UK driving holiday, Part 1: Oxford and Snowdonia

Well, now that I've finished writing about our Europe trip in July, I just have one more holiday to record before I'm up to date!! After we returned from Europe at the end of July, and were staying with Matt and Kat for our last couple of weeks in England before flying back to Australia, we did a 9-day driving holiday to see some parts of the UK we still hadn't been to. It was a lovely trip, but not very "bloggably exciting" - i.e. no travelling companions and no dramas, just lots of nice scenery etc - so I will be far more brief than usual. Also, we've only got two more days in Australia and I want to be up to date by the time we leave! :)

Anyway, first we stayed three nights with Bryce and Nikki D and their two little boys near Oxford. They are Aussies from Perth who have been living in England for about 6 years - we met them at a picnic we went to in June. We had a great time staying with them! We hardly took any photos, except the ones below of us up on White Horse Hill on a rather chilly day. :) The white horse is a figure cut into the side of the chalk hill, dating back to the Bronze Age. We didn't get a chance to take a good distance shot showing the whole thing, but the second photo below shows its head in the foreground (upside down), if that helps you make sense of it! :)



After Oxford, we headed into north Wales for two days of camping in Snowdonia. We had bought a tent for this trip as we intended to camp in the Lake District as well, but we ended up chickening out and so the two nights in Wales were the only time we ever used it! (However, our tent was so cheap that it still worked out cheaper than spending those two nights in a B&B.) The second photo below shows the view from our tent - there were slate quarries on the sides of the hills nearby.



Anyway, it rained the whole time we camped in Wales, and our camping mats were so thin and hard that I actually had bruises on my hips for the rest of the week!! But it was still fun, and the mountainous countryside was absolutely gorgeous. Since I'm trying to keep this brief, I'll leave it up to these photos of Wales to illustrate the point (click on them to enlarge)...



Anyway, we had a very lazy time in Wales, just driving around enjoying the views, exploring little towns, and even spending a few hours reading books in a tiny library near our campground!

And that was the first five days of our driving holiday. :) I'll be back soon to tell you about the rest of the trip - Mansfield (Dotti's place) and the Lake District!