England Holiday - Part Two Driving

Picture: Bernadette & Paige with the hirer car

Day 6 - Thursday
Seeing as we were staying in England for about two weeks we decided that we would hire a car and drive out of London for some of that time.
The costs sure do add up when hiring a car, extra insurance, congestion fee for cars travelling around London, GPS unit and fuel. Once we signed our life away we hit the open road, headed across to Bath.
Our first stop was at Windsor Palace where it started to rain and it was a bit hard finding our way in for the lack of signs but we eventually succeeded. Inside once again we found an array of opulence and were amazed at how big the rooms were. We came across Queen Victoria's dolls house room which there was the biggest dolls house we had ever seen. The dolls house even came with landscaping around it.

Picture: Part of Windsor Palace

After looking around it was time to move on to the city of Bath. After checking into a hotel we found we went off for a walk and headed to the main tourist attraction, the Roman Baths. We were surprised to find the baths in the centre of town and we thought really worth seeing. There was a lot of history to this place so as we wondered around with the electronic guide it was interesting to hear all about it. We felt the water which turned out was quite warm and it’s a shame that you can’t take a dip as the Romans used to.

After stepping back into the street we head to a local pub and had a feed of some mashed potatoes and pie, yum (and more ale for Ben).

Picture: Inside the Roman Baths

Picture: View from hotel room of Bath

Day 7 – Friday
We explored around Bath and walked along the Avon River until early afternoon, such a nice town which had a nice warm feel to it.

Picture: A view of the river

We hit the road again and drove to Bristol where we met up with a friend of ours, Mark Hall who we had known from Kalgoorlie and now lives in Perth. Mark was on a business trip. It is such a small world. We all decided to take an evening walk to find something for dinner. What better way to enjoy the evening then to sit in a local park and dine on some yummy lamb kebabs.

Picture: Mark & Paige

Day 8 – Saturday
Today we where on our mission to do some site seeing. We drove to Bovington where Ben wanted to visit a tank museum. Funny story, it wasn’t until the last day in Mongolia that I found out it was a tank museum we were going to see. I thought Ben had said “tent” museum, just goes to show what an understanding wife I am as I was willing to go look at tents of all things. The tank museum turned out to be quit interesting. There was a very large number of tanks on display. To be honest I didn’t realise that there where so many different tanks. Paige and I wondered around while Ben was preoccupied with the information boards at each tank.

Picture: Paige & Bernadette standing in front tank on display

Picture: Paige in front of yet another tank

After stopping at a local pub for lunch we headed to Amesbury to see Stonehenge. As we came over the hill we could see Stonehenge in the distance. We located the car park and paid our entrance fee to walked under the small underpass to get a closer look. The circle of Stonehenge was located in a field which you are able to walk around on a path only able to get as close as 100 meters away. I expected the stone circle would be bigger than it actually was. We walked around using the audio guides which was really interesting to hear the information they had compiled.

Picture: Bernadette, Paige & Ben at Stonehenge

Picture: What Stonehenge would of looked like when first constructed

Day 9 – Sunday
We drove to Portsmouth which is on the coast where we visited the HMS Victory at the historic dockyards, Paige kept calling it a pirate ship which we thought was quite cute. HMS Victory was quite impressive and had undergone extensive restoration. It would have been a hard life at sea if you were of lower rank, the cramped areas and the hygiene factors I think would have drove many men crazy.

Picture: HMS Victory

Day 10 – Monday
Still in Portsmouth was stumbled onto a great army disposal shop in which Ben was like a child in a candy store. There were so many items crammed into this one store. Ben found himself shifting through piles of items, it took me a while to get used to the mouldy old smell. Paige had fun trying on all the different hats.

Picture: Paige dressed up in an out fit from a local department store

Day 11 – Tuesday
Our last day in England we decided to visit Brighton another coastal town on the way back to the Heathrow as we were not flying out until the evening.

We visited the famous pier and dined on fish and chips on the seaside. Paige was surprised that the beach only had pebbles and not sand. We walked along the pier and Paige and I went on the carousel. For afternoon tea what can I say? It was sugar filled with cotton candy and Brighton rock candy. Paige was on a sugar high for the rest of the afternoon. It was time to drive the last leg of our England road trip and we headed for Heathrow. With plenty of time we returned the hire car and it was time to wait for our flight to Hanoi via Seoul.

Picture: Ben & Paige collecting beach pebbles

Picture: Paige & Ben behind a picture board

Picture: Paige & Bernadette on the carousel

How time flies we totally enjoyed our holiday in England. The food, beer and being in a so called normal (English speaking) country was a nice change. One thing that did stick out was there were many Polish people working in England in hospitably. We seemed to run out of time to do everything that there was to do in England so at some stage we would like to return for another trip and next time we would like to do another road trip but for a bit longer maybe drive to some other countries in the EU.