for the moment, the shops and restaurants along Gillygate looked more interesting than the old town, so that’s where my stomach led me. I followed the streets along the outside of the wall until I got to Monk Bar, which sounds like a place the monks would sneak off for a pint or two after a long afternoon’s chanting, but which is actually the north-eastern entrance into the city.

There (as well as at other points along the walls) you can climb up onto the walls and walk along them like some kind of medieval lookout, which is what I did, following the walls back the way I’d came. I got as far as Bootham Bar again, and was amused to find that on the right hand side of the old gate structure are public toilets built into the wall! Making use of these conveniences, I then made my way back along Gillygate to a fish’n'chips restaurant I’d spotted on my first time around.

I hadn’t had any fish’n'chips since I’d arrived in England, and this one billed itself as the biggest fish’n'chips restaurant in York. Probably not a huge achievement, but enough to warrant further investigation.

Surprisingly, they seemed to be starting to shut down for the night, even though it was only about 7pm. Maybe the background music was frightening people away; it was pretty awful - we’re talking “Lady In Red” Kenny G style. But the meal was nice. Not one of the all time great fish’n'chips I’ve had, but quite acceptable. At least my stomach stopped complaining. The usual fish part of fish’n'chips in England seems to be haddock - I wonder what English think of our flake (shark) back at home.

After the meal I went back through Bootham Bar, to the absolutely magnificent and completely enormous York Minster. No, enormous isn’t adequate. Massively enormous might be better. Let’s just say it’s big, in fact apparently it’s Europe’s largest medieval cathedral. So there you go, it’s not just me that thinks it’s big - it really is big. I walked through it in awe, gazing up at the ceiling and the intricate decorations, and just generally trying to take in a little of the atmosphere of the place.

Then I wandered around the town for a bit. Much of it is still how you might imagine a medieval town might have been - when it really was still medieval that is. But probably with less dirt. Tiny cobbled streets, lovely old buildings, and no cars. By this time it was getting dark, so not much was open except for the occasional shop full of tourist stuff. I bought some postcards, a chocolate bar (a Yorkie Bar, which at first I thought was a local thing, but which isn’t) and a newspaper and walked back to the hostel.

After watching a little TV and writing postcards, I headed back to the room. Grandad had warned me before I left to be wary of the people in the youth hostels. So as I was prepared for anything when I could hear voices as I opened the door. And what a rowdy bunch they turned out to be. A middle-aged management executive from the Canadian Wheat Board called Ed, a British Telecom technician from Ipswich in his 30s called Malcolm, and a middle-aged Dutch bloke who was riding his bike around the Yorkshire dales (whose name I didn’t catch - he turned up almost silently hours later).

We swapped travelling stories and jokes. It turned out that the BT bloke was carefully reading Bill Bryson’s “Notes From A Small Island” (a copy of which I’d left at Grandad’s because I didn’t think I’d get time to read it) and trying to figure out where Bryson had lived, which was somewhere in Yorkshire.

When bedtime finally came I drifted slowly off to sleep, the noise from the cars swooping by on Water End coming in through the window.

Saturday arrived, and with it the chance of some time with my uncle Kevin, his wife Liz (does that make her my Aunt-in-law or something?) and my cousins Sarah and Luke. Kevin was actually working in the morning, poor soul, but I headed over to their house in Bognor Regis in the Grandad-Fiat-o-mobile early for a chat and a walk around the town with the others.

The “Regis” in Bognor Regis takes its name after the royals, when the town decided about 60 years ago to append the suffix in honour of the king of the time, George V, who was reputedly pretty ambivalent about it. Actually I’d be more interested to know where the “Bognor” comes from. It’s not exactly the most appealing name in the world, but Britain is full of names like that, the origins of which have been lost in the mists of time.

(Actually, the minimal research I have done seems to indicate that it was named after an ancient Saxon settlement called Bucgrenora, though why they called it that is anybody’s guess. Any ancient Saxons who would care to e-mail me any comments are welcome to.)

Liz, Sarah, Luke and I walked around the town for a bit (well, to be entirely accurate, Luke was pushed around, since he was just a baby), poking around in the shops, gabbing about the differences between England and Australia. Some names, like Safeway and Woolworths, were familiar, and in the case of Safeway, much the same. They have Safeway in America too; in marketing terms it must be a tried and proven name for a supermarket. Either that or there was an Ernest Safeway who thought up the whole idea.

