Day 7 - Travelling the English Countryside

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We were up very bright and early on this exciting day. I was going to be driving to Oxford and then onto Gloucester today ... or at least that is what the plan was.

We had prebooked a car that we would collect near the Heathrow airport. Had already determined that I didn't want to be driving in London city at all, and the outskirts seemed like a reasonable proposition. It was a nice little car that we had hired, and with a GPS system we had no worries at all that we could do it. Getting out onto the main road was fun, and then I discovered that the windscreen wipers and indicator lights were the opposite side to what I'm used to. It meant for alot of wipers being used instead of indicators unfortunately, but the English drivers were beautiful and very forgiving for this Aussie girl.

GPS was set to Oxford and we just wanted to take note of any petrol stations close by so that we could fill up before returning the car. That totally went out of the window on our return, we were just grateful to get back in one peice ... but its all happy to start off with.

Driving along the English roads it was just so beautiful. The unfortunate thing however is they aren't made for pulling up along side, because alot of the time there just wasn't a side! At one stage I saw the cutest house, so we pulled off and drove down a little lane. I tried to get my passenger taking some photos as I was driving and all, but dare I say, we got some beautiful shots of the cars dashboard! Ugh!

We had a flight to Boston tomorrow, and with wet clothes still from the previous days washing, I turned up the heat over night, to hopefully dry it all. It was another early night, and I guess I was a touch nervous over flying via an American Airline to the States ... I mean aren't they the planes that crash?????

It was leading up to Oxford that we ran into a bit of bother. So much for getting a GPS! The battery was running short so we tried to charge it up. There was something wrong with either the lead or the unit or the car but it refused to charge. This meant our visit to Oxford because a drive by without venturing in to see any of it, as the main destination was getting to the Harry Potter Church! We had to turn on the GPS sparingly to make sure we were going the right way, and when in Gloucester it was alot of driving around in circles to find it but we did make it in the end! When I did try and park the car I did accidently bump the car into another car, so opted not to park in that spot afterall and found another one. It freaked me out the car was marked. Oh, dont be thinking I actually did any real damage to either cars, ok, so I didn't stop and check the other car, but it was just a very tiny nudge, more like a kiss, and my nerves were shot, so I didn't want to know. That coupled with the lack of GPS I really didn't want to know!

It was raining and Joel being the hungry boy he was decided lunch was the first stop. Unfortunately they also had a McDonalds in the town, so that decided what we were to eat. It was actually really funny in the restaurant, one of the cleaners must have noticed that we looked like we were visitors to the area (not sure what gave us away), and decided to ask us where we were from. Giving the general destination of Australia wasn't good enough, so we narrowed it down to state and then city. Lo and behold her brother lives there and do we know him? Um, now Adelaide isn't exactly a small country town. Pretty sure our population is over a million, so I couldn't say we did know him. Just to make sure she did spell out his surname for us, but no winners today.

After all that the McDonalds made me feel sickly, but we had to press on. We had the church to discover.

Upon walking into the church, the first thing that I noticed and hated was they have this shop in the main hall. um, its a church people! Put you money change tables at least outside already! I dont understand why they dont put a little shop outside. It just upset me seeing the comerical nature of churches within its gorgeous building I guess. We were invited to wander around and have a look at our own pace. Now I have to state, I have never been in a church this big before and the stain glass windows were amazing. My favourite ever piece is now in this building. A blue lit up heaven in glass. After we satisfied our curiosity we went out to the cloisters and Harry Potter kingdom.

Wow! words can't describe how beautiful those hallways were. Its a feast for the eyes from your toes to the ceiling. I just sat there soaking it up. Actually I have no idea if the hallways had any functional purpose, other than they had the funniest toilets in one section. I'm glad for the lack of real need for them that they built them anyway. It was simply beautiful. We did spend the longest time just wandering around looking at it all, but I was a touch conscious that we did also need to make it back to the car hire place with a dodgy GPS and the fading light of the English Winter.

Heading back along the roads, every so often turning on the GPS to make sure we were at least going the right way, it just rained alot. Now it was on and off rain, which just really wanted to test my ability to learn exactly which side was the indicator over the wipers ... for some reason, it was all too hard and there was a whole lot of over indicating going on, but the other drivers probably couldn't see me under the invisibility coat I stumbled across that they must have forgotten to pack up from the filming or something. It was as though no one was bothered with my driving. It felt nice.

Now for having the wonderful GPS, it did still cause a bit of drama trying to find the exact way to get to the car hire. It was one of those we only have one way roads and if there are two way roads you can't cross them anyway type of places. After much confusion we eventually found it. I didn't bother trying to fill up the car with petrol, and getting into the hire place, I was more worried they would find a bump, so I tried to deflect regading the GPS. They didn't seem to think it was that big an issue and just didn't charge me for the hire of it. Um hello you people, I was lost out there and thanks for nothing with poor servicing I didn't see everything exactly that I wanted to! There were no bumps, I paid my fees and petrol charges, then headed off for the subway to get back to the hotel.

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Photos

Joels photograhy
he was somewhat frustrating or at least I was watching him miss all the potential photos

wall
not sure why he needed to get any of the car in the frame!