On our way from Dover to Grady’s house boat we were jammed
up on London’s motorways (although the traffic situation in London is really
just not as bad as everyone would like to believe and we get quite frustrated
with such complaints), when we spotted a maroon Nissan Patrol in a neighbouring
lane trying to get a good look at our vehicle. They were doing that dance thing
where they hang back so we could catch up, then move in directly next to us and
let us go ahead a little so they can see the back of the car, staring sideways
at us as we pass. We know this manoeuvre as it’s been made on us many a time
before, and it’s not as if we’ve never used it ourselves. In fact once we
realised what they were up to we began doing the same thing to them, as there
was something on the cover of their spare wheel mounted on the back door that
caught our attention. The number plate was from the UK, but the wheel cover
read “DUNCAN NISSAN, AUSTRALIA’S BIGGEST PATROL DEALERS, VICTORIA PARK, 9262
5111”. Was it an Australian vehicle that had been driven there and
re-registered? Or shipped over? Or was the wheel itself imported for some
reason and it was just a coincidence? Or maybe it was just a cover they’d
acquired and we were reading too much into it. But they had been staring at us
first! It seemed a bit coincidental that the one other car on the road that was
particularly interested in us had the details of an Australian car dealership
on their back if it wasn’t related. We wound down our window and tried to call
out to each other over the noise of the traffic, but all we managed to ask was
where they were from, to which they responded in a perfect London accent “Uzbekistan”.
We still have no idea what their story is or why they had advertising for
Duncan Nissan from Victoria Park on their spare wheel, or even what it was that
they were particularly interested in about us.
When we left London we were heading straight to Glasgow,
leaving early in the morning and intending on arriving that evening. Ideally we
would have had at least a few days to meander through England and Wales, not to
mention the chance to visit some of my family, and earlier in the trip we’d
even toyed with the idea of detouring to Ireland if we had time. We’d prioritised
our time elsewhere though and now unfortunately we only had seven days until Ben
was flying out of Glasgow so we really didn’t have any time to spare. However we decided to make one short stop
on the way up to visit the RAF Base in Benson, near Oxford. My great
grandfather was a photo reconnaissance pilot in WWII and he was declared
missing, assumed to have been shot down in September 1944. But it wasn’t until
1992 that remains of his spitfire were discovered near Oldenburg (Bremen) in
northern Germany and my family, most notably my grandmother, his daughter, were
filled in with more of the story and able to find out a lot more of what
actually happened to him. In 2011 a replica of the spitfire was mounted at the
entrance to the RAF Base as a memorial to my great grandfather and others in
the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) who were killed flying solo and
unarmed in their Spitfires over enemy territory. My family were all invited as
guests of honour to the opening ceremony in 2011, but living on the other side
of the world doesn’t lend itself so well to attending such events so it was
very special for me to be able to pay my respects. For more on this visit my grandmother's website: http://www.cuckoo57.co.uk/duncans-story/
The drive from London to Glasgow which is about 700km was
one of the longest drives we’d tackled in one day on the whole trip. The only
other places where we would have travelled further in a single day were
Australia when we had to make a dash for the pushed forward shipping date (Blog
Day 10 - The desert, the outback and thetropics), and China where our plans were turned topsy turvey because of the
badly timed closure of Tibet, meaning we had to drive 6,715 km in two weeks
instead of the 3,400 or so we were supposed to travel in three weeks (Blogs Day 87, Day 93, Day 94, Day 117 and Day 118). Although we covered a lot of distance over the whole
journey, we did do it over a year for the point of not being in a rush and to
be able to stop in places and not drive 1000’s of kilometres every day. For the
majority of the trip we also didn’t have the opportunity to cover these sorts
of distances on a daily basis, as the quality of a lot of roads we travelled on
meant that even when we drove for eight or ten hours, we’d only cover a couple
hundred kilometres anyway.
This was one of the few days on which we took turns driving,
the only other times being when we had extra people in the car, whether wanted
or unwanted, so it was less comfortable for the passengers such as when we had
Lui in China (un-wanted: Blog Day 118 -The Incompetency of NAVO: Part 2 - Our sub-par tour guide), or Josje and
Remco in Kazakhstan (yes, that means we had six in the car so we really needed
to switch seats often, but they were definitely wanted: Blog Day 138 – How an afternoon searching forflamingos became six days in the desert with some hitch hikers). The reason
we switched around on this drive was different though: it was so that we could
all share in the drive that would take us to Scotland. We got off the M6 for
the border so we could stop and take a photo or two, though unfortunately it
was dark by the time we got there and all of our cameras were beginning to
struggle under the workload they’ve been given this year, so our photos at the “SCOTLAND welcomes you” sign in Gretna Green aren’t brilliant, but we can see where we
are and that’s the main thing.
Gretna Green is a village on the Scottish side of the border
which was made famous when Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act was brought into play
in England and Wales in 1754. Under the act it was necessary for brides and
grooms to have parental permission under the age of 21, whilst in Scotland it
was still permissible for boys to get married at 14 and girls at 12 without
their parents’ consent. As a result there was a swell in young English and
Welsh couples fleeing to Scotland to tie the knot, and as the first village
accessible from England Gretna Green was a convenient place for these “runaway
marriages” to take place. Since that time the laws in Scotland, England and
Wales have changed many times causing rises and falls in the trends, but to
this day Gretna Green is a very popular place for weddings, especially for
English couples. Directly opposite the “SCOTLAND welcomes you” sign is the
cottage which historically was used for these ceremonies and the facts are
proudly painted on the stone walls. The side of the building facing Scotland reads
“last house in Scotland marriage room” and the wall which faces England reads “first house in Scotland marriage room”. Another sign boasts that over 10,000
marriages have been performed in that marriage room.
Our next stop, and the last one before Glasgow, was for
dinner in the village of Moffat. Glad to be in Scotland and desperate to
experience Scottish cuisine at its finest we found a chippie (a chippie being fish
and chip shop, not a carpenter as any Australian readers might think) and
indulged ourselves in a haggis supper and Irn Bru each. Scotland at its finest.
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