Be Excellent To Each Other

I'd like to go somewhere nice this weekend with fair Lady T, for a day/afternoon out.

Anyone got any good ideas? Looking for something fairly easily driveable from SW London, not too expensive and not ridiculously busy, and away from the city itself.

Ta.

Stonehenge?

Been there. You can't get close to the stones anyway.

Imber

What do you like doing?

Wakehurst Place is a beautiful and extensive set of gardens, as is RHS Wisley, which would be ideal from SW London.

Ikea

Canterbury?

Also there's a hop farm some way down the M20.

Im right on the coast and theres some nice beaches down here if you can be bothered driving all the way down.

Fucking townie answer. Bloody tourist trap that place.

Highly recommend both Howletts and Port Lympne animal parks, though they're a bit Kent-wards if you're coming from SW.

Wife's family live really close to Wisley, so that's been done. Somewhere nice and outdoorsy would be good, the problem is I've been to quite a few of the castles and stately homes around that way.

Good ideas otherwise, though, thanks. Keep 'em coming. I'll have have a look at wakehurst place.

whatever, dick

YES!

I used to work at port lympne, I'd probably take the whole day if you did that, it's pretty big and takes a lot of walking

Howletts is smaller but still good.

Kent-way is not too much of a problem, we can get to the M25 very easily. An animal park is always nice, although we've done quite a few of those too. I'll have a look to see if any of those have any events going on, something a bit different (we went to a falconry and jousting display at blenheim earlier this year which was very nice).

SW London you say.

Arendel might be a good bet. There's a castle but the big park is free. The town itself is a bit of a tourist trap but there are worse places. Town is nice and there is a castle as well.

Also doubled for Windsor in the Doctor Who story, Silver Nemisis. Details here. http://www.doctorwholocations.net/locations/arundelpark

Or you could go down to Rye and also pop along to Camber and Dungeoness (Dungeoness is worth a visit it's a weird weird place).

On the way down stop off at Harrisons Rocks at Groombridge for a walk through the woods.

The front at Eastbourne is quite nice.

DO NOT go to Hastings.

If it's the sort of thing you like, Wakehurst Place is amazing. It's run by Kew, and it's absolutely massive. It's got an incredible variety of landscape.

Virginia Water is nice.

Malc

Well, that got a double-take.

Doing what? The wife would sell her soul to work there - I got her a day as a keeper there, and she had an incredible time. Hand-feeding red pandas and the like.

You can engineer most trips to the Sussex coast to go past there, so you can combine it with one of my other recommendations.

Or you could just come to my house where I'll charge you £15 a head to stand 200 metres from some rocks while heavy traffic roars by and Japanese tourists push you about.

Go to Hastings. It's awesome.

Oh man hastings is a shit hole. Although there is a neat looking Abbey at nearby Battle. Arundel is nice, but been there. Dungeness is ace, very very odd place that feels almost like it is at the end of the world - but I'm not sure Lady T will appreciate it. I like it there.

Quite tempted by Port Lympne. actually.

How about an Eastbourne/Beachy Head combo FTW?

Just seasonal catering... but I was mates with the red panda keeper and he let me in with them too

Awesome little guys.

Im gonna try and see if I can get my job back there over summer as it was really easy, and it's always good working surrounded by tigers and buffalo and stuff

um, where's my post about cod fishing?

Malc

Dunno. I've posted one and had it disappear in this thread, too. Glitch in the matrix.

The one that got away...

It's pretty nice round there, they're strong possibilities. Thanks guys.

You and me, both.

head up the M40 and have a walk around Stowe landscape gardens. I can PM you the cheat sheet so you can appear to know everything about landscape gardens and stuffs.

Bournemouth, Christchurch, Highcliffe, Mudeford. The latter has one of the nicest sand beaches I've ever been to (apart from W Wittering).

Oh and I know theyre all southwest (apart from Wittering) but they're among my fave places on earth (and I've seen a lot of it )

Any seaside town that makes TV like "Britains hardest" is bound to be a shithole.

