Burford to Shrewsbury was supposed to be a two hour journey. We woke up to a rainy day, just the perfect time to leave town. Had spent the last few days saying fond farewells to great friends, one such day including a movie afternoon at a friends house. Such a great idea, don’t know why we don’t do them at home. Lots of food, lots of laughs and great entertianment. We watched Whisky Galore – great movie. After getting our washing done, packing up and checking the route to Shrewsbury we were convinced we had it all sussed. What we didn’t take into account was the over night rain which left the roads very slippery and the low hanging mist added gloom to my ability to read road signs far enough in advance.

What England regards as normal, we found difficult to understand until we got adjusted to the fact that there are just so many more cross roads in UK than Australia. What I’m talking about is the round abouts which are everywhere, including on the motor ways. No sooner does one creep out of the town, onto the local B road to slip onto the M motorway as one is confronted with a roundabout and sometimes a double roundabout. You have to be vigilant to ensure you are in the correct lane to be able to extract oneself at the correct exit without suddenly having to change lanes within the roundabout and confuse not only yourself but every other driver in the adjoining lanes. If you change lanes you don’t have to place the sign ‘tourist’ on your back window – they know.

The other issue that confronted us was that the navigator wanted us to take the toll road, but we didn’t know if we should or could or how the system worked. One bit of prior research we had stupidly skipped. So whenever we ignored her instructions to exit the roundabout onto the M6 toll road and carried on to the adjoining A road her sweet voice spent the next 10 minutes trying to find a side road to turn us around to get us ‘back on track’.
But despite all our protestations about too much reliance on computerised navigation, we got there. The truth of the matter is, it is hard to get lost in UK. If you miss the right turn, there is sure to be another just down the road that will get you there as well, albiet a minute later, or sometimes maybe two.
Once we arrived in the medieval town of Shrewsbury, the birthplace of Charles Darwin, we then had to navigate the old one way narrow streets to find our hotel. This time we gave our navigater her head and she landed us right at our front door. Even though we had passed within a couple of metres of our hotel a couple of times we couldn’t turn into the one way street until we had almost circled the inner town area twice. But the feeling of stepping back in time was well worth the tour. 14 & 15th century rambling houses leaning into the streets with their black, brown and white frames and lead light windows.
So we’re staying in Oliver’s place, a 15th Century old pub, with sloping floors, doors we have to duck to get through and panelled walls – just oozing with old world charm. Of course it’s called Cromwell’s.