Day 8—Normans Bay, Brighton, Winchester, Salisbury

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We slept well in the middle of no where. Got up very early, quickly freshened up in the camper and got on the road to Brighton.

We pulled up on Marine Parade, about 200 metres from the main Pier, by 7.30am. We had brekky and watched the City wake up. Blue skies to the East, Black Skies to the West. We sat on the stony beach, we walked up into the town and noticed that the Pier didn’t open till 10am. We even killed time with a cuppa and some sundaes at the Burger King opposite the Pier. Once the pier was opened, we headed out to check it out and choose what rides we were going on. It was only after doing a complete circuit, we found a sign that indicated that none of the rides opened till noon. We headed off the Pier and played mini-golf till we headed back to the camper for lunch.

Left Brighton about 1pm and off to Arundel Castle. Got there by 1.40pm and paid for 2 hours parking right across the road. We headed over to the entrance and Tanya completely spat the dummy about the 50 pound plus fee, and the kids complaining about going into another castle. We walked around the small town and the outside of the castle moat and found a playground for the kids to play in.

Next, off to Winchester. Made good time over to Winchester and got a little lost initially and went straight through town. Got back to the centre of town and nailed a parking spot right outside the Cathedral. The kids were not interested in going in so Tanya and I raced through the entire thing in 45 minutes. Christopher again on babysitting duty in the camper. Took plenty of photos as they were allowed here for a change. Basically another Cathedral on the same basic plan but very ornate sculptures, tombs, leadlights and dead people everywhere. Got back to the camper, just in time to see an inspector placing a ticket on our windshield. I pleaded with him that there were no signs, and he pointed to a sign attached to a building nearby. I told him about how back home, and that every other town we had been in, had signs attached to poles. He told us to send in a letter and they would probably waive it. He also pointed out that the first 30 minutes were free and we were probably only gone that long !

Once we left the Cathedral, things just got worse. Our A-Z is 2 years old. Since 2005, several of the Winchester streets have been altered, one way streets turned around, others created. We spent 45 minutes and Tanya directed me all the way back to where we had started from. Once the A-Z was thrown at me, we were out of there in 10 minutes, and I had developed a very good skill of 5 point turns in small one way streets in a 7.6 metre long camper.

We then went on to Salisbury and we now had a new plan. We arrived at Salisbury close to 6pm and decided to do one circuit of the city, as a rekky for the next morning. We then headed to Hudson’s Field Camping Site, just on the edge of town, and on the edge of the local soccer fields. Jordan was doing his head looking at the wide open green field, while looking at his flat footy that we packed. Somewhere in transit we lost the needle for the pump ! Camp field was very good, and very cheap(16 pound) and the showers were free.

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