I was lucky enough to have a 4 day long weekend this week. Due to the high costs of traveling on a holiday weekend and to prevent boredom, I rented a car for the weekend. This was by no means a small feat for me as I normally drive on the right side of the rode, and I can barely manage to make a manual transmission car to move which pretty much accounts for all cars in England. Furthermore, the roads in England are never straight for more than 100 meters.
To my rescue came an Australian colleague who is comfortable driving on the left/wrong side of the road and had a few years experience with a manual transmission. On the first day I revisited York and practiced my UK driving. York was nice; my driving was not. From then on all driving was done by my Australian friend.
The second day we went to the north coast of Wales where I was reacquainted with the ocean. We started at the town/village of Flint, stopped in Colwyn Bay, and ended at the Menai Bridge. I quite enjoyed the pub food and ice cream at Colwyn Bay (it was late afternoon and I had no lunch). The downside of this journey was the time spent in the car. One-way to the coast took about 3 hours. [Pictures]
The last day we went to the Fountains Abbey and the How Stean Gorge. The abbey was quite remarkable as it sat in a valley, along a river, with beautiful water gardens surrounding it. We also had a chance to drive on some real English country roads, many only wide enough for one car. After the abbey, we went to the How Stean Gorge. Not much to say about the gorge. There was a gorge we climbed around in it. [Pictures]
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