Tri Service Charity Rally October 2026

Three days of fun, laughter, great cars and some fantastic places visited

Day 1

An early start as our meeting point was at RAF Lakenheath viewpoint at 8:00am. Parking up at the viewpoint we had just got out of the car when we were greeted by the thunderous sound of jet engines, an F-15 was getting ready to launch and, in what seemed like a blink of an eye, it thundered off down the runway. Wow! The power from those engines was immense — you could literally feel the vibration in your chest. Not a bad way to start the morning!

4 days exploring Cinque Terre, with £50 return flights, we just had to go September 2026

Day 1 – Arriving in La Spezia

Our destination was La Spezia, which would be our base for the next four days. We started with an early-morning flight from Stansted, and after a slight delay at security, when my bag was pulled aside for some extra checks, we eventually made our way through the airport crowds and, of course, stopped for the traditional beer and breakfast at Wetherspoons.

Our flight was to Pisa Airport which is fairly small, and as ours was the only flight landing at the time, a result, we were quickly through passport control. Now, rather than taking the PisaMover, we decided to walk the 1.5 kilometres (20 minutes) to Pisa Centrale station and in the morning Italian sunshine it was a really pleasant way to stretch our legs after the flight.

Knebworth House Car Show August 2026

Knebworth is probably better known for the massive concerts they’ve had over the years — Queen, Oasis, Robbie Williams and many more — but today it was all about the cars!

We ventured out solo to Knebworth, mainly because we hadn't put our name down for the event the car club, we belong to was off to today. So, with the sun shining and, thankfully, not a drop of the rain that had been forecast!  off we went on the just-over-an-hour journey, squeezing in a quick breakfast stop on the way as after all, a car show requires fuel for the humans as well as the cars!

Driving up through the grounds and getting our first look at Knebworth House was pretty impressive; the place is huge! Following the other cars it wasn't long before

Berlin Germany Christmas Market A Festive Four-Day Escape December 2025

Berlin at Christmas? Oh yes. Add fabulous friends, comfy boots, overflowing beer steins, and a very ambitious step count, and you’ve got the recipe for a perfect long weekend. We flew out Friday and floated home Monday, full of memories, mulled wine and hot eggnog and mildly sore feet.

Friday: Getting Our Bearings (and Our First Beer)

Friday was all about settling in and soaking up the vibe. After arrival at our hotel, we headed out to get our bearings — and by “bearings,” we mostly meant finding Christmas markets. Berlin doesn’t do things by halves, so before we even realised it, we’d already ticked off several markets, each twinkler than the last.

The night ended on a high at the legendary Hofbräu Bar — and what a way to start the weekend. Think phenomenal hospitality, steins flowing freely, hearty food, dancing, laughter, and that infectious beer-hall atmosphere where strangers become friends and everyone’s having the best time. If Berlin had a “welcome party,” this was it.

14-Day European Road Trip: 10 Hotels, 6 Countries, 4,178 km of Pure Adventure

A journey through open roads, along canals, stunning views and fantastic mountain passes — from the Channel to Champagne country.

Day 1 – The Adventure Begins: From Calais to La Louvière, Belgium

Crossing the Channel, canals, and Belgian beer.

Route: Calais → La Louvière (205 km)
Highlights: Eurotunnel crossing, Strépy-Thieu boat lift, Belgian brasserie dinner.

And so, the road trip begins. After three hectic days of planning and packing, the adventure truly started with the Eurotunnel crossing — a smooth glide beneath the Channel that always feels like the true beginning of any European drive.

5.5-mile / 8.8 kms circular walk around Kersey via Lindsey

Wednesday's circular walk started from the pretty village of Kersey, Suffolk's quaintest village, with its many medieval timber frame houses estimated to date from between the 12th and 15th centuries, and are one of the biggest collections preserved in Suffolk and East Anglia.

The village itself sits in one of Suffolk's crumpled valleys “where the landscape corrugates”, with its principal claim to fame, apart from one scene from Lovejoy being filmed there, is that a coarse woollen cloth called Kersey cloth takes its name from it.

Parking the car on church hill leaving the handbrake on the car firmly on! The first thing that catches your eye are the original road signs from the early days of motoring.

Coddenham and Hemingstone 4 mile circular walk

Approximately 8 miles north of Ipswich is Coddenham a small village which has a rich history dating back to the Anglo-Saxon period.

Having driven through the village of Coddenham many times over the years on my way to various car shows. I was aware that the road that passes through Coddenham, High Street road, is very narrow in places and I wasn't sure I could park safely along it. A quick google search showed that along school road was a parking area at the community centre, this turned out to be a great move, as the community centre looked to be only a few years old and it also had lots of free parking.

