Well last we met we had been on a whirlwind tour of London. Amazingly enough, England's fabulous customer service got in the way of us getting on with our trip, as Europcar chose to ignore our booking and not open on Monday. My cousins were kind enough to let us stay another night (Shamou welcomed us back to the pack most magnanimously) and we were able to use Rotherhithe as a base to haul ourselves out of London and continue our trip. After ringing almost every Europcar in London we managed to find one open at Gatwick airport and rushed to collect the car.
It's cute. It's purple. I likes it.
We then decided that turning up to Salisbury late was better than never and trekked the 3 hour trip west. Our hostel staff were extremely hospitable (like I said, customer service is a rare occurance in this country) and we were very appreciative of the last moment accommodation we received - to a point. Can I just say that single sex dormitories only work if you are single.
Today we drove to Bath (Ah-mazing) --- ooops, Today we drove to Stonehenge (thanks for the reminder Tom). It was both beautiful and underwhelming. Most of the issue was the freezing wind that came across the plain which damn near took my fingers with it in frostbite. And my umbrella. I think we see so many pictures of Stonehenge that it detracts from the real thing. We still appreciated the massive feat it would take to put these giant rocks into place and the sacred-ness (is that a word?) of it all. But I was cold, and the coffee I had grabbed that morning was crap. Stonehenge, I may note, does reasonable replacement coffee.
So! Bath! I loved Bath. Bath is amazing. Even with a migraine, Bath was amazing. Did I mention it was amazing? Apparently it has indeed caused a loss of vocabulary. Dude, amazing.
The Roman Baths are a bigger feature than I expected, right in the middle of town. The museum has sort of been built around the old bath-house. There is so much to take in and the guides they give you are great.
But alas, I had a migraine and so we didn't really get to see the rest of Bath. We headed north in our little purple car to Ashbourne, which is west of Derby (Darcy country, mmmm). It took so long to get to Derby, it was pitch black (at 4:30pm) and we still weren't getting close. We have a UK road atlas which deigns to consider a residential street the same grade as a major freeway. I hate you, little road atlas. The other thing that made us laugh was the end-to-speed-limit zones, coupled with a stern warning that speed cameras operate. In a zone with no speed limit. I am confused... Well done UK.
We finally found our turn off to the most spectular hostel we've seen so far: Ilam House. Basically it's Pemberley. Which to get to you go down a laneway for miles in the dark and SNOW. Did I mention SNOW? SNOW?!?!?!? And we got lost, of course. Very lost, in the snow. But we made it eventually. The snow is set to continue into the night but hopefully we will not be trapped in Derby as we are due to be in Edinburgh tomorrow... which apparently with no stops (or snow) will take 5 hours. hmmm... Go little purple car!!!
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