Fri, 20 Sep 2002

author Tim	location Lyonshall, Herefordshire, England
posted 17:06 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/North and Central England ( all photos )

First bit of Wales! ( No photos )
We drove almost directly south today, taking in Whitchurch, Shrewsbury, Church Stretton, Ludlow and finally settling in a great little B&B at Lyonshall called The Woodlands.
Even though we've had it all along, this is the first B&B we've thought to look up in "The Green Book" - a listing of the private B&Bs personally recommeded by a particular team. From the looks of this one, I'd agree so far.
It lists 75 B&Bs around Scotland, the majority of which seem to close around November. So we're just going to slip in on that one, and we should have enough to choose from.
Before landing here, we stopped at Beeston Castle, not far from where we started out in Cheshire. Built in 1225 (but the site was used back to 2000 BC for similar purposes), it stands right onto of a huge hill surrounded by a moat. Fantastic views from the top, in all directions. Will have to get the photos up here soon.
Also, we took in "The Golden Valley" and surroundings (including a few one-lane 25% gradient runs over the hills), to get to which we actually had to drive into Wales and back out again. We were very suprised at just how different everything gets, even in the two miles or so that we actually saw.
Obviously, the countryside doesn't dramatically change, but all of a sudden the signs all take on two languages (if you are lucky), and the radio seems to have three Greek stations on (which of course they aren't, it just sounds that way to my untrained ears).
Our Welsh so far extends to knowing that for "slow" you use a four-letter word starting with A which we have forgetten already. Haven't attempted pronounciation yet, we have a guide in the back of our Lonely Planet book so I'm sure we can suitably embarrass ourselves given time.
So now we're about three miles back into England. The B&B is a private house, nice gardens, friendly dog, and run by an old couple, obviously set up when their children left home.
A few more quick reflections on England to cap off our one-month travelling Anniversary, focusing on the driving experience:

• Drivers here seem to be quite a bit better (a generalisation, of course). We must drive through an average of thirty round-abouts similar to the Miranda one (ie. three lanes, seven exits, traffic everywhere - is the Miranda one gone yet?) each day, and everyone can deal with it.
• Drivers are much more considerate - if you are turning across another lane, and drivers are banking up behind you, rest assured someone coming the other way will slow down from 50mph, flash their lights and let you go. Very strange the first time we saw that. In Sydney you'd probably just sit there and rot. Similarly for turning out of a side street. Nobody behind will honk either.
• Due to everything being closer together and there being many more people, the roads here are fantastic. Apparently it's roadwork season, which means lots of slow-down-to-30 or even wait-at-the-lights-and-then-use-the-other-side-of-the-road passages. The trade-off, of course, is fantastic roads everywhere, even if they only have one town on them and lead nowhere.
• Our car is a large car by UK standards. Most are 1-1.6 litre jobbies, similar in size to our Corollas, etc, which over here are billed as family cars (serious!). There's certainly no "I'm going to grow up and get a V6 (let alone V8) Commodore" mentality over here. Fuel would be way to expensive, and there's no room on most of the roads.

author Tim	location Helsby, Cheshire, England
posted 08:29 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/North and Central England ( all photos )

One Month On ( No photos )
It dawned on us this morning that we've been gone from Sydney a month. My my. How time flies and all that.
We feel that we've seen most of North/Central England quite well, which is of course what we actually set out to do. Hopefully we can carry this on for the remainder of the trip.
Of course, we miss you all, and getting the occasional email, silly forwarded garbage and SMSs are a great way to remind us that there is still a world back home somewhere. As always, keep them coming!
Last night we spent in Helsby, a little village on the road to Chester. We stayed at The Robin Hood Inn, where dinner, breakfast and the room were all "good" but not "great".
Peter recommended that we see Chester, which we did yesterday. Quite an interesting place full of old Abbey/Cathederals dating back (possibly) to the 8th Century, and surrounded by a huge wall. Living "in" or "out" of the wall must make it a strange city to live in. We walked around for quite a while, taking in the sights.
We got suckered in by a machine claiming to dispense maps of the area. "What a great idea!" we thought - us being total tourists and knowing nothing about the place. The machine happily ate our pound (which we're trying really hard to not remember is almost three dollars), and smiled contemptuously. No map was forthcoming.
A saviour arrived as a freecall number next to the map-machine claiming to offer assistance. "Nobody can take your call, please try again later" came the curt automated reply upon our SOS. I'll try again later today, just for the principal.
Today we'll most probably head closer to London - we're about two hundred miles away now, and we don't actually have to get that far.

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