The weather today was a nice 15 degs and sunny, with the walk taking us along the gently rolling suffolk countryside, through woodland, along field edge paths and quiet roads but more importantly it had no major hills .

5 mile circular walk from the village of Lavenham

Parking in the lay by near the beautiful Lavenham church, its free to park there then walking down to the magnificent Lavenham guildhall. The walk heads off out to the east of Lavenham into the countryside along the gentle hills, woods and ancient tracks.

Our walk today was chilly at the start as it was about 3 degs, and in places quite muddy, the walk was mainly countryside views and also at times following along a river for a short stretch.

Along the route you will come across one of the walks highlights in the beautiful village of Brent Eleigh, the historic medieval church St Mary which was built around 1250. Its old door with its ironwork latch is probably the original one provided by the village carpenter and blacksmith back then, and the sanctuary

7km circular walk from Stoke-by-Nayland village,

Stoke-by-Nayland formerly a market town situated near the river Stour in Suffolk, and along this walk you will also pass through the village of Polstead as well. The walk took us about 2.5hrs with the stops to look around.

Along this walk there are plenty of things to see. As we walked past some of the beautiful old properties I do wonder what they used to be, then when you read the properties name they can sometimes give you the clue to it's past history. We also passed through wooded areas, passed some very large lakes, along the river and also visited several spectacular churches, one of which had a link to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, and the snowdrops were out everywhere.

Although the majority of this lovely walk was easy going there were a couple of unexpected calf burning steep climbs, but the reward for the climb did give some great scenic views.

Roseau, Dominica Caribbean Cruise Feb 2025

Known as the island of waterfalls, 29 I believe, and unlike many of the neighbouring islands in the region which encourage lounging at the beach with a cocktail in hand, for us a full itinerary in Dominica did not include a beach day at all. The key value of visiting this unspoilt tropical paradise is the lush greenery of the rainforest which covers about two-thirds of the land, and it also has nine of the Caribbean's 16 active volcanoes located on it

We opted not to go trekking through the rainforest, we don't mind a nice trek but passed on that one this time, as on one of our last trips recently we were a tasty meal for the bugs and the bites hurt for ages afterwards. So we opted for a scenic rainforest drive, visiting the Emerald pool and then some river tubing along the Layou river.

St Kitts Caribbean Cruise Feb 2025

A lush and luxuriant exotic tropical island with rainforests that teem with gentle wildlife, mountains that scrape the sky and shores that defy convention some volcanic black, others caribbean gold.

Sounds fantastic.

Shamefully we didn't get to experience that, as we had chosen today to be our lazy day, even a 9am breakfast. We will just have to come back.

Instead we wandered around St Kitts for a few hours, then settled into a couple of rattan egg chairs, and continued our rehydration through cocktails.

#robandann

The Three Churches Dalham, Moulton and Gazeley Walk

If you’re up for a bit of a challenge, and this one was right on Ann's limit then the Three Churches Walk is a great way to spend a few hours exploring the area, we walked 14.5 Km and with a hot drink and snack stop and exploring inside the churches it took us just short of 4 hrs and the temperature was hovering around 4 Degs.

This route can be started at either the church in Dalham, Moulton or Gazeley, depending on your preference. We started at the Gazeley Church and then headed across to Moulton Church, and from there up to Dalham church. The route has a nice mix of terrain as it crosses fields, passes through wooded areas, follows the river for quite a bit and in some sections along quiet B roads.

9K Boxford Suffolk Walk

Chilly start to a 9k walk this morning but its warming up, now a toasty minus 1. Great walk with a smashing pub to finish The White Hart Inn in Boxford, one side of it is a pub and the other a very nice cafe.

#whitehartinnboxford

#robandann

Gdansk Poland Christmas Market December 2024

3 Days in Gdansk I first heard of Gdansk in 2023 but unfortunately the flight prices were too expensive so it wasn't until 2024 that we visited this beautiful place for the Christmas markets.

After an entertaining start at Stansted with the parking, a little confusion as to if it had actually been booked at meet and greet unfortunately it turned out there was a booking issue so it had not, so it was a few drives around the Stansted airport roundabouts while we booked the mid stay and even saved a few pounds. Our flight was on-time and on landing it wasn't long before we were outside ready to book our transfer to the hotel. This time we used Bolt, it was half the price of Uber, and cost only 56 pln (£11) for a 27 minute journey to our hotel and we only waited 2 minutes to be picked up.

