New Year holidays - 1 day

I wanted to start from the beginning which is Christmas and the days leading up to christmas but since the New Years holidays is still fresh in my mind, I will recount my new year holidays first.

Firstly, I am glad that we bought the lonely planet guide to Britian, without it, it would be difficult trying to work out where to go. There are so many places to visit in UK alone. Imagine the whole of Europe!! When you start to list the places you want to visit then the task becomes daunting. I don't think/believe that I can visit all the places in the world. I remember Tan, being a practical and focus woman, asking me to list out where we (more of where I want to go) want to go. I start to list out some places in europe and then my attention would focus on Asia, Africa and South America.

When you think about it, as King Solomon, the wisest man on earth lamented in Ecc 1:8 "All things are wearisome, more than once can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing", we will never fully be satisfy. there are always more places to see and to visit. I guess one must be sensible to realise that time and finances is not on our side and to prioritise the places one really wants to visit.

Tan also points out another intresting point "What does one gain with seeing all the sights? (my paraphrase)". For one thing, it is not going to feed you when you grow old. I guess there is a balance, should one settle down and start to build for the future or wonder around the world seeing fantastic sights and not prepared for the future.

The future is something we cannot predict and our well laid plans could be gone just like that. I guess, for me, I want to live life and to have an adventure when we can. I guess Tan, being a woman (I am generalising) wants security.

Sorry about that.. back to our adventures during the New Year holidays. Well we, when I say we, it is mainly "I", as I am the one who is doing the planning for our holidays and where we go. I would say "wow, isn't that building nice, look at that cathedral", Tan would just say "IT is ok, they all look the same".

So.. as we don't have a car yet. We hired a car from Hertz for 4 days starting from New year's eve on Friday and returning the car on Tuesday morning. Tan still had to work on Friday. We booked the cheapest car from a reputable car hiring company namely Hertz. We seems to alway rent from hertz, we rented from there in NZ and when we were in Canberra. I normally seems to only get quotes Hertz, Avis, National and budget. and most of the time Hertz has the best rates.

We hired a Ford Ka or equivalent which could be a Smart car fourtwo. I am not sure if you have come across the Smart car? I think it was designed by Mercedes and Swatch (yes the watch maker). I was secretly hoping that we won't get either of those cars and get upgraded to something with a bit more grunt. The Ford Ka has a 1.1L engine I think. The smart car is too eye catching even for me.

It was exciting having car, we could buy things we otherwise won't be able to. On Friday when i picked up the car, they have upgraded us to a Hyundai Getz. Still a small car but with four doors and a 1.3L engine. The car has only done around 300mils, thus a practical brand new car. I was trhills and exciting as i got behind the wheels, at the same time I a bit worried about driving in the UK for the first time with small congested streets, different rules and signs and different drivers attitude.

The first place I went to was IKEA. I brought a portable cloth line/hanger/rack so that we can dry our cloths in our bathroom without having to go to the laundrette all the time. The second item is an ironing board. I then went to Tesco and did a big grocery shopping.

Shopping in UK is similar to Australia. The big 4 supermarkets here are Tesco, ASDA-Walmart, Sainsbury and Morrison-Safeway. Our local shop here is a Sainsbury which is a 5 mins walk. ASDA is supposely to be the cheapest follow by Tesco. Sainsbury is not that cheap in comparison.

One major differences with the shopping here is that all the supermarkets has their own brand. like Coles having home-brand and Woolworth having ???? i can't remember what Woolworth's homebrand is called. Anyway, home brand is a big thing here and their homebrand has different quality level of goods for the same thing. Like tesco has normal Tesco brand and finest, which is a bit dearer then normal tesco stuff but are cheaper than other brands.

The second thing is that the packaging of the home-brand products are impressive, in many case they have better packing than the other brands. In Australia the reverse is true.

We normally shop home brand whether it is Sainsbury, Tesco or ASDA. They are cheaper and quality is similar to other brands.

Enough of grocery shopping. So, in effect, we have 3 days of exploring with our car. I didn't really want to stay in a hotel/motel and didn't want to travel far, just our surrounding area by going in a loop and finishing back in Bristol.

