So we landed back in London at the start of the month for our final month of travelling – yes, that is a scary prospect after spending 9 months on the road already. June and July had been pretty good to us; living with Italian families had certainly been a far stretch away from dorm life in hostels (at times it couldn’t have been farther from). It was back to the land of pubs, though, so goodbye to that amazing, amazing Italian food (seriously, Redondesco, you even managed to outdo yourself – several times).
So it was back to London for the day, arriving after midnight and staying in a shoebox room with seriously noisy roommates, which would serve as a reminder of what we’d been doing previous to Italian splendour. Nothing much eventuated from London this time around and a day later we were off to Oxford to stay with Kate and Waz. We’d spent about a day in Oxford last time we were there, but didn’t really see much at all. This time around we explored a great deal more and discovered what a beautiful little city it is. We’d thought we might go for a daytrip or two outta there, but upon discovering that hiring a car for one day is actually cheaper than two people catching the bus somewhere, we put the tripping on hold til the Monday.
As nice as Oxford is, there’s no chance I’d ever want to go and study there... There’s the horror of getting in to begin with that I’d never want to deal with – All Soul’s College have it the worst, I think: They have a seriously outdated (it may have been taken away or it may be taken away soon) entrance examination, where pupils are given one random word (everyone has the same word) and they have to write about it coherently for 3 hours... And it’s not just the tests either; there’s the lack of drinking club entrance. You have to be amongst the extremely wealthy and elite to join any of the drinking clubs. Because that makes perfect sense.
Out of Oxford we grabbed a car and set off on the very long way round into Wales. About 15 minutes out of Oxy, we crossed a poor excuse for a bridge that had a 5p toll! 5p! Hilarious! Turning the motorways off on Judy (Judy is our GPS for those who don’t know, named after Judy Garland because she tells us to follow the road) was not a good idea, though, because the bridge (a real bridge) to Wales, obviously, a motorway. Four or five hours later we managed to make our way around to Cardiff.
Cardiff was nice in a really strange sort of a way. The map we were given had landmarks in 3D and the department store pretty much took up half of the city centre. Hard to believe until you actually see the centre of Cardiff, where sure enough the place is dominated by three enormous shopping centres!
We were at the pub in the late afternoon and everyone in the whole drag got sent inside in case of an oncoming riot. Luckily, the Welsh aren’t as stupid as that. There were quite a few shady characters about, though, and the city didn’t exactly seem inviting after about 8 pm...
Our second day in Wales was spent driving around the south trying to find nice places. The day was hit and miss. First was the obvious choice: Caerphilly Castle. This place was pretty cool, but I was happy enough for it to be my final castle to pay my in to (over-castled). We did our best to not make too many puns. We also considered taking the giant, operational ballista on the grounds and mounting it on our car in case we experienced any riots – like if long boats of Bristol bogans made their way across the channel.
Next we went to Cowsbridge, which was a bit of a non-event, but a pretty nice market town nonetheless. Nash Point followed as we drove down to the coast, and this was a little cooler for two reasons – the wind and the cliffs (and a third – watching the stupid people who’d set up tents in the wind on the cliffs). Serious wind = awesome. We then drove a little more and ended the day at Barry Island – a depressing hole of a place if ever there was one. To be fair, it was pleasant enough to look at the coast; just the sorts hanging about and the fact its central point was a permanent carnival didn’t really help its appeal.
The Wind
From Wales we drove over the bridge back into England (there’s no toll going eastward!) on our way to the expensive-parking capital of the world: Bath. Parking aside, Bath is a wonderful city that is very unlike the rest of England. It has a real European feel to it, which was nice following the “blergh” side of Cardiff we’d just been staying near. Out of Bath the next day we went for a hefty day of driving through the Cotswolds – to Tetbury, Cirencester, Bibury, Bourton on the Water and finishing in Stratford Upon Avon. Stratford is Shakespeare crazy, and we were really lucky because we arrived after 6, which meant (a) free parking and (b) no busloads of tourists! Turns out, amongst Shakespeare’s list of achievements, he actually wrote the entire Goosebumps series as well as – in my opinion his finest moment – the screenplay to Dumb and Dumber. Who’d have known...
