Wed, 18 Jun 2003

author Tim	location Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
posted 22:23 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/South England/South England 2 ( all photos )

Rosie Runs, across Wales ( 6 photos )
This morning, the helpful and apologetic mechanic had another look, declaring the problem to now be the clutch slave cylinder. Sounds interesting, just get us a new one please! Once again, nobody in town had the part, so it had to be shipped in from London on the parts round. That eventually arrived around 1pm, by which time we were even more sick of Yeovil and just wanted it all to work. The mechanic took it for a decent length drive before declaring it ok. That remains to be seen, but no problems thus far.
We took a different road today, avoiding the jinxed A37 and instead driving down to the M5, then taking the bridge across to Wales (the nice lady at the toll gate noticed that even though our vehicle was technically a van, we were using it as a car and charged us only £4.50 - otherwise it would have been £9!).
Funny thing happened. Last time we were in Wales, the weather was horrible even though the surrounding days were fine. The same happened again today. Constant, dreary drizzle of the type we haven't seen for quite some time.
Anyway, we saw less of what we intended, but are now at the ferry port in Fishguard, camped in the parking-lot, where we cooked dinner before getting up to date with our journals and trying to get a few hours sleep before the 3:15am ferry.
All being well, we should touch down in Ireland tomorrow. Where we expect the weather to pick up, having left Wales.

author Tim	location Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
posted 22:23 BST 18/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/South England/South England 2 ( all photos )

More Yeovil ( 1 photo )
Having Tuesday morning to kill, we walked back in to Yeovil to see if it was any more exciting in daylight. There were markets, and the beautiful church and gardens in the middle made a great place to sun-bake (we almost have tans again!), but in truth we ran out of things to do fairly rapidly. Or, more truthfully, Yeovil ran out.
Struggling by now, we found an Internet cafe where I attempted to explain to a local how I wanted to plug my laptop in to his network. Three "experts" later and I just took the cable and did it myself. That's where the last update came from.
Down the hill to Weatherspoons (one of the big chain pubs here, but they're actually very good), we sat and did some puzzles and read for a while until we got a phone call that Rosie was ready! How over-joyed we were!
It was further walk back to the mechanic that we had thought, but we arrived, sweating yet looking forward to getting back on the road.
We did so, but luck was not on our side. Sure, the clutch was fantastic (from how well it works now, it must have been half way gone when we bought it), but by about twenty miles out of town, I was having a lot of trouble getting it in to gear - at one traffic lights I had to start in third as nothing else would go in!
Clearly this could not go on, so we once again pulled off the road (we had abandoned the prospect of the Eden Project and Cornwall by this time and were heading straight North) into another, smaller than Yeovil town called Midsomer Norton. I just managed to get into a side road, but it wouldn't go into reverse, so Liz had to push!
"At least we will be able to see a town that isn't Yeovil", I spoke way too soon. It was agreed with the insurance people that going back to the mechanic who already knew what had been done was probably the best bet, but there was little chance of me driving it this time. So, we waited around for a (different) mechaninc, who took a quick look before loading Rosie onto a flat-bed tow-truck, bound for none other than our favourite town Yeovil. Joy was us.
Through the twenty miles of winding (beautiful, it must be said) countryside, holding our breath as we just made it under a low bridge, we sat in the back of the tow truck looking behind us at Rosie's big VW badge. "At least we will save on fuel".
Opting to camp in the grounds of the mechanic (we weren't desperate enough to go back to the Preston Hotel, even if we didn't have to pay for it), we cooked our first meal in the van and had a great night reading and relaxing - what we had long-imagined our trip had been like. Except it was in an industrial estate carpark outside a mechanics in the back-streets of possibly the most boring town in England.

author Tim	location Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
posted 22:23 BST 18/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/South England/South England 2 ( all photos )