Even worse when their resident comedian is a drunk who sits on a bench yelling obscenities at women.

Get up early (check the weather first) and blast straight down the M4 to Swansea and follow the signs for the Gower. It's doable in three hours if you leave early and it's one of the most beautiful places in the country - similar to Cornwall without all the braying yahs and much quieter, so though it's further there's far less traffic. If the tides are right, you could head for Broughton Bay and see the wonder that is the Blue Pool. There are also plenty of bucolic country pubs on the way, particularly in Llangennith.

When I said further, I meant further than Dorset, not Cornwall!

When I was in middle school they used to go there for a week. Some 3rd year school trip thing. I was due to go (like my older brother and cousins had) and then I got ran over by a car and spent a year in hospital.

Must try to go there one day, it's supposed to be awesome.

Just do it. Like I said, it's beautiful and busy down there is a mile long beach with a dozen people on it. It's also remarkably quick to get there. Last time I did a fashion shoot down there I picked everybody up at King's X at 6am and was on the beach by 9:30am

I will. As I say, I've been meaning to go there for literally 25 years now. Plus I have a friend in Wales whom I'd really love to go and meet up with.

Good news Dr Gaywood, you now officially have someone who wishes to meet you!

I could go and see him. At least he has taste

France?

You can't do the nice easy trips to Bologune anymore. You used to be able to park up, hop on a cat and be over in 40 minutes. Cat would take you straight into town and you could have a nice day out. Sadly the service no longer runs. You can Chunnel it but it's far more expensive and you then have to drive into town and park when you get to the other side.

In fact in 1993 Amstrad Action did just that in order to review the CPC scene in France. They drove down from Bath, went across and went to a hypermarket to find there was a mind boggling amount of CPC stuff on sale (remember the CPC was pretty much the only 8 bit in France).

That is an awesome thing to get someone! I didn't know you could that, is it advertised on their website?

heh heh, I was having a wee look on buy a gift websites to try and find a zookeeper day but got totally distracted...how awesome would this be to get your lady

http://www.buyagift.co.uk/Product/Id/40 ... Photoshoot

We went to Port Lympne and had a lovely day out. Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Once I've been through the photos I'll post some up here, as we all love looking at piccies. There are bound to be tons of bad ones though, although we've had the SLR for a while there are always ones where whatever we were trying just didn't work (I should also put some up of the london night shoot we recently went on too).

Good choice.
The red pandas there are ace little guys

What about Hampton Court? Palace is very expensive, but you can stroll around the gardens, have a walk along the river, visit my local (other side of the river, but a great view) and Bushy Park is just the other side of the road. All a bit "strolling about", but it's a lovely part of the world.

Edit: Err... in the interests of recommending it to anyone else who fancies a SW trip, that is. You don't even have to leave the safety of the M25 belt. Pah, tchoh, don't know you're born etc.

Oh, yes, it's very nice there and I would recommend it to others but I've been there before and it's a bit too close to where we live to really be a 'proper' day out for us (also we drive past it every time we go to my sister's house, and my mum works just over the road from there too). Familiarity breeding contempt and whatnot.

Box Hill. Went up there last weekend for the first time in years and it's still ace. £3 to park, take some sangers and plenty of fluids and walk your legs off

Aye, it's nice there during the day. The cafe near the bottom used to be pretty popular with motorbikers. The car park at the top is rumoured to be popular for dogging at night.

I went there when I was about 9 or 10, with my primary school. My mum had heard that the weather was going to suck, she I had a waterproof coat, waterproof trousers and Wellington boots on, all the other kids laughed at me in the playground, as it was sunny, and they were all in jeans and t-shirts and stuff. Needless to say, it pissed it down and I was the only dry one at lunch.

Malc

Rykas? Rykers, something like that. Yeah, it's still the same on a Sunday My mate has 4 kids so we loaded up the El Grande and headed up. They loved the bikes

Still can't top that view from the top. Amazing.