Following Stratford, we ventured to a tiny village called Haselor to find a house that T’s aunt and uncle used to live in. I think when the guy in the window saw us taking photos of his house he was more than a little confused, especially considering the tiny road down there was only to get to the three houses.
Out from Bath, we drove a bit to check out Stonehenge – cause why not, right? Unlike the masses, we decided 8 pounds was a bit much for a bunch of rocks, so we just walked along the fence and guess what; it makes pretty much no difference. Still can see it perfectly, still can get nice photos.
From there it was a hefty drive west into Cornwall to end up in Bude – a place we’d picked for its central location that actually turned out to be really lovely (and would provide a smorgasbord of puns for T). The place was full of crazy people. Crazy because in the freezing sea they were all surfing! There was a concrete swimming pool that had been built against the coastline there, and the rough-as-guts sea was belting the hell out of it. That wasn’t stopping four guys, who seemed to be jumping into the sea from the platform, then bodysurfing back onto the concrete slabs... Stitches waiting to happen right there.
Out of Bude we drove around Cornwall, which is certainly a nice part of the world. We visited: Welcombe, which had some really incredible branches of rock stretching out into the sea from the coast; Hartland Quay, with magnificent cliffs to wander the edges of; Tintagel – the home to Arthur’s castle, which is supposedly the best ruined castle in England, as well as Merlin’s cave which we could wander through because the tide was out; Padstow, which was supposed to be nice but actually turned out quite annoying because of the hordes of people and dogs (seriously, this place put a truth to the saying “every man and his dog”) – serious overcrowding is not cool; and finally Boscastle – an amazing tiny town in a valley, surrounded by slate cliffs you can walk to the tips of! Boscastle was probably our highlight of the English drive.
From Bude we went to Plymouth down south – across the bridge into what is technically Devon. Plymouth isn’t exactly the first place I’d recommend given where we’d just been – the sorts that hang about there seem to be some of England’s less desirables (so to actually go somewhere the English have a reputation for being bad would be pretty awful). We lucked out on our visit, though, because the British Firework Championships were to be held the very night we were staying! So we got ourselves some fish and chips and mushie peas (from this awesome chippie where the guy took about 12-14 orders walking down the line and remembered them all) and sat by the sea to watch about an hour of championship worthy fireworks. We didn’t even realise until it had finished how many people were actually there – thousands!!! The line for the Park & Ride was plain ridiculous!
From Plymouth we drove north again into Dartmoor National Park, spending the morning in lovely Tavistock and filling up on pasties before heading across to Mortonhamstead to find our very strange hostel. Mortonhamstead is tiny and didn’t really offer much more than a great tearoom (may have gotten a little addicted to the cream teas... whoops), but Dartmoor certainly offered plenty for the eyes. Buckfastleigh was a cool town with its old steam rail and abbey; and Two Bridges certainly had a classy oldschool hotel (that was the entire “town”); but the reason you come to Dartmoor is to explore the plains, hills, rocks and forests.
Driving in the park is a bit of a nightmare. There are two main roads that cross over the park and meet at Two Bridges in the middle. These roads are great because they are open so all the animals just roam about on the roads and come up to cars to say hello. But if you want to get anywhere else, you have to go on these horribly narrow roads that are mostly walled or lined with trees so pretty much every corner is blind. The locals don’t give a crap, and even if there’s nowhere to pull to the side, they just drive at you. Can’t say we’ll miss driving on ‘em.
We spent a bit of time hiking about the place – wandering up hills to explore what they call Tors: collections of big rocks that are weathered to look like stacks from a distance. These were pretty darn impressive, and climbing about them offered some pretty spectacular views of the park. Hidden amongst some of the Tors were “letterboxes”. This is part of a popular scavenger hunt in the area, which started in the 18th century or something ridiculous like that. You basically get clues to find the things, hike out and stamp the book. If you collect 100 letterboxes, you can join some exclusive club. Well, we’re two down by fluke. To be honest they’re not very well hidden...
Finally – Hairy coos. Or, more accurately, a hairy coo blockade. Final drive in Dartmoor couldn’t have been better.
So post National Park it was back to London for Tess’ surprise belated birthday. And we went to the zoo! Was pretty stoked about that. Now we’re just enjoying London for a few more days before... READING FESTIVAL! Yeeeah!
Catch everyone sooooon!
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