Part 11 the last of England for now.

We arrived in Bath on the 17th November after stopping at a pub stop overnight in an unremarkable village called Bradford on Tone. As we arrived and settled into the campsite the rain came tumbling down, it lasted for a few hours, but then we were able to head off along the tow path of the Avon Canal. We abandoned the canal path after twenty minutes of walking, as it was a mud bath, eventually making our way to the Botanic Gardens. After a quick scout around we hightailed it back to camp, making home just before the rain started again. We had booked two nights at the campsite in the hope that on Friday we would get some better weather and a chance to see the delights of Bath.

 

One of the Roman Baths.

Friday dawned cloudy and cold but the rain had reduced to the odd patches of drizzle, so we got ourselves rugged up and caught the bus into the centre of Bath. Our first stop was the Roman Baths, at a pricey £15 each we hoped it was going to be worth it, and yes it was. We spent nearly three hours wandering through the amazing ruins and listening to the audio guide, which pads out the story of what happened at this amazing sight. The baths were part of a Temple complex for the goddess Sulis Minerva, a combination of Sulis a local pagan goddess and Minerva the Roman Goddess. The Temple ruins are set up in such a way that you can imagine how it looked when it was in its complete state, the plumbing, underfloor heating, pools and chambers are all there for you to complete the picture. We are always so amazed at the age of things here in Europe, coming from such a young country we do not have the eons of history to draw on, but our history is pretty amazing in its own right. So we gaped and we gawked and we imagined as we continued on our explorations. The finale was getting to taste the waters at the end of the tour, and honestly it was only slightly palatable, I do feel sorry for all of those people who were prescribed the waters back in the day, apparently some had to drink up to 4 litres of it a day, bleah. 

 

Some of the original water ducts used to disperse the heated mineral water to the seperate baths.

 

Lead piping used in the plumbing.

 

These piles were holding up the floor and were part of the underfloor heating system.

 

Steam rising from the pools.

We returned to Regency period Bath and continued our tour of the city. I have read a few romances in my time, especially Georgette Heyer, and Bath was one of the places portrayed in these novels. The Pump room, attached to the Roman Baths and the Assembly Rooms, where Balls and gatherings were held, were  often mentioned, so of course we had to go and see them. The Pump Room is now a restaurant, but we were able to look in at the Georgian grandeur of the place. The Assembly Rooms are open to viewing except when they are booked for a function, and unfortunately they had been booked for a Mozart Festival, but using my Kiwi charm they  allowed us in to have a look and take photos, hence all of the chairs and tables in the ballroom. We continued on to the Royal Crescent and the gorgeous Georgian Houses around the city, my imagination ran wild, with High breasted Regency gowns, galant men in tight fitted trousers, hose and coats, high stepping horses and gleaming carriages. Bliss....Coming back down to earth we headed down to the Tesco's for some supplies before racing through the drizzle to catch the bus back to the campsite. Oh how ones dreams can be dashed with the cruel splash of an oncoming rain shower. 

 

Just part of the Assembly Rooms

 

Part of the Royal Crescent built in the late 1700's

 

Bath 

Saturday 19th started out pretty chilly with -1 Celsius greeting us, and a heavy frost on the camper. We set out earlier than usual to avoid any heavy traffic, stopping outside Chippenham for morning tea, then continuing on to Semington for our Pub stop. The Avon and Kennet canal runs beside the village of Semington so of course we had to go and explore it, we managed to take the long muddy trek through a few paddocks to get there, but it was lovely once we arrived. Back at the pub we had a beer and watched the All Blacks vs Ireland match then headed home to the camper for dinner and a good sleep, the rain on the roof sending us off.

 

Avebury stones

 

More stones

 

Silbury Hill.

The next days plan was a visit to Avebury, an historic site noted for its standing stones, circular ditches and burial mounds. We arrived just on 11am with the temperature having risen to a whooping 4 degrees, so wrapping up warmly we started exploring the area with its 4000 years of history. We find it hard to comprehend the age of these historic wonders, to us from NZ 700 years is old. But here history is oozing from every rock and mound, from every collapsed stone cottage or tumbled down Castle, from pubs, shops and houses even. And the efforts of these history makers is astonishing to comprehend, the earth moved, the stones placed and monuments built all without our modern day technology. If only we had the community initiative now that was needed for some of these feats of construction. We left Avebury suitably awed and drove around to Silbury Hill another mound created by these amazing individuals over 4000 years ago, standing at 40 metres high it was created by hand, people carrying up turf and dirt to build a hill. Photos were snapped and an apple tree raided of some beautiful Bramley apples. Onward to our next pub stop.