Other names, like Dixons, Superdrug and Marks & Spencer were less familiar, but a quick glance in the window revealed that they were pretty much the Chandlers, Priceline and Myers of England.

Every time I spotted something remotely Australian, I’d stop, point it out and make excited gurgling noises, before explaining its significance with a little lump of pride in my throat that something other than me had made it across the world. Bananas In Pyjamas, Neighbours, Home and Away, not to mention Savage Garden and of course Fosters. Okay, so perhaps some of the things aren’t exactly the best that Australia has to offer, but it’s nice to know that while we as a country embrace things from cultures around the world, a little of our culture gets embraced elsewhere too.

Suddenly it was lunchtime, and we settled into one of those quintessential English cafés, where you imagine they’d probably stare at you like you had green tentacles growing out of the top of your head if you dared to ask for something that wasn’t fried. The kind of place that might be called the Cholesterol Café, and if it were more downmarket (eg more vinyl), would be frequented by people who pronounce it “Caff”, and go there early in the morning to meet with shabbily dressed detectives to sell information to over a cup of tea, like in The Bill.

Getting into the spirit of things I ended up having egg, chips, baked beans, sausage and ham (but no spam). And it was thoroughly delicious, even if it did catapult me a few hundred metres closer to Heart Attack City. But nobody called me guv’nor and nobody ran out midway through a cup of tea shouting “you coppers are all the same; I ain’t telling you nuffink, Lefty will fix me if I do!” My illusions were thoroughly shattered.

After that we staggered up to the rellies’ flat and awaited the arrival of Uncle Kevin, which didn’t take long. That gave us a chance for some more chatting, and for me to get dribbled on by Luke. Then we all went and piled into Kevin’s tiny car and headed for the Amberley Museum.

The drive to the museum took us in cramped comfort through some more of that gorgeous English countryside with winding roads through green pastures. It’s so damn picturesque you can bet the British tourist authorities are cursing that they can’t charge people for looking at it.

Now, in the world, there are museums and there are museums. There are the old, dead museums in huge, badly heated buildings with lifeless exhibits and people trudging around basically out of guilt because they’ve paid their $5 to get in and now they feel they have to stay the prerequisite number of minutes to get their money’s worth and preferably find something even the least bit interesting otherwise whoever they’re with will be telling them “see, I told you it would be boring” all the way home.

Then there are those museums that actually have interesting things, are in well kept buildings or generous outdoor sites, with rides and interactive displays to keep the little kids and adults with short attention spans amused, bits of history for those who are interested in such things, and a nice variety of displays, without so much of one thing on display that it’s mindnumbingly boring. I’m happy to say that most museums are switching to this way of thinking, and the Amberley Museum is one of them.

It’s an industrial museum - old machinery, old communications equipment, old vehicles, all that sort of thing, with a bit of olde style art and craft thrown in to keep the less blokey amused too. We wandered around happily looking at the various stuff, and enjoying each other’s company, taking surprise photos of one another, generally having a laugh.

After a few hours spent in the museum, we headed back to Bognor to the flat, ordered in Chinese food and watched a fairly harmless movie and a surprisingly interesting TV show about wacky British drivers, before Kevin drove me back to my grandparents place.

So, a nice day of relaxation with the rellies, but the holiday was just beginning: Tomorrow I would be heading north.

On Friday morning we headed for Littlehampton, a town not far from my grandparents house. My grandad has an orange Disabled thingy for his car, which allows him to park it apparently virtually anywhere, with the possible exception of the Buckingham Palace lawn on top of a Corgi.

On this occasion he parked in a disabled spot behind the main street, and we nipped into the supermarket, a medium-sized one with one of those names that is almost instantly forgettable, like “Mega-Fresh” or “Quickshop” or “Super-Price” something like that. While Gran and Grandad looked at the potatoes, I had a quick look around, observing the differences from supermarkets at home.

The most noticeable thing was the checkouts. English checkout staff (and the gender split was much more even than at home where most are female, so I’ll avoid the common Australian term checkout chicks) actually sit down while working! Not only that, but YOU, the humble customer, have to pack your own shopping bag! Talk about cushy.