New Delhi Trident Hotel India Last part of our 10 day trip in India

For our last 2 nights we stopped back in New Delhi at a hotel we found via google maps and its reviews, we booked this before we left the UK ourselves, the Trident Hotel  is the best hotel to date we have ever stayed in, and it was the perfect final place to chill out and revisit our first of hopefully many adventures to come in the following year.

We have used 3 different airlines, flown in and out of 3 different countries other than the UK and from 4 different airports, used multiple different taxi companies, and Uber and Google have both worked brilliantly in all the 3 countries.

All of the trip was booked via the internet independently by us, so we needed to have 3 different phone sim cards to allow us to be on the internet as soon as we

Jaipur India Part 4 of our 10 day trip in India

Known also as the pink city, and again its traffic is as bonkers as New Delhi, at the city’s heart is the city palace and it is still home to the ruling family.

Today was a full day of multiple sightseeing with lots of walking in-between multiple car trips and also an added bonus we got to cross a 6 lane road full of continuous traffic where you just have to start to walk and the cars and motorbikes flow around you, we’re glad we had our guide with us for that one !

Our guide for today was Raj, very similar in age to us and for me the best guide of the tour so far, his knowledge of the area was immense and he was keen to tell us about and show us more than just the tourist sites. He also appeared to know everyone which meant we fast tracked entranced because of this, he never rushed us around things and after exploring an attraction he gave us free time, and Raj was with us all day.

Ranthambore National Park India Part 3 of our 10 day trip in India

This morning we set off to Ranthambore National Park for our tiger safari part which is a 6 hour car journey away, after about 1hr we stopped to visit Fatehpur Sikri a fortified ancient city and the rest of the journey was broken up with some stops along the way and also a lunch break.

Fatehpur Sikri was built by the Mughal Emperor Akbar and it was the short-lived capital of the Mughal empire between 1572 and 1585. It was intended to be the most beautiful city ever built, and for a while it was, until it was abandoned and the capital moved to Lahore in present day Pakistan.

Emperor Akbar’s was the greatest of the Mughal emperors of India, and within the city is the memorial to Emperor Akbar’s elephant, this elephant executed people that the emperor had found guilty by walking over their chests.

Agra India Part 2 of our 10 day trip in India

7am breakfast this morning as our driver was meeting us at 8am for our drive to Agra, the drive to Agra took just over 4 hours from Delhi and it’s along a very good 3 lane road, but the road doesn’t present a lot to see, as the road is nearly dead straight for a high percentage of the journey, but occasionally it does pass around some villages, but it’s mainly farm land to see, we did stop for a comfort break and coffee midway.

On reaching Agra our first stop was to check in at our hotel. Our driver unknown to us made a little mistake here as he pulled into the sister hotel of the one we should have been staying at by mistake, the sister hotel was much more up market as it’s set in about 2 acres. We both looked at each other and went this isn’t our hotel, but hey maybe they’ve changed it. On arrival at the reception we were greeted with flower lei’s as today it’s Diwali, which is the festival of lights and one of the most important events in the Hindu calendar, we were given welcome drinks and directed to the reception desk, as we were

New Delhi India Part 1 of our 10 day trip in India

We arrived late evening on a Tuesday at New Delhi International airport on our air Indigo flight, clearing passport control quickly and no issues with our visas, we grabbed the luggage and was outside the terminal within the hour and we soon spotted by our tour company rep.

Blimey the drive to our hotel was an eye opener, on first impressions it’s bonkers on the New Delhi roads it’s soooo busy, when the traffic slows they make what is a 3 lane road into 5 lanes, with very little room between the sides of the vehicles, they don’t stop at roundabouts they just continue out onto them, and in places along the road if they really can’t be bothered to wait they just travel the wrong way against the flow of the traffic and if you thought our roads were bad, in some places the roads suddenly just go into a rutted dust track.

Bangkok Thailand October 2024

We arrived in Bangkok yesterday at 8am after an overnight flight from Qatar. This time we had already pre-booked a taxi and it was there waiting with our name at arrivals, it only cost £14 and worked perfectly.

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we were straight out into exploring as there were few temples nearby and The Chao Phraya river was only a short walk away.

It was again quite hot and by midday it was 35 degs, so we zig zagged our way through the streets and markets catching as much shade as we could on our way towards the river boat stop to catch a boat to Wat Arun temple. These boats are the main transport system in Bangkok, effectively buses.

Just before sunset we went to a roof top bar called Eagles nest to watch the sunset over Wat Arun