Country: England
Distance travelled:
Weather: overcast and then the rain started

Strangely, despite the fact that we were parked in a location where we probably shouldn’t have, I slept in until about 8am. The comings and goings of people walking their dogs finally disturbed us enough and combined with the knowledge that we were to drive to Chadlington to meet up with Marion and Allister, we decided to get up and get moving.

The drive south was quite pleasant until we came up over a hill and into the rain. While it wasn’t the tropical rain we grew up with in North Queensland, it was heavier than most of the rain that we had seen so far on this side of the world. We finally made it to Chadlington but had to park the van around the corner and up two blocks from Rose Cottage where they were staying.

Rose Cottage was definitely quaint, being one room wide with a very steep stair to the upstairs bedroom and bathroom. There was a rather pleasant looking garden out back which I didn’t bother to explore considering the continuing rain. We went to the local cafe, Cafe le Post where I tried the Stilton and Potato soup. It was very good although I’d have preferred it a little thicker, personally.

As Marion and Allister were headed out to the National Motorcycle Museum in Bickenhill, Mark and I grabbed the washing we had set going before lunch and headed off to the caravan park we had booked for the evening to throw our now clean but wet washing in their dryer.

We had decided to stay in a camp site tonight as we had washing to do, the drinking and grey water and toilet cassette all needed attention, the rain was not encouraging us to do any other sight seeing and this van park was very conveniently located across the road from the place in Twyford Wharf where we were to start our narrow boat adventure tomorrow.

Twyford Wharf Carvan Park

I must admit that the deciding factor though was the chippy van that came every Friday night. Unfortunately when he arrived he had to confess his gas burners had stopped working as he left his village round so he only had some previously cooked fish, a piece of chicken and half a serve of chips. We took a gamble and, despite our fears, it turned out to be really good. And they threw in a couple of deep fried sausages for free!

The washing machine was one of those wash-and-dryer combo types and took ages to dry the wet load we came with, but I’m not really complaining since we wouldn’t have been able to dry them at all in the rain. I’m not even sure how long the second load I put on to wash and dry actually took but we had clean clothes and that’s what counts. And the showers had those press button timer type things we had run into up North at another camp site. I remember thinking that the 15 seconds worth of water at that campsite was a little short but here we got 5 seconds per press! It won’t stop me from having another shower tomorrow though…