After the supermarket and a quick visit to the bank where Grandad wrote himself a cheque, an odd idea if ever there was one, we looked around Littlehampton’s main street, which was quite utterly charming, in a main-street-full-of-shops kind of a way.

Then we returned to the car and drove on to a humungous Tescos supermarket just outside the town. This was the full monty, with a huge carpark and a coffee shop and petrol station built in. They also had, and this is pretty clever if you ask me, a variety of different shopping trolley options for different family configurations. Apart from your standard trolley for people without kids, they had baby trolleys, trolleys to carry two babies, trolleys for a baby and a toddler, for two toddlers, and lots of various permutations.

They also had ones for single mothers, which had a special spot to store a Social Security cheque. Or quite possibly I just made that up.

I hear they’re even thinking about introducing a model on which all four wheels work at once. I definitely made that up.

After the obligatory cup of tea, to strengthen us for the massive shopping mission ahead, we stormed into the supermarket and bought two dozen packets of low fat yoghurt. “Last of the big spenders”, remarked my grandmother as we headed for the checkout.

Next stop was Arundel, a town of historic streets and shops, and a bloody big castle on one side, which I had spotted from the train on the way down from London a few days before. In fact Lonely Planet describes the town as “a pleasant little tourist trap”, but while I was being a tourist, I generally like to think of myself as not being too susceptible to the usual lures conceived to help one part with one’s money just because something looks interesting in a cool or quaint kind of way.

That doesn’t mean it’s true of course, but it’s how I like to think of myself.

We parked the car in Arundel’s large, historic and picturesque carpark, and walked over to the castle. It was only about 10:30, and the castle wasn’t due to open until noon, so we looked around for alternative entertainment.

We chose to have a bit of a walk around the town. The streets are tiny, and most of the shops looked interesting - at least from the outside. There seemed to be an endless supply of semi-antique shops, in that they gave the impression of selling antiques, but when you looked at what they were selling it wasn’t necessarily old.

Even after taking the time to stock up on postcards, it was only about 11:15, so we headed down to the river Arun, and used a packet of old bread that Gran had thoughtfully brought along to help fatten up the local swan population.

After all this activity, Gran and Grandad were a bit worn out, and decided to wait in the car while I looked around the castle, so I headed for the gate and the short queue to get in. At midday we all got let in through the rather impressive gate and started the climb up the hill towards the castle building itself.

Walking across the drawbridge reminded me of that scene in The Holy Grail where Arthur and his mates are held at bay by those sneaky French k-nig-hts. But no cows got launched at me, and I went inside to explore.

I was almost the first into the main building, and because I didn’t stand around in the first room gawping for too long, I got in front of the rest of the visitors slowly moving through the round-about course through the castle. This made it all the more pleasurable, as I didn’t have to hear other amazed voices exclaiming how quaint and well preserved it was.

They didn’t allow people to take pictures inside the main castle building, although I can confess now from a safe distance that I did shoot a few seconds of wobbly video of a hallway while nobody was looking. Presumably they wanted to make sure you bought the guide book, which I had anyway. It was full of full colour photos and the kind of inconvenient size that makes you wish you’d waited until you were on your way out before you had bought it.

This didn’t stop me feeling a tad guilty about it afterwards, and I decided from there on to scrupulously obey any more little signs I saw that had camera symbols with red lines through them.

At strategic points there were guides, probably volunteer retirees, who would explain the significance of a particular room in the castle. Some of them were rather robotic in replaying their spiel, others were more spontaneous and chatty, like one bloke in the very impressive library who asked where I was from and seemed to know an awful lot about Melbourne and its trams, though he had never been there.

It was to set a pattern for the whole trip actually; that there were a few people I met who had been to Australia, but hardly any had been to Melbourne. But all wanted to go back (or just go, in the case of those who hadn’t yet been) “some day”. This is, of course, what I’d always said about going to England. I think you just have to make the effort to ensure that it actually happens.

Also in the castle grounds was a chapel, where it turns out a few of Arundel’s more famous citizens are entombed. As I passed one of the tombs, with its occupant depicted on the top, I remarked to a couple of jovial fellow visitors “he doesn’t look so well.”

After that I headed back to the car and we headed back to lunch.

