Tuesday July 24 – No rain overnight, bright and sunny. Socks are dry enough.

The Ferry ride was very nice with bright, but hazy skies.

Unfortunately the ship does dock and it was time to deal with driving on the "wrong side". Getting off the ferry wasn’t bad as you play follow the leader. It was pretty exciting never the less. Once we found Dover we followed signs to the nearest Tourist Information Center and parked. Not only does the side you drive on change, but you have to quickly adapt to the new signage as in each new country. The Information Center directed us to a nearby campground (1) but was unable to book it for us. We wondered around town and the beach for a while before finding our campground. Kyla explored but Tessa was feeling a bit off.

Wed. July 25 – Beautiful, warm, sunny day

We didn’t get very far today. We set out on the only road that didn’t lead to London, along the south coast going west. We stopped at Hastings for a few hours. We found a quaint maritime museum, ate fish and chips, rode the funicular for a beautiful view and played in the ocean. For some reason we thought we were at Brighton Beech only to realize we hadn’t been when we later passed Brighten. Another big realization we made was that signs are posted in miles and mph not kilometers. For some time we couldn’t believe how long it was taking to get anywhere. Our European speedometer is marked in km with no mph markings at all and there are speed cameras everywhere. If we weren’t in our speed challenged VW we might be more worried about returning to Utrecht to a fist full of tickets. The traffic was really bad and the roads wind through every settlement along the coast and during the 5:00 rush comes to a grinding halt.

We only made Arundel and stopped for the night. The campground had a nice little pub next door, so after showers the girls took us to the pub for our fist time. We had Guinness and lemonades all around. It was quaint. (2)

Thursday, July 26 – Sunny and hot

Headed for Portsmouth. We visited the D Day museum, which was very good. Checked out the beach and then pressed on to Bath. We didn’t get into Bath until after 7:00 pm. We followed camping signs over hill and over dale until we found the park. It was very nice. (3)

We stopped to visit with neighbors and ask about catching the bus to town. They were a very nice retired couple from Canterbury and we ended up spending the evening drinking wine and visiting. We got off to bed late.

Friday July 27 – Hot and sunny – a beautiful day

We took our bus drivers advice for lunch and had a very nice meal at a café called Hardings. It seemed to have won some local awards and the owner had spent time in Canada. He was friendly and took time to chat.

We walked along the river Avon (which means "river" making it the river River) after crossing a really neat bridge that had narrow shops built along each side. While on the bridge it looked like a normal street. We met a narrow boater who seemed willing to tell us about his boat and the pleasures of narrow boating. Most of England is accessible by an intricate system of canals and locks. You also have access to the center of most cities by canals without fighting the madding crowds. It is also important to us as Stu’s mother’s family have hereditary ties to one Thomas Telford who is famous throughout Great Britain for his canal, bridge and road building. We think we may have new retirement plans to return and follow the canals in a narrow boat.

We had a very good day and really enjoyed Bath. Our only regret was that after reading some brochures we realized that we had driven past Stone Henge the previous day. We consider returning to see it but were assured by everyone we talked to that it wasn’t worth it. Apparently it is well fenced off and difficult to see. We expect we will regret it but we decided to leave it until another trip. We could have done more planning ahead of time, and we have come to expect there are going to be a great many things missed. Our trip planning consists of asking people we meet along the way what sites we should see and generally it provides good results.

We tried to do a little more laundry, but ran out of 20P pieces for the dryer. Good advice to anyone traveling G.B, would be to hoard 20P pieces. They are used in lots of machines on campgrounds: irons, hair dryers and showers. The laundry is wet again!

Saturday July 28 – Hot and sunny

Got a chance to finish drying the laundry while we packed. We had a bit of an incidence though; the powdered laundry soap was left in the bag with the wet laundry and ended up in the dryer with the clothes. You would think a Canadian would know a dryer from a washer Eh! Karen ended up washing the worst of it by hand and ended up with, you guessed it, wet laundry. If they make a mobile home with a portable washer/dryer built in we are in the market. We got away for Wales about 11:30 AM.

Knowing that English children were just released for their summer holiday, we thought we should stop early but we forgot our own advice. We stopped at the Newport Information office and found that it was below a museum and gallery. During the summer months some museums in England are free. It turned out to be a family day as well and there were extra activities including crafts and face painting. We had a nice afternoon. Not having made much distance we decided to set out for Swansea and stop at a campsite along the way. We quickly discovered that Wales is dearly short of signs of any sort. Where signs are posted they are often as not covered by trees and easily missed. We fortunately picked up a brochure listing some sites from the tourist info center and decided to go for it. We ended up lost again, but phoned ahead and got directions. We have found the people of Wales are very friendly and helpful.

The campground was all right, but quite busy. It turned out to be a Caravan Club campsite. Our first big recommendation to people considering camping in GB is to join a club. We later joined a second club which we will mention as we come to it.

Sunday July 29 – Gorgeous sunny day

Clothes are again dry so we hit for the beach. There are several spectacular beaches to choose from and many opinions on which is best. We chose Rhossili beach noted for being a quieter beach. The roads were unbelievable. They started out small and winding with few signs and ended up being about the width of our van with 4 to 5 foot banks built up on each side with two-way traffic and no signs. Pedestrians had to paste themselves up against the burm while we passed being careful not to whack them with our mirrors. Other drivers still tended to drive quite fast.

No surprise we ended up at Llangennith beach to north of Rhossili. The road ended at a car park from which we hiked across ½ to ¾ of a mile of amazing sand dunes. The beach was spectacular with very few people. We could see Rhossili beach further along and it seemed absolutely massed with people. It turns out that the weather was unusually fine and had drawn out huge numbers. The kids played in the water and investigated tide pools and completely enjoyed their day.

Camping Notes

[1] Hawthorne Farm – very nice and clean.  The site and 4 persons with hookup cost £18.  Our site was out in the open though the surrounding area was well treed.   The facilities were clean and nice.  Below is a picture of the washing up area.  This is a nice one. Some are simpler with a roofed lean attached to the side of the toilet block.