Roads in the United Kingdom

We have introduced Karen to the joys of high-speed driving on the wrong side of the road with lorries, tour buses, insane Jaguar drivers and stone walls at every other turn. I think she has worked a small hole through the floor under her right foot.

We started out renting the car at Gatwick Airport, so we could avoid the London traffic. From there, we drove down to Brighton, a journey of about 40 miles. The problem with driving in the UK is that distance does not translate in any respect to time. There is a virtual black hole when you get behind the wheel. 8 miles can take several hours, or your can go 70+ miles per hour and get within shooting distance of your destination before being totally lost and going around in circles.

After visiting the Brighton Pavillion, we got in the car. Karen was feeling jet-lagged and my son, who prefers not to be mentioned, so we will refer to for this portion of the trip as "Sherman Illhavenotherpint" served as the navigator. It was the beginning of a Twilight Zone segment. We went up and backed down dead-end streets, circled around following signs for a highway we thought would take us out of town, looked vainly for Dyke Street (no comment) and, after about an hour of driving, found ourselves back in downtown Brighton at our original point of departure. I'm not kidding. Sherman figured that King George III went mad while visiting his son in Brighton and trying to find a way out. We pressed on and actually found a way out of town. When Karen woke up, we were on the right track.

On the way to our hotel that evening (the Antrobus Arms near Salisbury), we decided to drive by Stonehenge. It was on this trip that we discovered the answer to part of the mystery of the stones and the Druids. First, we determined that there is no way that they took the A345 to Stonehenge. That was the road which appeared on the map, but if we couldn't, with the advantage of GPS and RAC's finest maps, discover the location of the A345, we're reasonably certain that the Druids, a much less sophisticated civilization, could have located it. As a back-up, we had the A303 via the A344, a reasonable alternative, but if you tried to find a reasonable parking space, you would go right by the Stonehenge exit and find yourself once again on the A303 heading to the South away from Stonehenge. Our theory about the location of the stones is that the Druids were on their way to Bath (or possibly Bristol), hoping to catch a regular motorway, but got stuck in the never-ending circle of the A303 and A344 for an indeterminate time and ultimately just decided to chuck it and dropped the stones where they were. Had they been in Brighton, the stones would have been down by the seashore.

We had a lovely stay at the Antrobus Arms, relaxed and easy that evening, comfortable that we'd have an easy and short drive to our next stop which was within 30 miles. We didn't hear the ominous music in the background. The next morning, bright and fresh, we drove to Avebury. There, we had a very nice visit at Avebury, touring the miscellaneous rocks and having a miscellaneous Guinness.
From there, we drove to the world-famous Cheddar Gorge. This is the location of the birthplace of Cheddar Cheese and the massive gorge, which is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the Grand Canyon (but which an Englishman who gave Gary a lift back in 1973 compared to the Grand Canyon). What the Cheddar Gorge is, is an incredibly narrow road with a lot of pedestrians, strollers, cars, tour buses and cars with trailers (caravans). We parked our car (a lovely Mercedes which is totally insured) and Sherman and I toured one of the caves. On our return, a mountain goat appeared and was walking about the parking lot. Karen got out and took some pictures of the goat and was amazed when some old guy in a Jaguar almost ran over the goat as he was trying to get out of the lot. We were all buckling up when the car jerked. Karen and I both looked at each other with that "what did you do" sort of look. When we determined that "we" hadn't done anything, we looked behind and the same old guy in a Jaguar was driving away. I hopped out and tried to flag him down, looked at the dent in the bumper. Old Guy, if you're reading this post, we have your license number and will be giving it to EuropCar.

:)

We then ambled up the Cheddar Gorge. The road was mostly a single lane, which is difficult when traffic is going both ways. We thought there might be a road from the top of the Gorge to Banwell (where our next B&B was located, a full eight miles away), but there wasn't. So, after driving through the Gorge and down the road a bit, we had to turn around and head back through the Gorge.
From Cheddar, we had another of those English Map moments where we knew generally where we were going, but the name on our map (which is fairly detailed, only omitting the important points) crosses several of the A-roads and edges up to an M-road, such that we were not quite sure which road we wanted to take. That, plus the fact that the manager of the B&B was direction impaired (when she said first turn, she meant third turn, if she said turn left, she meant right, if she said it wasn't far, it was), we spent a couple of hours trying to travel that eight miles. That, plus the fact that Banwell was a single-lane road with stone walls on one side of the road and stone buildings on the other side. We had to go up and down the road three times before finally locating the side road where our B&B was located. We were told that the Queen actually visited last month. She must have been lost.

Of course, all of our driving experiences in England, didn't quite prepare Karen for the experience of driving in Wales. The past several days, driving over the mountains to the coast, driving up the coast from Aberystwyth to Port Merion, and driving up to Liverpool, have been a series of narrow lanes, rock walls, careening trucks, insane motorcycle riders, speeding Jaguars and Motorcoaches, oh, and bicyclists, motorized wheelchairs, did we mention log trucks (who knew?), cliffs (Sherman in the back seat, "hope we don't meet a truck"). I kept plugging along, driving down the road, while Karen leaned to the driver's side, away from the stone walls, etc... (Karen, "we're hitting the bushes on this side", Gary, "would you rather I hit the cars on my side?")

:)
Tomorrow is our last day in the car.
It will be trains and planes from now on.
Still, we'll miss the trunk.
;)