I took a walk that afternoon, from my grandparents’ house in Middleton, along the road towards a place called Felpham. For a village road, it was pretty busy, the stream of cars never seeming to stop. I mailed some postcards and bought a copy of The Times for later perusal, which I ended up reading from cover to cover that evening over seemingly endless cups of tea.

I don’t really know what time my Grandparents usually wake up, but I’m guessing it’s pretty early, because when I awoke sometime between 8 and 9, they gave the impression they’d been up for a while.

I had my first shower and shave in a couple of days, and discovered that I don’t think I like English showers any more than I like American ones. As I was to discover in the coming weeks, the Brits aren’t great ones for streaming hot showers. The water pressure is simply not up to the standard of your average Australian shower.

But no matter, when it’s been two days, you take any shower you can get. After breakfast, which consisted of Grandad and Gran’s particular mix of breakfast cereals, sultanas and low fat milk, we headed out to look around.

We stopped in a little country lane for a look around the place where my mother grew up, and some of the massive greenhouses that they’ve built recently in the area. I was left wondering what they do in a really bad hail storm. Then we went on to Chichester.

Australia was settled by Europeans about two hundred years ago, and in the big cities where most Australians live, there are not too many traces of life from before that time. If we see a building from the 1850s that’s still standing, we’re impressed. “Wow”, we think “that’s old”.

So it’s a bit of a shock to the system when you go to somewhere like Chichester, which has a cathedral 1000 years old, and sections of Roman wall that date back to 50AD. I took a deep breath, put my hand on the wall to feel it, and marvelled at the workmanship. Because let’s face it, anything man-made that has lasted almost two thousand years has got to be pretty well made. I dare say your average picket fence around a front garden won’t still be around in two thousand years.

The funny thing is, this was no museum. It was just a street in Chichester - actually a very boring street with a factory on one side and a carpark on the other (well, over the wall, that is). No plaque, nothing really to distinguish it. Just a two thousand year old wall sitting there, being wall-like.

We walked along to the cathedral, stopping to admire the big Cross in the town centre, where the main streets meet. (I forget the exact name of it; it might have been the Market Cross.) This is probably where they came up with the word crossroad, and I suspect how the roundabout was invented. When something as big as that is slap bang in the middle of the road, you’ve got no choice but to go around it.

And the Cathedral itself was pretty impressive, too. With all sorts of gravestones and memorials and trinkets and things reminding you that it had been there for about a millennium. It was so old that when they built the bell tower, they apparently hadn’t thought of putting it on the top of the church - instead it was a separate building.

We looked around the shops, which when first glancing at them and looking at the names, look interesting and foreign, but turn out to be camera shops and chemists and supermarkets and greengrocers, just like at home.

The Chichester McDonald’s is in the 1700s Corn Exchange building, but as we walked past I peered in, and was not astonished to see that inside it looked just like every other McDonald’s the world over.

Leaving Chichester by a highly confusing network of one way streets, we made a short stop at the family burial plot, in a churchyard somewhere between Chichester and Bognor Regis. There several Bowens (and de Bowens; my Grandad decided to change the family name) have been laid to rest.

We then went on to Bognor to visit some very much alive relatives: my Uncle Kevin, his wife Liz, and their baby son Luke.

Uncle Kevin has truly obtained legendary status in his role as an Uncle. “UK in the UK”, as my sister and I knew him when growing up, always sent the most humorous and interesting letters, the best presents, and the funniest cards. This is the kind of guy who even though you’ve never met him face to face, you just know you’re going to like. And I did. Luke and Liz were delightful too, and we scoffed down tea and biscuits and generally had a merry old time.

Having made a date to go out on an excursion later in the week, I headed back with my grandparents for lunch at their home, followed by a stroll along the beachside path.

I reached as far as a town called Felpham, along the way consuming an icecream (which seemed cheap until I realised that with the pathetic Australian exchange rate, 70p is more than $2), and spotting rabbits hiding underneath some of the beach huts.

I took my time getting back, and that evening we settled down to the TV to the news of the Swissair crash off Canada, which made me glad I had already arrived, and wasn’t sitting at home about to fly out, watching the story and dreading the journey.

