The Black and White Trail covers 40miles taking you on a journey through the beautiful black and white villages in the heart of the Herefordshire countryside. During the route you will pass through the market towns of Leominster and Kington. Both offering unique charm and wonderful local ammenities to the visitor. Plenty of curiosity shops to browse in and a local market held once a week. Leominster also has a thriving farmers market on the first Sunday of every month.

 You will also pass through Eardisland a very pretty village, Weobley famed for its crooked medieval buildings and Pembridge with the old market square and bell tower. Why not stop  for morning coffee and cheese tasting at Monkland Cheese or maybe a spot of cider tasting at Dunkertons cidermill.

Add the other villages on the route, Dilwyn, Kingland and Kinnersley and you will have completed the Black and White Trail.

Visit http://www.localtoleominster.co.uk for more information about the region.

A group of Kangeroos.Not quite what i expected to see in the garden, on the first morning of our home swap to Australia. As you can imagine the children were delighted. Me, I just wanted to know if they could bite, and would they come into the house. We had already had our first night disrrupted by possums playing on the roof.
But this is what we came to Australia for. To live as a local , with the comforts of home. We had exchanged our modest cottage on the Welsh borders for a Queenslander house in Yeppoon ,on the sunshine coast of Australia. We spent the next five weeks cramming in everything Australian. Barbecues on the beach, crocodiles at the zoo, kangeroos and koalas galore, it was everything we had expected and more. We travelled in June supposedly the Aussie winter, but we spent lazy days on the beach fishing and diving .The locals thought we were mad!
The house was perfect for us with plenty of garden,and room to spread . When it was time to leave i felt quite an attachment to the house and area and had managed to feel quite like a local.
Next time we will make the 1100km journey to Cairns from Yeppoon and a trip to the barrier reef. The East coast of Australia is a fabulous place for a holiday, it is so diverse and provides something for everyone to enjoy.
And how was my home left in the hands of an australian couple? Absolutely fine, they loved the cottage and the areas, could not get over how green it was!!!!. So much so ,they are returning next year.
We now have new friends on the other side of the world. For anyone thinking of doing this i would just add a few words about the exchange process to bear in mind.
There are a lot of points to consider before you enter into a home swap holiday,and speaking from experience I will give you some help in the right direction. The most important factor I believe is COMPATABILITY. There is no point swapping your 200 year old cottage for a penthouse appartment with white carpets and sofas when you have two boys! Once you have chosen the destination you want and placed your home onto the web it is a case of trying to find the swap that suits you. You will have to trawl the web pages of numerous sites, send numerous emails,but you will hopefully hit upon a swap that you would like.
The next step is to make contact usually via email initially.You must be HONEST.You should build up a repore between you and feel comfortable with the arrangements.
I felt so comfortable with mine that we phoned each other, spoke over the MSN and emailed every week. We are now firm friends.
So the swap is on what do you do next? Well i cleaned the house from top to bottom ,it was a good excuse to have a big clear out really. I drew up a home manual to explain all of the appliances etc and left a large collection of things to do leaflets which i got from the local tourist information center.
I infomed the house insurance people and as we were swapping cars the car insurance company aswell.
I finally arranged for a friend to be at the house with the keys and show my swappers around,pointing out the little quirks that all houses have.Dont put the microwave on at the same time as the dryer you will blow the fuses etc.
It was a big step to take to do a home swap but i dont regret it at all and in fact we are all off to Australia again this summer.The only difference is, we are swapping with the same people now my good friends.
Because i am a firm believer in the concept of home swapping i arranged a swap for some friends of mine, this was a complete sucess aswell.
Just putting your home onto a web site is not enough to get a swap, you must actively search one out, and you will have several attempts to get the right one.I know i did.
And if you are wondering did anything go wrong. We lost a beach towel out to sea and my swappers broke a candle holder in the bathroom. I did feel sorry for them as they spent a week around the antique shops trying to replace it and it only came from Boots!
Adrienne Boxhall
http://www.holidaypropertyfinder.co.uk
 

PLEASE REGISTER AND ADD YOUR HOME SWAP TO OUR WEB SITE.