Saturday 29 August 2015

Fruitpicking

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!

It's coming to the end of summer!! So naturally, the must do activity is going for a fruitpicking. My bestie and I have been yearning to go since Ramadhan and finally got a chance to go with some other friends.


We chose to go to the Parkside Farm in Enfield. You just need to buy a ticket to Potters Bar and take train. From Potters Bar station, you need to take the 313 bus towards Chingford and stop at Roundhedge Way. This place is still in London, so you can use oyster for the bus, but not the train. From the bus stop, it's only 5 minutes walk to the farm. There are signage from the bus stop, so look out for them. 


As we arrived, we picked up the map/leaflet located at the entrance. This place is open 6 days a week, and closed on Mondays as you can see. There are various choices of fruits and veges to pick from.


The price range are stated at the entrance as well. So you can budget how much you will spend. The arrow shows the minimum spending per person (adult and child) which is £3. The price is quite cheap if you compare it with the ones in the supermarket. Plus, they are organic and fresh!


The culprits that went to the farm with me. There are others that already went inside.


You don't have to pay to enter. Only pay the amount of fruit that you have picked on your way out. As you enter, you'll see this girly here with all sorts of basket and plastic. The basket are for fruits and plastics are for the veges. They're free to take as many as you can handle. There's trolley as well if you're planning to harvest the whole farm. =P


This farm is huuuuggee! The first that you'll see are strawberries and cherry tomatoes. I wasn't really keen to pick strawberries 'coz heck, you can do that in Malaysia.


We wanted to pick fruits that can't be found back home. Some of the crops, you'll see these signs. The fruits were just being planted on these crops.


The name came from the loch ness monster (according to me). haha...the berries don't look like loch ness, fyi.


Look at all those fresh juicy berries!! I feel like the chipmunk when I see these. Don't ask me why.


Time for some veggies...the spinach is sooo big!


Next target were the plums!! You would think plums will be sour as the sour plum sweets that we used to eat when we were little. But they're not. It's sweet as can be! However, there aren't many left, so we got the half riped ones. But these plums ripe pretty quickly. It's not even a week yet since we picked them and they're all very ripe already. Some people even took the time to climb up to get the riped ones on top. If there were no one, I would've done the same. haha


To the next part of the farm. Through here, are mostly raspberries. I don't really like them because they are sour. I don't like anything sour, so we just spent time here to have our lunch under the shades of the bushes. 


Further inside the farm, were a whole lot more!!


If you have the energy you can explore the whole area. We were already quite tired, plus the heat wasn't helping. So we just picked some beans on the way to the corn field.


It has been my bestie's dream to go to a corn field (weird dream). hahaha...It's not as tall as in the movies though, but close enough. They call it sweetcorn and let me tell you, they sure do uphold the name. Most of the visitors ate these things raw inside the farm (eventhough you're not supposed to do that). We tried some the next day at our friend's house and it was sweet even without adding anything.


There were loads of these fat and big ones to pick from. 


Children of the corn? My bestie won't know this reference. LOL

After sweating our way through the farm, we head back towards the exit to pay. On our way, we drop by the cherry tomatoes section.


At the counter, they'll weigh your crops and pay according to how much you take. They also sold some homemade ice cream and cold drinks to make your summer trip here wonderful. Such a nice weather for ice cream too!

It was worth coming here I think. We spent about £11 each for a month worth of fruits and veggies. 

Until next time...Go organic! 

Saturday 15 August 2015

The Seven Sisters Walk

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!


Last weekend, my friend asked me and my bestie to go for a walk at the seven sisters. More info can be found here http://www.walkingclub.org.uk/book_2/walk_28/. The main walk actually consists of 22.3km (13.8 miles) that will take a total of 12 hours. However, because we haven't done a strenuous activity in such a long time (almost a year after our last walk in Kent), we decided to take the shorter walk around 6.2km instead.

We took a train from Victoria Station to Seaford (transit at Lewes) that took about an hour and a half. 


At the train station. You can hear the seagulls indicating we are near the seaside. Most of these people are going to the beach as well. One group were going to the same walk as we did.


The beach!! It's not that far from the train station. Less than 10 minutes walk. The Mortello Tower at the back there was the indicator for the start of our journey.


It was so nice to finally feel the fresh ocean breeze.


The beach is HUGE.


You can see a lot of people having a picnic with their families and friends. It's the summer! This is how we enjoy it. =D


These cute and colourful huts are for rent to those who want to store their stuff while having a picnic here. It's somewhat like a small room.


We walked towards the cliffs beside the beach.


The first few minutes of the walk wasn't that bad. The view was spectacular.


Look at that clear water. Makes you want to jump in.


This is the start of the 200ft climb. Fuh...burn all you fat! =P


Quite high right? haha...for the start, this is high enough.


Victory pose..This is after wiping all the sweats off our brows.


Looong way to go.


Along the way, you just have to stop to take pictures. So beautiful! SubhanaAllah.


Some of the edges are dangerous. These cliffs erodes from time to time.


The walking team minus my bestie. 


I just love this view.


From here onwards, the walk was downhill, so obviously it's easier.


see..


Along the way, we saw some berries. We picked some and ate it. It was sweet!


Almost near the beach


This place is called the Hope Gap.


There's many people that went down to the beach to catch some mud crabs.


Breath taking right?


Near the beach, we saw these cottages. My friend said these exact cottage was actually in windows wallpaper, so I searched, and here it is.


Different angle.


As we arrived at the beach, my bestie had this crazy idea to walk on these rocks because she wanted to know how it feels. Those green stuff are actually seaweed/algae. It covers most of the rocks. It's gooey and squishy, making it difficult to walk on. The beach here are stoney, lots of pebbles. So it'll hurt if you take off your shoes. Now I know why the westerners usually have flip-flops when they go to the beach. I fell as it were slippery, giving a reason to soak after that. haha..


There were this stream-like water going towards the ocean, from somewhere. It's so clear that'll make you think it's a river. The water is salty, of course (I tasted it..=P)


We picked a spot next to the sea to have our lunch. Nyum3!!


After few dips in the water, we decided to walk back as it's almost 'Asr.


There's field where they make hay. I know how they make 'em now. huhu...


The walk towards the bus stop is about 2.5km only.


There's a pen of sheeps where you can actually enter. The boys decided they want to chase some sheeps. haha..silly.


At the train station, we rest while waiting for the train. This is a tropical fruit smoothie and a homemade lavender sorbet. Yup. It's made out of fresh lavender. It tastes refreshing. A bit like you're eating the aromatherapy oil. haha...but it's good. not in a bad way.

Definitely gonna do this again. 

Until next time..