The British TV news is a bit odd, I reckon. In Australia, a half hour bulletin might cover ten or fifteen stories, both major and minor. Some will get several minutes, some will get just a few seconds. But in the space of the fifteen or so minutes dedicated to news (the rest might be sport and commercials), you get a fairly good idea of what’s going on in the world.

But not in Britain. Their TV news’s all seem to go in-depth on just a handful of stories - maybe only three or four. They’ll have live crosses, computer simulations, background information, expert analysis, public reaction… it left me feeling utterly bored of just about every major event that was happening, and wondering what else was happening in the world.

I got more information about Bill Clinton’s illicit bonking in the three weeks I was in Britain than in months of watching news at home. And there was even more about Clinton while he was in Ireland, including one news broadcast where they kept crossing to some little town in Ireland because he was about to get out of his helicopter and go for a stroll around. In fact apart from Clinton, Swissair, Ireland and some Fujitsu factory closing, I honestly can’t remember seeing any other stories covered in the dozen or more news bulletins I saw over there.

Anyhow, we wrapped up the evening with multiple cups of tea and Cool Runnings on ITV.

The plane touched down at some ungodly hour of the morning (I’m not sure exactly when; my brain doesn’t quite grasp the concept of time before 6am). There had been a terrific view of London from the plane - but only for the people over the other side. And trying to get a glimpse out of a tiny aeroplane window from nine seats away has never really been my forte.

We disembarked from the plane, that usual slow shuffle you do when there’s several hundred people in the aisle in front of you, each struggling with slightly more hand luggage than they can comfortably manoeuvre in a confined space. The inky blackness of the early morning and the gleaming lights of the airport was all that I could see as I walked up the ramp to the terminal building.

Having gained my British Right Of Abode by virtue of my mum being English, I got to whiz through the British passport holder’s queue at Immigration, though I almost got sent back to the slow lane when the bloke saw I had an Australian passport. I opened it for him at the appropriate page and said “I’ve got a…” and he looked at it and said “Oh, one of those” and waved me through.

Around a corner and down some stairs to the luggage claim. Why is it that at every airport in the world, they let a few dozen people completely clog up the view of the conveyor belt with empty trolleys? Couldn’t people get the trolleys after they’ve pulled their luggage off the belt? It’s not like they’re ever going to be short of trolleys. My borrowed backpack eventually came, and I skipped off through the green channel to freedom: the arrivals lounge.

Found the ATM and got some of the local currency, phoned home to let them know I’d reached terra firma in one piece, and found somewhere to brush my teeth, lest I inflict my truly hideous morning breath on any of the locals and get arrested for chemical warfare offences.

Then I headed for the tube station. I could have got the faster, probably less scenic, more expensive Heathrow Express, but the prospect of seeing some of suburban London without it being a blur appealed. And besides, as old friends who remember my teenage obsessions with things English know, I’d wanted for ages to ride the tube. When I was growing up, most kids wanted to go to Disneyland. I wanted to go to London. They wanted to ride rollercoasters, I wanted to ride the Piccadilly Line.

A train covered in United Airlines advertising arrived, and I boarded. I’ll talk more about the tube later, probably in mind-numbing detail, but for this particular trip the most notable and amusing point worth mentioning was the driver’s tendency to announce that “This train is for Cockfosters”. See, it’s the little things that you notice.

I got off the train at Green Park (change here for the Jubilee and Victoria lines; and while you’re at it, mind the gap) and made my way up the exit stairs and out into the open air. By this time it was about 8 o’clock, and when you step out onto Piccadilly in the middle of peak hour having just arrived in London for the first time, it really really really hits you. Wow! LONDON! Shit!

I stood on the pavement, aghast at the reality of the red phone and post boxes, double yellow lines, double-decker buses and black cabs whizzing past, while less surprised people dodged around me. Suddenly it was real. I had arrived in England. It was like television in 3-D, honestly.

In a bit of a daze, I walked through Green Park, probably enjoying its simple pleasures infinitely more than the commuters scurrying through it. On the other side of the park I found Buckingham Palace, and once again the reaction was Shit! It’s Buckingham Palace! And not just on the telly! Complete with two bobbies on the gate wearing those funny hats like on The Bill. A tiny Panda police car went by, and I peered through the fence at the whatsername (Grenadier?) guards, whose stilted poses could very well be a symbol for that cliche of English stiff-upper-lippedness.

