Saturday, July 6, 2019

Wandering Boots Tour: Day 48 Day in Cambridge




By the numbers
25,734 steps
19.31 kms

The day started with a sleepless night, although I think that could have been due to the excitement of going to Cambridge again and I was wanting to get to the bus station as early as humanely possible as I had a 7am bus. I did get moving at 5am and wanted to walk all the way to the station before six and hop onto the right trains before landing in the bus station. I walk out of the building and some buff guy chatting with two ladies on the hostel steps asked if I wanted an escort or to be driven somewhere. I said nope, I am walking. Dont know who they were and I wasn’t going anywhere with them. Its not far to the tube station anyway and no one who seems to be local has gone near me in the nearby buildings.

It took less time than I expected to arrive at Victoria station and I even had a half hour to wait until the bus left. They do like to keep you waiting until the last 10 mins until they leave and then you get sorted out and can then jump onto the bus sitting anywhere you like. I had gotten up very early to get a 2 hour bus ride into Cambridge and edo the same thing later in the day. It was nice and sunny in London and I walked out at Cambridge after the trip and you could tell it might rain later on as it was clouding and a cool breeze that made me think maybe I did need my jumper I was looking for the cemetery first, although I found the shopping centre for the loo first and there was also a rally in the centre of Cambridge that was called the Extinction Rebellion that was closing down streets. I was not worried about them as it made navigating the older parts of Cambridge easier later on.

I found the cemetery after I decided to walk and I wanted to look for a family member, who I did find. I ate an early lunch since it took me 40 mins to walk one way and I went to jump on a bus after I think I got myself turned around and found I was trying to catch a bus going in the other direction. I thought that sucked and decided that I will just walk back into the city before it tried to rain on me. I could see that it was trying to rain once I got into the city and hoped that it would not rain until I left the city to head back to London. I was heading to the museum of Archaeology and ended up walking into the Sedgwick Museum of Natural History. I didn’t know this museum was actually there and there were plenty of fossil specimens in the building especially of the sea life. Charles Darwin not only was known for his book on Origins, but her was known for being a geologist, although the book drowned out the rest and he did get his theory through the rocks he collected and he did do quite a bit of collecting when on the Beagle.. There had been various areas near Cambridge that had been worked out to be rich in fossils. The museum I wanted I did enter and it was another free museum and I had a quick walk through the Archaeology stuff as there was plenty in the Roman area in Cambridge as it was an important hub. They had identified a site that had yielded more questions than it answered about the way people lived as they didn’t know the significance of the deer heads that were used for either hunting or ritual. I did look upstairs at the cultural stuff like totem poles, but I think the tiredness was talking, so I walked out and found that it was raining.

I couldn’t really go walking too far if it was raining as I would end up getting wet and it takes too long in the bus with the aircon running for me to stay wet for an extended point in time. I was walking and visited my third museum for the afternoon that I would stick around in for the next hour and half. The Fitzwilliam Museum, was something I knew nothing about and had to hand over my bag and wet brolly. I soon found they had many art works ranging from Egyptian, Roman all the way to Whistler. There were painting, sculptures and even a display on fans. There was information about them all and I read some of them, but wandered around all floors looking at objects that were mind blowing as some I had not seen before. I was hoping that by the time I left that it had stopped raining. It hadn’t, but it was alright as I was heading to the bus even if it was sitting there with a sign saying not in service. There did seem to be a small number waiting already. By that time the rain had stopped. I didn’t end up exploring the city that much apart from getting losty direction wise when trying to catch the bus, but I was happy that I had been to Cambridge as there had only been one plan and that was to visit the cemetery.

It would take longer to get back into the city as there was a parade on and there were diversions in place and I soon learnt this meant the bus had to basically go the long way round to the Victoria bus terminal before stopping. It never bothered me as I was in no huge hurry to get into the city. I was happy to get a tour guides view of the city without paying heaps of money to do so. I did stop for food once getting off and there were crowds of people floating around and I was wanting to get back into the hostel as by that time I was feeling a touch tired and needed to rest from a very long day.

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