Here In My Car
What? A driving adventure. Oh yes.
My Manitoba licence was due to expire on Wednesday. I had decided that before that happened I needed to do some driving, just in case I wasn't able to sort out a renewal. Finding a good deal on a day's rental was proving a bit of a challenge. So too was the manual-transmission-heavy market here in the UK. Having only ever owned and driven automatic cars, a manual gearbox mixed with opposite-side-of-the-car, opposite-side-of-the-road driving was a bit much to take. Renting automatics seems to be slightly more expensive and a rental agency's stock usually only seems to be about ten percent automatic.
Another problem seemed to be Sunday closures. Car rental (or hire as they say here) places, except for those at the airport, always seem to be closed Sunday. Many of them do not offer a key drop-off service. I think this is a way to force the renter to rent for the full weekend. I only wanted to pick up the car Saturday and drop it off Sunday. But, after much Internet searching I found a decent deal that suited my high demands.
On my way to the pick-up point, I got a call telling me that there was no automatic available at the location I booked for, but there was one at this other location. I located it on a map and began walking there, arriving a good half-hour past my scheduled time. It was a tad bit farther than I had thought. Nevertheless, I did the paperwork, sorted out the deposits for petrol, rented a satnav to make my travels a bit easier, and then sat myself down, for the first time, in the driver's seat of a right-hand drive car. They didn't have the VW Golf I had booked, so I had to settle for a Mercedes. Oh well.
I pulled out onto the road and was moving. Not so bad. I didn't have any desire to drive on the wrong side of the road. It just felt natural being at the centre of the road, as I would be were I driving back home. The weirdest thing about it though, seemed to be having the rearview mirror in my left eye rather than my right. That and the muscle memory response of grabbing for the seatbelt over my left shoulder.
I got to my first lefthand turn, which is the narrow one, and negotiated it a bit hastily, mounting the kerb (UK spelling) which was a bit embarrassing, but I thought nothing of it, as people drive over kerbs all the time here. In fact they very often park with one side of the car up on the sidewalk (or pavement as they call it here). I carried on down Gloucester Road, and made my way toward homebase so I could drive around in my neighbourhood a bit. I did the Whitetree Roundabout and navigated it successfully. No big deal really. Then a light came on telling me to check tyre pressure (again with the UK spelling). I pulled into the grocery store carpark (parking lot to you and me) and stepped out of the car to see a completely flat front passenger tyre. This was hardly working out as I'd hoped. I had visions in my head of spending the following week's paycheque on rental car repairs.
Luckily there was £500 deductible and a 24-hour roadside assistance number to call. Within a half-hour the Mercedes man came by and put the spare tyre on for me. It became clear then, that there was indeed a tear in the wall and it would have to be replaced. I took it to the nearest rental-agency-approved garage and watched my rental time tick by while they checked over the car and changed the tyre. I was finally on my way.
Back at the house, I told my housemate, Arun, that I had a car and he was keen to go for a ride. Daylight savings time meant that there was plenty of light left, and the satnav meant that we could go anywhere and not get lost. We drove up to Westbury-on-Trym to grab a bite, and then onto Blaise Castle. Arun had not yet seen the sea so I told him we could see it from there. Once there he asked how far it was. I said it was a few miles away, and he shot me a look that I read in an instant as, "Let's go there." We headed into the sun toward Severn Beach on the Bristol Channel, where the Second Severn Crossing meets the English side of the water. Arun, being from India and accustomed to right-hand drive, coached me as I tended to veer to the left. The narrow roads really threw me off. It makes me realise how wide Canadian roads really are.
After a few detours and redirects, we made it to the edge of the land. A walkway along the dike offers great views of the bridge, and the sun was just setting over the water. Brean Down at Weston-super-Mare was visible in the distance, as was South Wales, and a large ocean liner or two. Before the light disappeared we headed back. I had had enough experience for one day. The following day I was to take it up a notch.
There are a few places I've wanted to visit near me that I've been unable to do because of the lack of easy and affordable transport. One is Avebury, a stonehenge, not far from Stonehenge, that is actually much larger, encircles an entire village, and is completely free and open to the public. Arun and I left the house fairly early in order to get there and back before the car was due back at 2:00pm. Just past the edge of town, I found my driving wings, on the Motorway.
Motorways are a wonderful way to get around Britain. Sure one misses a lot when whizzing through the countryside at 70+ mph, but they are straight, smooth and wonderfully systematic (when they aren't bunged up by an accident or breakdown). Most of the journey was spent on the M4, the main east-west Motorway in The South that links London to Swansea. We stopped at a Moto near Swindon and then carried on. Once off the Motorway, onto an A road, it got a bit more country. The road was narrowing and wound through fields and forests. Eventually, after about an hour's driving, we arrived in Avebury.