Continuing on down Buckingham Palace Road, and silently praising my brilliant sister for lending me her Inner London A to Z, I kept a lookout for the Internet Cafe which I had been told was down there. I must have walked right past it that day without spotting it, but I did find it later on the trip.

What I did find that morning was a post office to buy some stamps and postcards, as well as Victoria Station, which is where I needed to catch the train to my grandparents’ place near the delightfully named Bognor Regis. It was around 9am, and Victoria Station was utter chaos. Buses, cars and taxis were flying everywhere outside, and inside people were swarming off their trains, heading for work.

After wrestling with the ticket machine (sure, it’ll take your £10, but only on its terms), and confirming with a dwarfen lady Connex railways employee in a funny hat which of the many carriages on platform 15 would get me to Bognor, I boarded said train and we proceeded at a frantic pace south. We zipped over the Thames and through London’s suburbs, into the countryside.

I thought the countryside looked disappointingly similar to southern Victoria (the state I mean), until I spotted a castle outside Arundel. Hmmm. Not quite so many castles in Victoria.

The train seemed to have an oversupply of Connex employees on board, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if they outnumbered the passengers. We passed through stations with such delightful names as Three Bridges, Pulborough and Christ’s Hospital.

The train got to Bognor Regis just before midday, and I wandered around the station and found a phone to ring my grandparents to be picked up. They soon arrived in their little Fiat, and we set off.

My sister said before I left “England is like being in Legoland. Little roads, little cars.” Never truer words were spoken. Just on that trip back to my grandparents place, I discovered that a main road in an English town is about the size of an Australian side street.

This is, I suppose, because most of the towns have grown and developed over the centuries, and they’d prefer not to knock down large sections of them just for the sake of building roads. Fair enough. It also helps explain why most of the cars are so small. That and the fact that petrol is almost three times as expensive as in Australia.

English roads also have a plethora of roundabouts. They have heaps of yellow lines indicating where you can’t park, and the narrow streets also mean that many towns have complex networks of one way streets. All these things together make we wonder how on earth tourists manage driving in England: I know I’d probably have a coronary from the stress of it all.

Not that riding in the back of my Grandad’s car is necessarily stress free. He’s not a bad driver, my Grandad. His use of indicators is better, it would appear, than most English drivers, who seem to have a dislike of them. In Australia even the most senile elderly Volvo driver uses indicators all the time. Well, okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. In England they only seem to use them if they really have to, and if they do, it’s at the last minute, so anybody relying on the signal to give them any kind of advance warning about what the other vehicle is going to do is, essentially, out of luck.

My Grandad is not a perfect driver, however. He’s wasn’t quite down to the standard where I got the feeling that he and Gran might have a deathwish of any kind (and bad luck to any young relatives in the back seat), but it did get a little hairy at times.

On that first trip to their home near Bognor, we went through a roundabout, and as we did so I noticed another car coming from the right which we should’ve given way to, and it would’ve hit us if the driver hadn’t slowed down. It must be an English thing, but he didn’t honk his horn, and he didn’t look like he was going to get an attack of road rage. He just looked confused.

And just as this death-defying manoeuvre through the roundabout was being completed, Grandad said, and I kid you not: “I suppose you have the give way to the right rule in Australia, too.”

After driving along for a little while, with all sorts of sights being pointed out along the way (most of which I promptly forgot the names of) we made it back to their place intact. It’s a huge house, two storey, masses of bedrooms, big garden, right by the sea. Grandad gave me the grand tour, including, just as my sister predicted, more detail than was strictly necessary about how to flush the toilet.

We sat down to eat shortly afterwards, a filling meal of roast chicken, potato, cabbage and peas, with the first of many fat-free Tesco’s yoghurts thrown in as dessert, not to mention the first of several million cups of tea.

I probably drank more tea in the next few days than I have in my entire life previous to that, though to be fair, I rarely do drink tea. (And I never drink coffee.)

The rest of the day was spent exploring the house and surrounds, writing postcards, eating dinner (which consisted of white bread and butter, fish fingers and brown sauce. Mmmmmmm…), drinking more tea, a little chatting and TV, and finally sinking into a relatively early but well earned slumber.