Driving Around the UK in our Chev

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London to Edinburgh

Since the last entry we have been to a heap of villages and cities. We spent our last night in London in that hostel which shall not be named, and picked up a hire car.

Stonehenge
That morning we drove from London to Stonehenge. This place is one of the biggests scams around. You can see the rocks from the roadside, so we paid £2 and parked our car in the tourist car park. But instead of just being able to walk up and have a close look at it, we first had to pay £5.50 to get throught the gates. Being the suckers that we are, we paid the price and made our way through the gates, BUT even after paying the fee, the closest we could get to looking it - was 30 metres away! RIPPED OFF!

That evening we had a pub meal in the town of Salisbury, not far from Stonehenge. We then picked a destination on our map and got back in the car. At around 2am we finally got to our destination - a small seaside town south of Bristol. Not having any accomodation, we had to spend the night in our hire car.

Our Wonderful Car
That brings me to my next point, our pint sized hire car.
Design is not a word that was in the minds of the manufacturers of this car. It's about the size of a Toyota Echo, and has the aerodynamics of a brick! So you can imagine how well it travels at speed on the Motorways and what a nice nights sleep it provides for two 6ft+ guys. It's embarrasing to be seen in, and even worse when you pull at the traffic lights next to a young girl in her Astra and she leaves you for dead!

I awoke that morning to the unhappy mumbling and groanings of Stevo, it appears that he had a worse sleep than me - due to the steering wheel restricting his movement - How unfortunate! ;-)....

City of Crime
From there we drove to Nottingham. This place wouldn't be my first choice in holiday destinations, but I had to drop some things off at our companies office there - so it was a necessary pitstop. We spent the nigth in a cheap hotel room there, and it just made us feel so much better when we heard on the news: "Nottingham has the worst crime rate in England and has the highest possesion of guns." - The next news story was about a teenageer who was getting put behind bars for having an internet based gun business.

Well after carrying out business at Mapteks Nottingham office, we got the hell out of there!

York
Our next destination - York
This place was a refreshing change. The streets are clean, the pubs are cheap and it has a lot of history. The main town is enclosed in huge walls - built some time before around the 1500s. We got a room that night for the £13 :-) The night we got there we went down to the pub and had a big peice of Lasagne and salad for £3 and watched Liverpool play CSKA Sofia.

Braveheart Country
Once again we packed up our things and headed North. After a few hours of driving we entered the Highlands, filled with green rolling hills and heaps and heaps of sheep! Finally we made it to where we are now - Edinburgh.

I like this city, the buildings a clean, the people are friendly and the weather is decent. We got accomodation for £14 in nice enough hostel. Today we're leaving and probably heading further North - maybe to Lochness? Depending on weather, we may camp out and save some money.

We're aiming to be back in Southern England by Saturday. We fly out for Spain early Monday morning, so the airport will be our accomodation on Sunday night.

Hope all is well back home!

-Joel

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Photos

Stonehenge
This is the view £5.50 can get you..

Our mean looking Chevrolet
We can't use the aircon, otherwise it wont get up the hills..

Comments

[BrO Collova]

Doing it on the cheap.
Beautiful photo's mate, is it just the camera angle or is that the Echo Deluxe model??? I've just booked our SUV for the States and it's a 7.0lt Chev Impala with 8 seats...hope it handles well.(hehehe) So it sounds as though your having a ball and it's not costing alot, don't know why Stevo's complaining all the time! Love BrO

[Dad, mum and Lou]

From the 'little people at home'
No fishing or lying on the banks in Lochness please. You maybe mistaken for the monster! Motor bike was broken into at work along with other bikes and cars. Ignition wrecked. Looking forward to hearing from you. Enjoyed your commentary. Lots of love to you and Steve from us. (**) Looks like Aussies are getting 'pomulated' in cricket.

[Lou]

hey jolius, sounds like your havin a crakka of a time!!! don't worry bout those pounds just keep spendimg!!! thats your favourite hobby...have heaps of fun ya have to put the tomato fest pics on here. I bet that would of been an experiance! Just remember to clean the bits of tomato skin out of dads camera you were telling me about. cya guys talk soon.

[john/jess]

go the swans
Hello Brother Halford.It appears you are having lots of fun.That little car would be ideal for me to sleep in.you say that in london the people are crooks, wait till you go in italy.Just to let you know that the eagles are in the grand final they play the swans next week.Take care mate say hi to steve and i'll see you soon FORZA JUVE.

[Miss Jackson aka Calista]

I rock whats known as the mic a ra phone
Suck! West coast lost haha, too bad the swans had to win tho. So I guess that grandma at the beach gave you a scare. So how many pics did you get?