We arrived at the pub just on 3.30pm and unfortunately it had started to rain, so we agreed to go straight in and warm up by the fire and have a pint or two. We walked through the door and the locals and owners were seated around the room, the Pub had actually shut at 3pm but we were invited to have a drink. We were greeted by the Town Crier and warmly included into the local banter, in the end we stayed for 2 hours and had a number of pints. We eventually had to suck it up and head back to the cold motorhome but we had been warmed by the welcome in this village.

The 21st we stopped at the market town of Marlborough to print out our Ryanair tickets for Ireland, we were going to use the Library but it was shut on Mondays, so we found a lovely lady in a printing shop who did it for us for 40p. It is the experiences either good or bad, that we have with people that I will remember the most, they can colour your whole memory of a place. Another pub stop at a unremarkable pub was on the agenda that night, but you have to take the good with the bad.

Tuesday morning we headed over to Stow on the Wold a well known (touristy) village in the Cotswolds. It is filled with Antique shops, cafes and home decor shops, the place for the well to do to come visiting on weekends. We gazed in the windows of the Antique shops not sure if we should enter with our Antipodean boots, building up the courage we moseyed in. These were real Antique shops, not the collectable type shops that we tend to have at home, the prices were about as stunning as the stock. One shop we went into there was this lovely old man minding the store, He asked us where we were from, he then proceeded to regale us with tales of his travels, and all the time his nose was dripping, a line of watery mucus entering his mouth. Because he was an old codger it didn't seem so bad, but luckily another customer came in and drew his attention away from us. We left Stow on the Wold and started to make our way back towards Bedfordshire in preparation for dropping the motorhome off, unfortunately the rain had come back again to dampen our spirits. So we stopped for lunch and the night in a little village called Fringford,( it is famous as being the village immortalised in the book "Lark rise to Candleford") and the pub "The Butchers Arms". Lunch turned into an afternoon as we were having a great old time with a local builder his sidekicks and the Landlady. They had completed laying a concrete floor on a house from the 1600's in the rain, and had come in for a few well deserved pints, they kept us entertained until dinner time.

 

The Butchers Arms in Fringford

 

Charming thatched houses in Fringford.

The 23rd, Wednesday saw us heading to the Henlow Bridge Motorcamp in preparation for handing back the motorhome, we wanted to catch up on washing, and give the camper a clean and top up on gas and Diesel. The campsite was about 25 miles from the Justgo Motorhome base, so we thought it would be an ideal spot to do all of the above...ha ha ha. Thursday we set out to top up the LPG, thinking this would be a simple task. We headed toward the petrol station at Ampthill, we had been told they did LPG fill, but that was not the case. Then we thought we would try the Tesco's at Flitwick, but again no joy. I phoned the Justgo Motorhome office to find the closest filling station, they told us that the petrol station on the High street in Toddington was the place, so off we set to Toddington. All this time we are navigating narrow roads and villages with two lanes and cars parked on both sides restricting the flow of traffic. We met with no joy in Toddington either, so it meant heading to the M1 and using a service centre. As you can imagine, me being the driver, was in a fractious mood by this point, but we made it to the service centre on the motorway and filled up with LPG. Thank God we were not doing this in the morning when we had limited time. We spent the rest of the day cleaning the camper and packing bags ready for the drop off the next day. Friday dawned, this was going to be a busy one, dropping off the motorhome, getting to the train station and catching our train to Luton, catching the shuttle from the train station to Luton Airport, boarding our flight to Dublin then collecting the rental car and navigating to our hotel. We did all of the above without a hitch. I can not believe how everything seems to fall into place for us ( perhaps I shouldn't say that as I might jinx the rest of our trip) I booked most of this trip 4-5 months in advance and so far there has been a smooth transition from one place to the next, may it continue.

 

Bidding England goodbye for now.

So we arrived in Dublin at about 3.30 in the afternoon, we collected our rental car and made it to the Motel without a hiccup, apart from not being able to find reverse when we arrived in the carpark at the Travelodge. We had reached Ireland at last, it feels like my spiritual home.