DAY 3 5 June London – Winchester – Corfe, Dorset

After meeting the group in London, with our tour leader Nic, who bears an uncanny resemblance to David Tennant, including the beard. We travelled out of London to Winchester, which we have visited before and where a tour of the cathedral awaits us. It was incredibly interesting, walking over the original 12^th century floor tiles, the reconstructed stain glass windows shot out by the Parliamentarians during the English Civil war, the story of the deep sea diver who saved the Cathedral from collapse and the pilgrim steps.

Of course the highlight is the Winchester Bible which took over 11 years and a lot of money to create with gold leaf and lapis lazuli drawings. I guess that makes it both a first edition and possibly the first audio-book.  We also saw where they buried Jane Austen in the cathedral. Her wall plaque was organised by her nephew some 40 years later.

Along the way we stopped at the ruins of Knowlton Church and embankment. It was built on a Neolithic henge site. Not long after, an inattentive driver pulled out in front of us and our driver Gabriel, (from Slovakia but living in Budapest) slammed the breaks on and averted disaster.

We stopped at the former Tarrant Rushton RAF Base, the former aerodrome from where the Halifax bombers towed gliders that captured the Pegasus Bridge on D-Day. Our tour guide Nic in front of one of the original hangers, explains that the two pilots on the first glider landed are regarded as the first allied soldiers to land (of the first wave) on D-Day. The glider landed too steeply and both were thrown out the front windscreen.

We then arrived at 4 PM at Corfe Castle. We saw it in 2018 so we decided to explore the town instead. We visited the town museum which is about the size of a bedroom – I kid you not! We made our way to the model village which was quite OK.

Here pictured is a skull of a budger. We assume they mean badger…or perhaps they don’t.

No doubt you have heard of the game of Croquet, what we played I am not sure as we didn’t have instructions. Usually it is played on a smooth flat surface. Our surface had a lot of lumps and was on a slope. We visited the local heritage railway station that operates steam engines and was used for the film "Dunkirk". The ruins of Corfe Castle on top of the hill is visible in the background.

Tonight we had a welcome dinner at our hotel with our new tour buddies who include 1 Canadian, two Kiwis and the rest Australians.