Follow the travel diary of Val and Rosney (The Man) as they travel to the UK via Vancouver one way and San Francisco on the return trip. The self-drive ‘innocents abroad’ expedition was planned in celebration of The Man’s 70th birthday to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors.
Stratford on Avon (Shakespeare’s birthplace)
After a solid night’s sleep, had a navigational pow-wow over breakfast then further instructions from the helpful lady at the checkout desk… next, stop Chester via Hope Bagot where the Downes side of my family originated from (Downes was my maiden name) (2010).
It seemed appropriate on this day that there was light drizzle falling, it is what would be referred to in NZ as ‘weeping from the heavens’, an expression of grief at a loss, or a blessing (tears of joy) for the future. We are at Hope Bagot, where my family originated from. For the last part of the trip there was little signage, so we ended up following a local farmer along a narrow, overgrown country road with wild hedgerows until we came across the church of St John the Baptist. The farmer then tooted and drove on.
Finding where you came from after all these years is a mixture of all crazy emotions, and once again like when we visited the graves of the pioneers (that set out from Hope Bagot – now buried in Blue Skin Bay NZ) an almost haunting sensation lingers, akin to finding yourself stepping into history. The church was open, but we were the only ones about, which seemed somehow appropriate. After introducing myself to ancestors (a polite thing to do), I wandered about, just feeling and inhaling the moment, and I guess looking for a special something to crawl out of the ancient woodwork. This is a beautiful part of the country, the land looks rich and fertile and had to I wonder why the two Downes brothers packed up their sacks and undertook the journey to a land unknown . . . but I’m glad they did.
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From my ‘home town’ of Hope Bagot we carried on to Chester where we were booked in at the Albion Inn, which had been kept as a memorial to the soldiers that went off to fight in the World Wars – many of whom had stayed there in transit before being posted overseas. Our upstairs room was cute-as, with two single soft-as beds, which I decided I could handle as I needed some real sleep as I hadn’t slept well the night before (room too hot). Our room is quiet and we can actually open a window, which is super-lovely all that fresh air coming in. Chester is a magical town with a military history that goes way back to the days of knights, kings, queens and most likely a dragon or two. We walked the streets, and along the top of the Roman wall that encircles the town – if you visit the UK and miss out on Chester, then you are really missing something special. Come evening we had a beer at the Albion with a meal to follow . . . then it was off to bed . . .
I am going to wet my pants, it’s only a matter of time… we are travelling from Chester to Lancaster, and even after receiving explicit instruction from Christine at the Albian we have missed the turn-off, instead, we find ourselves on some damnable ring-road going round-and-round Manchester. This is the last place in the world that we wanted to be, and it is pissing down with rain, can hardly see out the car windows, while huge trucks are thundering all about. OMG this must be the busiest road in the whole world, and we have no idea how to get out of this situation, and I desperately want to go to the loo.
We find a place to pull over to check the map: Been told to look out for a sign that says NORTH. And off we go again. I have to say things were getting very tense, The Man is grimly holding the wheel while gritting his teeth, while I’m looking out for navigational signs with legs firmly crossed. Then out of nowhere, it appears, a sign that reads NORTH. Finally! The next sign reads LANCASTER, and the world suddenly brightens. At this stage I was getting desperate enough to considering piddling on the roadside verge, that is, if we could find a place to pull over when blessed-be a sign appears that reads: ‘Service stop ahead.’ And stop we did, I raced to the loo and I would have bowled anyone over that got in my way (phew). Afterwards, we had coffee and Danish pastries at the café, where I took note the passengers from every car that stopped, raced grim-faced directly to the loo. . .
We also got lost finding our accommodation in Lancaster, but the less said about that the better.
The Mill Inn once we found it was perfect. We had a big upstairs room with everything a Kiwi away from home could desire, except for a large roof-window which let all the light in. Off to do some exploring, we motored seaward to the local fishing village, which was so quaint and wandered around then had a delicious afternoon tea. Arrived back at the Inn, tidied our clothing then wandered down to the bar and were quickly adopted by a group of hard-case locals, who were enthusiastic at befriending two NZ wanderers. While we scoffed back some handles we had a view out over a perfect view of the English countryside, blue sky, green fields with cows grazing, quaint canal boats . . . however, in the distance you could see this grey outline on the horizon, if someone had asked me to guess what it was, I would’ve said a massive prison, or maybe an evil fortress of Mordor. When our new buddies told us it was a Nuclear Power Station, my heart sunk to my shoes, and for once I was lost for words . . .