We parked and walked through a car boot sale, browsing for a bit, before heading toward the stone circle. A wide, deep ditch surrounds the entire site, and the large monoliths dot the perimeter. Thinking nothing of the historical or rather prehistorical value of the stones, the people of the past chipped away at these monuments to use them for building material. In place of some of the absent stones, markers have been added to complete the circle. Sheep graze freely amidst the stones, and visitors are welcome to walk though and touch the ancient rock.
In the centre is a pub, a few shops, some houses, and a converted barn, now a museum, created using UNESCO money. It was a warm sunny day, and great to be out in the Wiltshire countryside. It was only about 10:30am when we had gotten there, so the tourists were only starting to arrive. Arun and I walked around the entire circle, which has a circumference of nearly one mile. There were many leavings-of-sheep to avoid on the walk so one tended to keep one's head down for the most part.
Once back at the car, I consulted the satnav to find out how far we were from Stonehenge. I knew we wouldn't have time to actually visit. It isn't as free and open as Avebury, but I was hoping to drive past it along the A360, and then loop back up past Woodhenge, a few miles away before heading back toward the M4. Unfortunately my faithful electronic navigator informed me that it would take forty minutes to get there, and since it was the opposite direction to Bristol, it wasn't going to be possible to head down that way. We opted instead to stop by Silbury Hill, just a few miles from Avebury, the largest pre-historic mound in Europe. There has been recent engineering works on the hill lately after a hole mysteriously appeared on top. Visiting the site entails little more than standing several hundred yards from it to read placards about it. It was an impressive construction but a very brief stop.
We managed to get back to Bristol in good time. I dropped Arun off at the house and then proceeded to the filling station down the road to top up with unleaded that was a whopping £1.18 per litre. I made it back to the rental place with time to spare, dropping the keys in the slot. I hoped that would be last I heard from them, and that the tyre didn't come back to haunt me. I enjoyed a nice sunny and warm walk back.
As Wednesday approached I hastily decided that I wanted to trade in the licence for a British one, and concluded that the only way to do that, in order to submit the expiring licence before it expired and avoid putting my passport in the mail, was to visit the Driver & Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA) headquarters in Swansea, Wales. So I took a day off work, got on the train with all the necessary documentation and showed up for a five minute sign-on-the-dotted-line transaction. £54 and four days later, I was in possession of a virtually non-expiring valid UK licence. I suppose I'll have to do a bit more driving now.
Click here for photos.
Cheers.
My Manitoba licence was due to expire on Wednesday. I had decided that before that happened I needed to do some driving, just in case I wasn't able to sort out a renewal. Finding a good deal on a day's rental was proving a bit of a challenge. So too was the manual-transmission-heavy market here in the UK. Having only ever owned and driven automatic cars, a manual gearbox mixed with opposite-side-of-the-car, opposite-side-of-the-road driving was a bit much to take. Renting automatics seems to be slightly more expensive and a rental agency's stock usually only seems to be about ten percent automatic.Another problem seemed to be Sunday closures. Car rental (or hire as they say here) places, except for those at the airport, always seem to be closed Sunday. Many of them do not offer a key drop-off service. I think this is a way to force the renter to rent for the full weekend. I only wanted to pick up the car Saturday and drop it off Sunday. But, after much Internet searching I found a decent deal that suited my high demands.
On my way to the pick-up point, I got a call telling me that there was no automatic available at the location I booked for, but there was one at this other location. I located it on a map and began walking there, arriving a good half-hour past my scheduled time. It was a tad bit farther than I had thought. Nevertheless, I did the paperwork, sorted out the deposits for petrol, rented a satnav to make my travels a bit easier, and then sat myself down, for the first time, in the driver's seat of a right-hand drive car. They didn't have the VW Golf I had booked, so I had to settle for a Mercedes. Oh well.
I pulled out onto the road and was moving. Not so bad. I didn't have any desire to drive on the wrong side of the road. It just felt natural being at the centre of the road, as I would be were I driving back home. The weirdest thing about it though, seemed to be having the rearview mirror in my left eye rather than my right. That and the muscle memory response of grabbing for the seatbelt over my left shoulder.
I got to my first lefthand turn, which is the narrow one, and negotiated it a bit hastily, mounting the kerb (UK spelling) which was a bit embarrassing, but I thought nothing of it, as people drive over kerbs all the time here. In fact they very often park with one side of the car up on the sidewalk (or pavement as they call it here). I carried on down Gloucester Road, and made my way toward homebase so I could drive around in my neighbourhood a bit. I did the Whitetree Roundabout and navigated it successfully. No big deal really. Then a light came on telling me to check tyre pressure (again with the UK spelling). I pulled into the grocery store carpark (parking lot to you and me) and stepped out of the car to see a completely flat front passenger tyre. This was hardly working out as I'd hoped. I had visions in my head of spending the following week's paycheque on rental car repairs.
