Last year I was visiting nothern France with my dad, visiting WW 2 museums and the like and eventually we ended up in Calais. My dad told me this is where you could take the ferry to south eastern England and I really wanted to see what the UK was like sometime, but we didn't have the time to go there back then. This is why we decided to visit the UK this year. When it was decided we were going there, me and Bryn (better known as HBrutusH) inmediatly said we should meet up sometime, so I convinced my dad to visit Exeter, in the south west of England.
We left our home at tuesday the 22nd at about 2 PM. We were quite fortunate, as the Dutch traffic wasn't that busy. Because with 17 million people living in such a tiny country, it gets very cramped on the roads most of the time.
After three hours of driving, we had already reached Calais. We didn't reserve the ferry or anything, so we just hoped we could get a ticket and board the next departure. We did get a ticket, so we boarded about an hour later. It took us about 75 minutes to get to Dover, from where we would drive to the nearest campsite, as it was getting late. We spent the night in Folkestone, quite a boring town, near Dover. I would not recommend anyone to go here. It's boring and there's nothing to do
The ferry
The next day we wanted to get to Bovington, where one of the world's biggest tank museums is. On our drive from Folkestone to Bovington, we realized why everyone hates the English roads and infrastructure so much: on the map it was marked as a highway, but it was actually just a one lane road, where you could only drive about 30 mph and the horrible roundabouts made it even worse. Because of this, we were making very slow progress. It was only 180 miles, but it took us 7 hours. Needlessly to say, we were tired and pissed off when we finally arrived at the tank museum. This was located in an English army training area, which was pretty cool to see. Everywhere around the museum were ramps and pitches, where the army trained.
Pics
The museum closed at 5 PM and we arrived there at 3, so unfortunately we didn't have that much time to look around the museum, because it was absolutely huge. They had a great variety of tanks and armoured vehicles, which will be shown on the pics.
After visiting the museum, we didn't feel like driving anymore at all, so we set up our tent on a campsite near Wool, only a 15 minute drive from the museum. The campsite itself was nice, but it was incredibly noisy: there was a railroad about 200 meters away from our tent and there was a very busy road leading past the camping as well. The railroad wouldn't have been so annoying, if it weren't horning twice when it came past the camping all the time, because there was a crossing close by.
Anyway, I realize this travel log is getting long, so I'm just going to skip the boring parts.
The third day we were planning on driving from Wool to Exeter, where we wanted to meet Bryn. But the lazy bastard had only given me his home number, which his family never answers, so I couldn't reach him. We went by his house anyway (although we didn't know which one it was - only the area it was supposed to be in) and after asking all his neighbours we found out where he lived. We left him a postcard and drove to the west, to Dartmoor. This was my dad's idea, he likes to see nature and walk around and stuff (lame). On the map there were like 5 campsites near Dartmoor, but the ones closest to Exeter were all either full, or we were only able to stay for one night. Finally we chose one of those last ones. Meanwhile, I was trying to call Bryn all day and at last, I reached him at about 8 PM. We would see eachother the next day at his house.
So we got to his (huuuge) house at 11 AM and met him. It was great meeting him for real, after a year of playing Battlefield and chatting with him. I stayed there the whole afternoon, playing GTA IV, audiosurfing, getting shot in the leg with a BB gun, letting Bryn show me around in Exeter, eating Crunchies (very nice) and reading the -F- forums (yes, way to spend your afternoon with someone you just saw for the first time)
Crappy picture from Bryn's room, made with my mobile phone
The other days aren't all that interesting, we went to Wales and found a nice camping, where 15 of these weird Spanish/Portugese people, all dressed in all white clothing, were doing weird stuff. (my dad thought they were druids) Here they are, performing their morning ritual:
Things I found out about the UK:
- English food makes you fart... alot
- The English LOVE roundabouts.. I don't
- The English roads SUCK
- There isn't much you can do in Wales or Dartmoor except for hiking
- Bryn has a large house
- It doesn't always rain in England
- English people are fat
- English chicks like to wear very short skirts
Now I will start uploading pictures. (hopefully)
Holiday report: Concr3te in England
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