Day 63

Bus from Cardiff to London 7:33am 8-22-10

Troy and I can't believe that we only have five days left of our trip. It's going really fast now. After getting off the train from Dublin to Rosslare we got to the port and found out that the 3pm ferry had been cancelled due to wind. It was only 10:30am and the next ferry was at 9pm. We sat in the port and read for a long time. Then we took our packs and went to find some food. We struggled up a bunch of steps, found a liquor store and spent the last Euro cash that we had. Then we ate lunch at the Best Western. There was not much else to Rosslare Harbour. We headed down this crazy hill with our packs on, and hung out at the beach for a while since the rain had cleared up. Then we went back to the port and read lots more. Troy finished 'Lovely Bones' and I continued 'Drood'. Finally we checked in, went upstairs and got on the boat. We found a nice comfy spot and read. Then they announced that they would be playing a Scooby Doo movie on deck seven. Turns out we were on deck seven and had the perfect seat to watch. I fell asleep five minutes in and when I woke up the movie was over and we were almost to Fishguard, Wales. We packed up our stuff and got off the boat. Our boat was a bit late but so was our train so it all worked out. We had to change at Swansea and catch the train towards London. We got off the train at Cardiff around 5:30am, found an internet kiosk with a map and located our campsite. We walked through Cardiff in the dark looking at the beautiful houses as we made our way to the huge park where our campsite was. As has become our habit with travelling we could not find the campsite. We spent what seemed like an hour wandering and retracing our steps. Finally we found an early riser and asked directions. Turns out we were really close. We headed into the campsite and happened to run into a worker who told us to go ahead and set up camp. It was around 6:30 am. Then we took a nap. We got up at 8:40, checked in and went back to sleep until 11. Then we showered and got read to venture into town. Troy wanted us to do some birthday shopping for each other. We walked through the park towards the castle. It was rainy and the park was beautiful. The castle was an interesting blend of different styles. We continued walking and found some interesting buildings and fountains. Then we headed to the main shopping area and did not emerge for hours. Little did we know, we had entered one of the largest malls I have ever been in. It seemed endless. We wandered around, got some groceries and souvenirs, but no birthday gifts for each other. Finally we were getting hungry so we started looking for some good reasonably priced food. We checked out the menus for a bunch of different places and decided on a place called Revolution. We got garlic bread cheese pizza, nachos and a really good goat cheese pizza, plus a brownine dessert. Then we walked back to camp to spend our last night in the tent.

This morning we woke up at 5:45am, packed up quietly and left behind our bamboo mats as we won't need them anymore. We are now heading to London to stay with our friend Holly who we met in Norwich.