Towards France: Youghal, Tenby, Chipping Sodbury, Dover
Our time in Ireland coming to an end, it was time to meet the ferry to take us back to Pembroke, Wales. So, we drove east from Kerry for a few hours until we felt like stopping, then I arbitrarily picked a town on the sea that may yield a decent overnight spot.
This turned out to be Youghal, a delightful seaport town with Irish Heritage status. Much of the town wall, the first record of which is apparently dated 1275, is still present and marked by a rather impressive clocktower in the middle of the town. We found a park at the harbour, and went for a walk around the town in, as usual, the mist. The town sloped down towards the sea, so walking away from the harbour took us up above the town, giving us views over the rooftops to the boats moored offshore, hidden in the mist. Something about the town, perhaps the sense of eerie quiet, the mist, and the presence of the clocktower, gave me fond memories of Cyan’s Myst.
We were briefly and awkwardly witnesses to a funeral taking place in the main street, which we only identified as such after we curiously approached the large and dispersed group of quiet onlookers. We quickly and guiltily scurried back to Nettle.
Another day of driving followed, and we reached the Rosslare ferry port. We stayed the night tucked into an overgrown track to a field, while a storm raged around us.
Up early for the ferry the next day, and five hours later we were disembarking in Wales again. A brief stop for supplies (we accidentally exited the supermarket through a fire door, to our embarrassment), and we drove on.
We chose another arbitrary destination on the coast for a stop-over, a town called Tenby. Another jackpot: Tenby turned out to be a beautiful little seaside town, sunny and warm. We spent quite a while trying to find a park, with little success until we found a park located below the town, on the south beach. We took a walk around in the late afternoon sun, through the colourful little alleyways and along the promenade above the harbour, all pastel buildings and colourful yachts.
My aunt Marion told me while we were in Tenby that this was where my grandparents had their honeymoon, a delightful little fact.
Utterly failing to find anywhere in cramped Tenby to wild-camp, we drove further afield and found a nice little stretch of bitumen with a view over the sea in a nearby proto-village. We stayed the night, then returned to Tenby so Katherine could do a little shopping; I fussed about online back in Nettle, doing something or other that seemed of vital importance at the time.
A long drive towards Bristol and Chipping Sodbury, where we were to meet up with a motorhome service guy to get a couple of things looked at (including my dent from Kerry), followed by a longer amount of time driving around trying to find a decent place to stop overnight. It turns out, the UK is very difficult to free-camp in, or at least this part of the UK — everything is so densely packed, there’s no out-of-the-way places to park.
We ended up settling for the main street of Chipping Sodbury, which we knew at least was relatively nice and had parking. This choice turned out to have good and bad consequences.
The good we encountered relatively quickly: Having just had dinner (which was also lunch), I started feeling a little queasy. I slouched, then made to lie down, then thought I was going to throw up and headed for the bathroom. Then, everything started going dark, my ears started buzzing and I lost consciousness! The next thing I knew, a very distressed Katherine was next to me with the emergency services on the phone, and I made it known that I was back. Still woozy, I guiltily tried to let Katherine know I was okay, then the ambulance arrived outside. The two guys were brilliant, and did some poking and prodding. I discussed my prior history of blackouts with them, the most memorable of which was in primary school when I opened the door of the classroom, everyone watching from inside, then blacked out and fell backwards into the hallway — what an entrance. They surmised that I had blood pressure ‘on the low side of normal’, and that these things just happened sometimes. Drink plenty, eat regularly, plenty of protein and I’d be fine. Not that that made Katherine feel too much better; she told me that I actually passed out with my eyes open, so I looked like I was awake, but there was no one there. Jesus!
So, it was fortunate we were within reach of an ambulance — it was important that we had some answers and comfort. Later, when drunk passers-by were jumping on Nettle, we felt less positive about our choice of park. So, we moved the next day to a CL site 20 minutes or so away, very much enjoying the sense of security there.
A night there at the CL site, and the next morning we met up with Justin to get Nettle looked at. They did a great job ironing out the ding I put in the back (which Justin described as a ‘terrible injury’, to my great dismay and guilt), which is now almost as new. Phew. He left me with instructions for some DIY work, errant window blinds that wouldn’t close and a draft around the kitchen.
Quick Skype call to Timmy and Jen, our friends who had arrived from Australia on holiday, and who we are meeting in France, then a visit to the DVLA, the vehicle registration/licensing organisation for the UK, to tax Nettle. There’s an expense I’d rather not dwell on.
