Iron bridge...

...at Ironbridge!  Views from both sides of the bridge.

Outside the White Hart, where we had an excellent afternoon tea before forging on.

Friday, 29th August        LIVERPOOL - OXFORD

Robyn writes: What a LOOONNNGG day it's been! We woke this morning around 7ish to a gloomy and rainy Liverpool, and finished our packing / cleaning etc to be ready to head out to get our hire car from Alamo / Europcar by just after 9. We headed off for the Lime Street Car Park, behind Liverpool St Station in Nelson Street (they never give you a number here!). Well, we got to the station easily, but then walked and walked and walked right around it - finally ending up just metres from where we'd started, we found the car park tucked in behind and we'd walked right around the huge city block! Anyway, we found our hire people on the first floor of the car park, and the bloke in charge took us into the station to fix up the hire. Then we had to go back to the car park to pick up the car, and we were finally ready to drive out after 10. Lots of fun then ensued when the satnav went on strike for a while before finally coming good and guiding us back to our building, where we had the car pass code to get in to the underground car park while we loaded our goods. Much better than parking in the street.


We successfully got into and out of the car park with all our belongings loaded into our new little silver hire car, and set out for Oxford, a journey of under three hours. Or so we thought. Firstly, the satnav had another little hissy fit and froze for the first 5 minutes or so. Lex had so much fun driving through busy streets with no idea of where to go! Then it relented, and started giving us directions...except it kept trying to send us the wrong way up one way streets. Finally it came good and enabled us to get out of Liverpool. We were having a great run, and well onto the motorway, when we came to crawling traffic - which crawled along for about 20 minutes. We had the radio on and heard that an accident ahead of us was causing severe delays, so when an exit came up, we took it and headed towards Chester to get us away from the congestion. We actually had decided to have lunch in Chester, so drove into the city looking for a park. Well, we drove and drove, but either couldn't get access to them or they were full, and there wasn't a street park to be held for love or money. After about 15 minutes, we gave up! We headed out of town and after a few miles came across a lovely garden centre with the magical word "cafe" on its sign. We went in there - it was huge, had free parking and toilets and we had a lovely lunch there. Most relaxing. We swung to the south and came around to successfully get back onto the motorway below the accident site, and were on our way once more.


We hadn't been back on the motorway more than a few more miles when more signs came up advising of more severe delays a few exits down the road. So, sigh, once more we zoomed off and around - this time in the general direction of Whitchurch, where we'd been for the canal cruise. Before we got there we headed to the south and then we saw a sign for Ironbridge. This is one place Lex has always wanted to see and we thought had been too far out of the way. I checked, and it was only about ten kilometres away, so we thought, what the heck, and headed for it. It's the first iron bridge ever made in the UK and I think the world, right at the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 1700s. It's over the Severn River and is still in wonderful condition. The little town of Ironbridge is quite gorgeous - picture postcard perfect and you really can't see any buildings that look less than 200 years old! We had a most enjoyable walk up to, over and under the bridge, then had afternoon tea in a nearby pub. A nice break in what was turning into a big day's travel.


It was nearly four by the time we set off again, and this time we had quite a good run once back on the motorways and heading for Oxford. The dreaded "Delays ahead" sign came up, but we were still a fair way off, and, as Lex pointed out, it didn't say Severe delays, so we crossed our fingers and went on. In the end that problem was gone by the time we got to it, but just in the last 10 km we ran into road works and were reduced to a crawl again. Anyway, we finally got here at about 6.45 - our less than 3 hour trip had turned into a nearly 8 hour day in the car. Blah! After pretty much a dream run on the motorways of Great Britain, we've hit all of our problems on one long and stressful trip! Anyway, we got to see Ironbridge, which was the highlight of the day.


Our hotel, the Oxford, is right on the northern outskirts of the city, so we were quickly here and booked in. We have a very nice room. We were far too tired to think about going out in search of tea, so ate here in the restaurant - really nice food but very pricey and all of the staff had suspiciously French accents (some weren't sustained very well!) Anyway, it was a nice meal. We are now collapsing in a heap and in need of a good night's sleep before we head off to explore the delights of Oxford tomorrow :)