Stonehenge, Rosie throws a Clutch ( 28 photos )
By all rights, our body clocks told us that Monday morning was time for work. Not so, we had something else in mind - a trip to Stonehenge! To be honest, we had expectations held reasonably low on this one. Plenty of guidebooks have commented about how you are so far from the stones themselves that you might as well be somewhere else. Well, we were pleasantly suprised by it all.
Sure, there were way too many tourists there (it has to be said - the Americans certainly don't do much to fight-off their stereotypes when they travel in large groups, talk loudly, and generally complain about anything they can find), and it wasn't as good we felt as many of the sites we had seen up in Orkney, but we can now say we have done it.
In stark contrast, nearby and relatively unknown Woodhenge we visited earlier had nobody there but us, and we could walk all over it. This was not as visually impressive, however, the visible posts being concrete replicas of where the wooden ones were found to have stood.
It wasn't too far out from Stonehenge, in the rough direction of Cornwall, that I started to notice something was not all right with the Big Red Bus. We lost a lot of power climbing hills, and it seemed to get worse and worse. By the time we had jumped off the main road looking for the nearest town and landed in Yeovil, I had surmised the problem was with the clutch.
We limped in to the centre of town, and both agreed we had made a good decision in taking out Motoring and Travel insurance with the Caravan Club. We rang them up, they found us a local garage and directed us through.
Cutting out a lot of boring detail, we eventually found a garage not far out of the town centre who had the replacement clutch on overnight order. That sorted out, we only had to work out what to do with ourselves! First job was finding somewhere to stay. We stumbled on the less-than-impressive Preston Hotel, which provided average rooms, average food, and above average bills (Well, we have just started getting used to £8 per night caravan sites, so £55 is a big jump). Luckily, this was all paid for under the insurance, but we didn't like the look of the food on offer, so took a bus (number 001 - there's not many bus routes in Yeovil) into town to see what Yeovil was all about.
Honestly, not much. They have a pub called the Alice Springs, complete with over-the-top Steve Erwin-style Aussie-isms, but it was closed. As were plenty of others around town, and we had just missed the coffee shops. Later, as we wandered back to our hotel, we noted that the most lively place in town was the Yeovil Conservative Club. No joke.
In the mean-time, however, we made ourselves the first customers (and, actually, second-to-last) at what must be the biggest hotel in town. Ordering a drink, we grabbed the local paper for a read, and a "what's on" guide. Is it just me, or is it a bad omen when an already-thin guide to a city's night-life is half-filled with jokes? Not even funny ones, just ones obviously picked to fill the space so that perhaps visitors would not notice that there was nothing to do in such a place.
Eventually deciding that since our dinners were being paid for by the insurance, we would order as extravagantly as the town could provide, we went through to the lushly-appointed yet still somewhat lacking Dining Room, where the lights were turned on for us, and the CD player fired up with what we later found was Yeovil's only CD - a dreadful muzak compilation of concert-band mutilations of perfectly good pop music.
We ordered a food, then noticed with amusement that we were the only ones there. Not even a bartender was at the bar, just us and the muzak. We chatted about our poor luck with the van, and hoped that this was to be the worst of it.
The food arrived just as the Only CD finished, so the waited went over to change the CD. Only he didn't - he just pressed Play again. Wonderful. The food made up for the disappointment however, and the thought that we didn't have to pay the bill made it even better.
Somewhere during dinner, The CD finished, and a different bar-person decided that Play should once again be pressed. How we managed to sit there any longer I don't know, but by the time the CD finished again, we left. As we were waiting for the bill, I reached over the bar and pressed Play - somehow, this was what Yeovil wanted.

author Tim	location Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
posted 22:23 BST 18/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/South England/South England 2 ( all photos )

Hillside ( 9 photos )
(Continued from Working in London 2)
We said our goodbyes, then found our way back to the motorway. General aim for that day was pretty basic - get to Hillside Caravan Club site in one piece, relax, and organise the van a bit.
This all worked just fine, as we enjoyed our first relax in the sun with our outdoor chairs, a walk around the beautiful site, and a dinner at a great little nearby country pub with a fantastic and large outdoor section. Weather has been great!

(customised)