Finally, we were off on an epic 6 hour drive across the UK to Dover, arriving after dark. We found a road along the cliffs at the side of which we stopped for the night, then made our way into Dover proper. With time advancing, and not having yet managed to obtain maps for France due to some technical issues, we were getting a little concerned. Then, in the nick of time, we happened to park right within reach of an open wi-fi network, and in the final minutes before we were due at the ferry port, I managed to download the maps and load our GPS, Nigel, with them. Phew.
So, all set, we drove onto the ferry, said au revoir to England and watched Dover’s famous white cliffs recede. Next stop: France!
Bath
After our long walk, and quite possibly over-staying our welcome at Bath Chew Valley Caravan Park we moved on, to one of the certificated locations in Keynsham, a half-hour-or-so drive from Bath, and a relatively pleasant and uneventful drive from Bath Chew Valley. Much more sensibly-priced — something like £5/night. This was a grassy field next door to two very large and handsome Clydesdale horses. We parked during a sun-shower, washed the dishes (it was more fun than it sounds), and made dinner with leftovers from last night.
Errands to run, we drove the next morning into Bath, in search of a variety of things like a hose, bucket, liquid for the chemical toilet, and a few other bits and pieces. Being the very clever people we are, we checked ahead of time for a parking place, by looking on the Google Maps satellite image for a likely parking space near the Halfords shop we were aiming for. This, of course, turned out to be a multi-storey parking space with a height limit way below our height, so we ended up driving around for a while in search of a park. We spotted a very convenient one after about 5 or 10 minutes — a coach park, of all things, but also open to large vehicles. We parked amongst throngs of tourists disembarking from their tour buses and paid the hefty parking fee.
With little success had at Halfords, we pushed deeper into Bath, breezing past ancient Roman architecture and the imposing Bath Abbey, and found a Marks and Spencer store. Mid-shop we were caught by a salesman for the Marks and Spencer electricity company and asked about the electricity bill at home. In the non-committal, trying-to-avoid-eye-contact nothing-to-see-here way I address all people trying to sell me something, I explained that ‘home’ was actually a motorhome and our electricity was a non-issue. He immediately brightened and took an interest in our travels. Instant friends, we spoke for a few minutes, and he recommended a few activities in the UK: Paragliding in the Lake District (he recommended a guy he had paraglided with), and Guy Fawkes’ night in a village in the south where festivities are particularly entertaining, in a bring-your-own-skin-graft-surgeon way.
After a fare-well, we pushed on and finished up, having acquired a hose, bucket, bike straps and lock and a nifty gas-burner-toaster thing. Along the way we found a brochure for a ‘Bizarre Bath’ comedy walking tour which sounded particularly appealing. Back with Nettle, we scratched our heads for a while over whether to drive back to our field, and return later for the walking tour at 8, or whether to pay the £7 ($14-ish!) to stay on and have a walk of our own first. We opted for the latter, having made plans to see Steve the next day to get the final bit of work done on Nettle and thus not being able to stay on around Bath another day.
So, we went on our own walking tour, one Katherine found in a book at Pauline and Bill’s (my great aunt and uncle’s) house. It took us into the Abbey, an immense, mind-boggling and beautiful construction, eerily silent and reverential inside, lined with epitaphs going back centuries, extending across the worn floors and spilling up the walls, and with acres of intricate scenes in stained glass.
Onwards, through the very pretty Parade Gardens, across the Pulteney Bridge and back, through streets that largely look as if they haven’t changed in centuries, past some sweeping arcs of Roman-esque apartment buildings at The Circus and Royal Crescent and meandering our way back to Nettle for baked beans on toast and time to rest our aching feet.
Time having arrived for the Bizarre Bath walking tour, we followed the trusty purple line on my iPhone to the start of the walk, paid our host JJ, and waited for the other fifty people or so there to do the same — with JJ’s brilliant ad-libbing, this turned out to be very good entertainment in itself.
The walk, entirely devoid of history (at least, the true kind) or other touristy stuff, was utterly brilliant, eye-wateringly hilarious, even in the unscripted moments, and something I couldn’t recommend more. It had cheeky digs at surrounding architecture, passers-by and members of the audience, awful puns, rollicking anecdotes and plenty of magic tricks. If you’re ever in Bath, do it — 8 pm every night.
So, back to Nettle and back to the field for the night. Up the next morning and we prepared to leave for our next neighbourhood, but not without stopping to admire a yellow field with tyre tracks going through it, filled with little white flowers. Wow.
