Week 5
Week 5: Upgrades
..with very strange results
when
2.11.19 - 10.11.19
where
Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, UK
Avebury, UK
Bath, UK
Bristol, UK
what
What a week indeed. For what was to be quite a banal week we really hit the jackpot on weird and wonderful coincidences and events this week. Sunday night we parked up in Cheddar, the origin for cheddar cheese in the Mendip hills before rolling into a small seaside village in Somerset called Burnham-on-Sea Monday morning to meet Jen and Lee, the husband wife team behind Tourer Techs. Lee sized up the van for our gas upgrade he realised quickly that we was going to have to order in a special size gas tank for us as it is a self built camper. Thankfully, the rest of the gas plumbing was all up to scratch and Lee let us take the van away until Thursday when the parts came in. Jen so kindly sent us some links of things to do in the surrounding area, one being a very plain sounding ‘Carnival’ that was on in the seaside town that night. Unbeknownst to us, this casual carnival is not casual at all and after watching the almost 2 hour procession of colourfully lit up, hydraulic moving road trains, I can safely say I have never seen or heard of anything like it anywhere.
West Country carnival clubs are filled with members young and old who work throughout the year on their ‘carts’ to compete in the spectacular public parades which tour around Somerset in the week that Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire night occurs each year. It was so overwhelmingly weird that I have written a whole other post all about the carnival circuit in the England section as it is too much to dissect here.
Tuesday we thought we would make the most of our wheels and headed into Bristol to catch Victoria Parks infamous community bonfire for Guy Fawkes night. we found a good wild camping spot in a suburban street which later turned out to be about 20m from the Bonfire night festivities. The weather was a bit miserable but we walked into the city to do a bit of a reconnaissance mission for our upcoming weekend without the van. The bonfire and wild public free for all fireworks were mesmerising and left us wondering how they were still allowed to host such events on public land without a cop in sight and with council approval. at 11pm, the organisers simply took the safety barrier of a rope line down and said ‘Don’t do anything silly, behave yourselves’ packed up and left.
Wednesday we headed back south via Bath (which is not a place I feel either of us will ever venture to again ) as well as the lesser known Avebury Stone Henge and parked up in our trusty spot in Cheddar. Thursday we dropped the Van to Jen and Lee, caught the train back into Bristol and spent the weekend walking, eating, drinking and doing a bit of work on the blog. It’s now Sunday night and we are packed up and ready to get back into the van tomorrow so we can finally head to Europe in the coming days.
Pit
Pat accidentally hitting me in the ankle with his skateboard.
Peak
Guy Fawkes everything.