39. Day 34 – Now in the United Kingdom, from Salisbury to Bodmin
Tuesday 14 November 2006
We are back in the Earthroamer again after an absence of 8 weeks. In that time, our trusty vehicle has been shipped across the Atlantic.
The shipping cost was $3,418.59 AUD plus $565.63 handling and customs our special UK and Europe Green Card insurance was $1,126.00 AUD for 12 months. It arrived in Southampton and our friend Tony Salmon retrieved it and drove it to the Westfields storage sheds at Dinton, close to Salisbury.
The premises appeared to be a World War II military base – with huge sheds. A very friendly family was running the organisation and the charge was a reasonable £17.50 (AUD $44) plus VAT per week. The total storage amount was £120 including VAT (AUD $304).
After a long flight on Singapore Airlines, we spent a couple of nights in London, seeing our friends, the Salmons, and also Jennifer Murray and her husband Simon. We discussed Jennifer’s planned trip from Pole to Pole in a Bell helicopter.
We visited Elaine, Tony and Henry Salmon in London and had a look at Google Earth on their computer
I don’t think we quite realised how cold November is in the United Kingdom, how it gets dark by about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and how the sun doesn’t seem to come out at all in the morning!
We caught the train from London down to Salisbury and got a taxi to the storage sheds
It was raining as we prepared the vehicle in the shed. Dick had purchased a new Garmin GPS with the UK roads, and also a LCD TV set to replace the American unit – the standards are not compatible. Amazingly enough, the 4 mounting holes used for the bracket coincided with the unit bought in Edgware Road – quite extraordinary.
Earthroamer had sent some special silicon grease to us at the Peninsula Hotel in New York. This was to be used for repairing some leaks. When we were driving in the United States, during the rare rainy times, we ended up with water on our king size bed. Dick put the silicon around the outside of the windows and the hatch, and we later found that the problem was fixed.
We found our Earthroamer inside the storage shed at Westfields and Dick installed the UK TV and put the silicon grease around the front windows to stop them leaking.
This is really an additional part of our trip. If you look at our map, the plan was to go from London across the straits of Dover and head towards Vladivostok via Europe. We decided on this extra trip so we could drive from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Or, more to the point, from “the lizard” – the southern most point of the United Kingdom – to Dunnet Head – the northern most point of Scotland.
We headed off at 1.45pm. It was overcast and 60º Fahrenheit outside. Just before departing, Dick filled the water tanks. They had been emptied because of the sea passage and the potential of freezing in the cold.
We were soon heading west, with Dick driving. It was quite a challenge because the vehicle is left hand drive, and here we were on the left hand side of the road. Dick managed to get a sight line with the bonnet to work out how to keep on the left hand side of the road as much as possible. Of course, this problem will only exist for our two week drive in the UK. Once we are over in The Continent, we will be back on the “correct” side of the road for this vehicle.
Thatched cottages along the road in Dinton
We initially headed west on the A303, which connected with the famous A30 – one of the original roads to the south west of England. Dick noticed how, in the 40 years since he first drove extensively in the UK (in 1966) that the roads had improved greatly.
Heading west on the A303 with autumn colours
We were in miserable weather, but still passing through the magnificent English countryside. At one stage we joined on to the M5 near Exeter, but were then back on the A30.
Clean white English sheep beside the highway
It was almost pitch dark by 4.30pm, so we turned off the highway at Bodmin and stopped in the car park of a supermarket called ASDA. It had a sign saying it was part of Wal-Mart. We said, “Well, seeing you can park in Wal-Mart car parks in the USA, surely you can park in ASDA car parks here.” That is what we did.
We stayed overnight in the ASDA supermarket car park
While Pip did a big shop and bought at least a week’s worth of food, Dick worked on getting the TV aerial working.
The shops closed at 9.00pm and after a quick dinner we were soon asleep.