Luckily there was £500 deductible and a 24-hour roadside assistance number to call. Within a half-hour the Mercedes man came by and put the spare tyre on for me. It became clear then, that there was indeed a tear in the wall and it would have to be replaced. I took it to the nearest rental-agency-approved garage and watched my rental time tick by while they checked over the car and changed the tyre. I was finally on my way.
Back at the house, I told my housemate, Arun, that I had a car and he was keen to go for a ride. Daylight savings time meant that there was plenty of light left, and the satnav meant that we could go anywhere and not get lost. We drove up to Westbury-on-Trym to grab a bite, and then onto Blaise Castle. Arun had not yet seen the sea so I told him we could see it from there. Once there he asked how far it was. I said it was a few miles away, and he shot me a look that I read in an instant as, "Let's go there." We headed into the sun toward Severn Beach on the Bristol Channel, where the Second Severn Crossing meets the English side of the water. Arun, being from India and accustomed to right-hand drive, coached me as I tended to veer to the left. The narrow roads really threw me off. It makes me realise how wide Canadian roads really are.
After a few detours and redirects, we made it to the edge of the land. A walkway along the dike offers great views of the bridge, and the sun was just setting over the water. Brean Down at Weston-super-Mare was visible in the distance, as was South Wales, and a large ocean liner or two. Before the light disappeared we headed back. I had had enough experience for one day. The following day I was to take it up a notch.
There are a few places I've wanted to visit near me that I've been unable to do because of the lack of easy and affordable transport. One is Avebury, a stonehenge, not far from Stonehenge, that is actually much larger, encircles an entire village, and is completely free and open to the public. Arun and I left the house fairly early in order to get there and back before the car was due back at 2:00pm. Just past the edge of town, I found my driving wings, on the Motorway.
Motorways are a wonderful way to get around Britain. Sure one misses a lot when whizzing through the countryside at 70+ mph, but they are straight, smooth and wonderfully systematic (when they aren't bunged up by an accident or breakdown). Most of the journey was spent on the M4, the main east-west Motorway in The South that links London to Swansea. We stopped at a Moto near Swindon and then carried on. Once off the Motorway, onto an A road, it got a bit more country. The road was narrowing and wound through fields and forests. Eventually, after about an hour's driving, we arrived in Avebury.
We parked and walked through a car boot sale, browsing for a bit, before heading toward the stone circle. A wide, deep ditch surrounds the entire site, and the large monoliths dot the perimeter. Thinking nothing of the historical or rather prehistorical value of the stones, the people of the past chipped away at these monuments to use them for building material. In place of some of the absent stones, markers have been added to complete the circle. Sheep graze freely amidst the stones, and visitors are welcome to walk though and touch the ancient rock.
In the centre is a pub, a few shops, some houses, and a converted barn, now a museum, created using UNESCO money. It was a warm sunny day, and great to be out in the Wiltshire countryside. It was only about 10:30am when we had gotten there, so the tourists were only starting to arrive. Arun and I walked around the entire circle, which has a circumference of nearly one mile. There were many leavings-of-sheep to avoid on the walk so one tended to keep one's head down for the most part.
Once back at the car, I consulted the satnav to find out how far we were from Stonehenge. I knew we wouldn't have time to actually visit. It isn't as free and open as Avebury, but I was hoping to drive past it along the A360, and then loop back up past Woodhenge, a few miles away before heading back toward the M4. Unfortunately my faithful electronic navigator informed me that it would take forty minutes to get there, and since it was the opposite direction to Bristol, it wasn't going to be possible to head down that way. We opted instead to stop by Silbury Hill, just a few miles from Avebury, the largest pre-historic mound in Europe. There has been recent engineering works on the hill lately after a hole mysteriously appeared on top. Visiting the site entails little more than standing several hundred yards from it to read placards about it. It was an impressive construction but a very brief stop.
We managed to get back to Bristol in good time. I dropped Arun off at the house and then proceeded to the filling station down the road to top up with unleaded that was a whopping £1.18 per litre. I made it back to the rental place with time to spare, dropping the keys in the slot. I hoped that would be last I heard from them, and that the tyre didn't come back to haunt me. I enjoyed a nice sunny and warm walk back.
As Wednesday approached I hastily decided that I wanted to trade in the licence for a British one, and concluded that the only way to do that, in order to submit the expiring licence before it expired and avoid putting my passport in the mail, was to visit the Driver & Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA) headquarters in Swansea, Wales. So I took a day off work, got on the train with all the necessary documentation and showed up for a five minute sign-on-the-dotted-line transaction. £54 and four days later, I was in possession of a virtually non-expiring valid UK licence. I suppose I'll have to do a bit more driving now.
Click here for photos.
Cheers.
posted by Mark Bauche at 7:47 PM
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