The Mill Inn was to close shortly and was going to be turned into a children’s home.
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Both tired this morning and not in the mood for heading onwards – another day here with white swan watching and canal boats seems happier, but we prepare for heading onward. A scrummy breakfast at the Mill Inn, and for once we do remember to fill our water bottles. The weather is not as bad as forecasted with more blue sky than grey, but the wind is damn cold. We make our way back to the main drag, and headed north, and are chuffed to make it to the other side of Lancaster without any major incident.
The plot is to stop at Windermere for a romantic knights of the round table lunch – however we miss the A590 turnoff and settle for a longer-more inland route, therefore, missing some of Windermere, which was probably a bad option as when we arrive we find Windermere overrun with tour buses and a million motorists all fighting for a car park. It takes an age to find a park a thousand miles from nowhere, then trudge back into town and join a queue to get something to eat at a local water-front café (no romance). Most of the other diners were on bus tours and a group kindly let us share their table as otherwise, we would have been eating standing up. Afterwards, we wandered with the hoards admiring the swans and waterfront, the swans nearly outnumbering their admirers, but much better mannered. Dreams of knights and romance now dead, we take to the hills over Kirkstone Pass – most memorable with beaut county and narrow lane dipsy roads, long wooled sheep and stone walls ending up at Lake Ullswater where the lake steamers were filled with tourists and the land inhabited by hearty human ramblers. Traveling on, we make it through Penrith without getting lost but it takes a frustrating time to find out accommodation once we get to Carlisle.
We had dreams of tracking down a walk on Hadrian’s Wall, but the tour season appears to be over, and it ain’t easy to find by ourselves we are told – tomorrow is a day off from driving, so can think of better things to do than spend the day getting lost. After dining at our hotel (meal was part of the deal) – it was off to our room, went to daintily step in the shower, which was over a big bath, put one foot in and foot slipped and the bird when down with little dignity – one leg in the bath, the other on the bathroom floor, with much bruising to follow. I rang management and they sent apologies and a rubber shower mat.
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We’re spending the day sightseeing, but this was after going to the public library and purchasing some internet time to catch up with emails.
The next stop was Carlisle castle – a truly amazing piece of history put together stone by stone – but the romantic side of me finds castles quite gloomy, and I can’t imagine tripping about the place in long dresses – more like battlefield stuff than the queen of the castle fairy-tale theme, and what a job doing the housework! After winding our way up and down narrow winding stairs and walking the castle walls we meandered our way back to town via a pedestrian tunnel.
The Man was happy to do crosswords for a time while I had a look at the ladies wear shops and actually bought myself something, a long sleeved top that will help fill the void re. the-me-clothing I left behind in Vancouver. Also ventured into the Boots Store and purchased face cream that Nita had asked me to bring back for her.
Later that afternoon we wandered about seeing if we could find somewhere to eat out that night – the best bet was a pub not far from our hotel, but after stopping to have a beer I didn’t feel comfortable, there were a group of young mothers there with small babes in arms, a group of louts moved in and were ‘making moves’ which the girls were busy playing along with in exchange for free drinks – there was a near punch-up which The Man found entertaining, but being a wimp it was enough to send me scurrying for safety. I’ve made a note in my travel-log that the general feel of the city is rougher than we have encountered before, and wondered if we were now in the less prosperous North England?
We went back to the hotel, and while having pre-dinner drinks met up with a couple from New Zealand who were having a WONDERFUL RELAXING time doing a train-trip of the UK from top to toe. As train-tripping was an idea I’d had when planning this trip, (which The Man didn’t agree with), the fun tales of relaxed-sipping-wine, meeting new people while the beautiful country side rolled by, left me feeling quite deflated. Anyways, we had a lovely hotel meal, then went to our room for an intense map reading session to sort out how in the hell we were going to attack finding our way into Glasgow tomorrow.
The hotel Hallmark was NZ$204 for two nights, two breakfasts, two main meals and two bottles of wine – not bad! Had a solid night’s sleep, and cutely enough found the biggest spider in the world in the bathtub the next morning. He was having trouble getting out, so gave him a cautious helping hand and set him free out the window to take-over and terrify the population of Carlisle City.
To be continued….
By Val Bird
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