The first day, which is New Year Saturday, I decided to visit Wales, South Eastern Wales. Bristol is very close to Wales thanks to the two bridges which crosses the Severn river? and it only takes 45mins to get to Cardiff across the bridges. The catch is that you have to pay a toll of $4.80 into Wales but you are not required to pay toll on the way back. It is a one way toll.

So, not wanting to pay the toll and as this is a holiday we decided to drive to Gloucester, which is at the mouth of the river and thus were able to get to Wales on land without crossing the river. We plotted our course on the www.theaa.co.uk website and it tells you the approximate travel time. The site is similar to www.whereis.com.au? .

By going around the river, the journey to Cardiff takes about 2 1/2 hours but we didn't care as we were not planning to go to Cardiff directly. It is not easy planning a trip as you are not sure how long it is going to take. I wanted to go all the way to Swansea but glad that we didn't. We just didn't have enough time.

Finally, we decided to drive pass Gloucester, stop at Monmouth, thru the Black Mountains to Brecon and then down to Cardiff and to Bristol via the Bridge.

Gloucester is a small town, the drive was nice and plesant, I think because of New Year, there weren't many cars around. The national speed limit in UK is as follows, 40m/h in built up area, 60m/h in highway and 70m/h in multi lane highway. In town, they have their own signs like 50 or 30m/hr.

The weather for the day was patchy showers but the morning was fine. After gloucester we arrived at Monmouth and into Wales. The thing that struck us was that on every sign there are two languages, Wales and English. It was cute. Monmouth is small and there is nothing much here. They did have a public toilet which was open :) .

We took a few pictures of Monmouth and continued on our merry way. Brecon is our next stop. Brecon is like the main stop for the black mountains. The black mountains is a great place for hiking and all sort of outdoor activity. Because it is a mountain, I was expecting a drive like one to Springbrook national park on the Gold Coast Hinterland where there are rainforests and the roads are small, windy and in some place steep.

I couldn't be more wrong, the tress are low and the road is straight, most of the way and brecon didn't seem to be too high. Brecon is a pretty little town with pretty old stone built houses. We visited the cathedral and walked around the narrow road in town. It also started to rain.

On the way to Cardiff, we decided to take another route, which is what we decided, as we are doing a circuit/round and it is most logical to not take the same road twice, so you get to see twice as many sights.

We passed by the outskirt of Merthy Tydfil. A pretty large town. This highway is even straighter and wider. No wonder, the lonely planet said that lots of people from london drives to brecon for weekends. This highway joins the M4 and goes straight to London.

In the UK, most roads doesn't have name but number which I think they are trying to implement in Australia. It makes it easier to get around and I think we remember numbers easier than names. I am not sure, i can't remember either that well.

Cardiff is beautiful, with the imposing millenium Staduim and the Castle. It was raining heavily so we decided not to stop and won return another time. It is dangerous to have not stopped at a given place because I think as a general rule, you have to assume that you will not go back to a place ever again. Therefore, you should always assume that it is the last time you visiting the place. As I say before, there are soooo many places to see and visit.

On the way back, we passed by the new bridge. It was great, I always likes bridges and buildings. I belive it is a suspension bridge. on the new bridge you can see the old bridge, which is still in use. We will be using the second bridge the second time we cross the Severn.

As usual, on many return trips, Tan will be sleeping in the passange sit. It is a nice sight.

I really enjoy driving again. Especially a newish car. I guess we were spoilt in Brisbane and I do miss my old car dearly. We are facing a delimma. We want to buy a newish car now, instead of a 5-10 year old car.

Initially we were thinking of paying cash for a $1000-$2000 car. But then, if we were planning to sell the car later, wouldn't it make more sense to borrow money and buy a 2-3 year old car which has already experiences most of its depreciation. It is always better to buy on borrowed money than to use cold cash.

Anyway, needless to say, we were buggered at the end of the day. When we got back, I started to plan for the next day. I decided to visit a bit of Wiltshire, taking in the world famous stonehenge, oxford, the not so famous other stones at Avebury and the beautiful villages at the Cotswolds.