Monday, June 8, 2009

Punting in Oxford

One dreary Sunday morning Em, Kit, Liz and I left London and set off for Oxford. Our first stop (well mine and Liz's) was a freshly brewed coffee before boarding our train and Kit being so lovely and organised had bought the paper to be divided up among us for the short train trip, the sport pages of course being the most sort after! Oxford as most of you know is a University town and is made up of lots of different colleges and we were so lucky as to have our very own personal guide of the town as Kit had gone to Oxford for his studies.

The main event for coming to Oxford though was to go punting. This is a boat which is kind of like a canoe cross gondola and it has a huge long metal pole - the punt - which you use to push and steer you through the canals. This was so much fun! Kit of course took the pole first to give us all a lesson on how to punt then it was Emme's turn, she did a pretty fine job and managed to only run us into a few trees. I had a go and my forte was not running into trees but into the banks of the canal, but I have to say with the pole being more than twice my height I think I did a pretty good job. Liz had the crucial job of actually stopping Em and I from crashing more than we did by using the oar in the boat to guide the boat...I dare say, without her help Em and I may of had more run ins or worse, ended up in the canal!! And we actually had beautiful weather there, as I mentioned at the beginning, it was a miserable rainy day in London and the same had been predicted for Oxford but as luck would have it, the clouds were left behind and we actually got quite a fair bit of sun, especially for our punting expedition which was lovely as we were able to relax in the sun while Kit did all the hard work of moving us around the canal :)

We also managed to get a squiz inside one of the colleges as Kit showed us around his. They are so nice.My favourite are the lush green lawns that they all have, it made me want to go to sleep on them (unfortunately it had rained that morning and instead of being just soft and inviting they would have been cold and squelchy). And get this, at Oxford you are tutored on a one on one basis or sometimes two on one. No wonder they produce such smart cookies, unlike good ol' QUT and UQ with a twenty five to one ratio!!

The rest of the day was spent wandering around, having lunch and coming across a boost juice which made our day, especially Em's who could finally show Kit what a real smoothie was supposed to taste like!! haha All in all a great day out with great mates and some sunshine.

1 comment:

Danielle and Louise said...

Hey girls!
I had no idea what your facebook comment about punting meant until I caught up on your blog ... now it all makes sense. I didn't think you guys would have gone gambling and gotten into the pokies!
Glad I finally made the time to catch up on your blog ... you've done some pretty cool things this year. Hope you are both well!
Love, Dan and Weasy