Enjoy England

I started this before the trip to Wales and have had it sitting in my drafts folder; I though I still had a day to post it. Don't you just hate those pesky 30-day months :-)

Even if its not eligible for the feature; it's written so may as well share.

I was contact by Jam to write a blog post on 'three things you do to enjoy England' this is part of the Guardian's Enjoy England feature.

I thought long and hard about what three things I could write about; other than the obvious of backpacking.

The three I came up with are all sightly different (I think) but all take in the Great Outdoors.

Bird Watching

I have been a keen bird watcher for many years (not to twitcher standards, mind you). The RSPB have some great reserves in the country and they are a joy to visit and explore.

One of my favourite sites is Minsmere in Suffolk. This site has a good range of habitat from reed beds to heathland to coastal waters, and changes with the seasons. Now is a great time to visit as the migrating birds will be starting to arrive and past through and there is always the chance of a rarity.

England's History

England has a rich and varied history and along with this are the buildings.

Buildings from neolithic burials to fortifications from the Napoleonic Wars.

Taking a trip to any of these interesting places is educational and helps to give a sense of where we came from.

One of my favourite of these; is the Avebury Stone circle; a much better place to visit than Stonehenge.

Geocaching

Geocaching is a modern day game of hide & seek only now it uses hi-tech gadgets; namely the Global positioning satellites around the Earth. Using a GPS receiver players seek for caches hidden around the Country using lat/lon co-ordinates from the geocaching website within the caches are normally some kind of small trinket and a logbook. Usually you swap out one trinket for another.

This Game is a great way to get the kids out in the the countryside and they love the idea of hunting around the countryside looking for caches.