2011 May 8 Running out of gas

[David and Susan Bratt]

May 8

We have seen some remarkable places--the field of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (at Battle, England, of course), Rudyard Kipling’s home (a gracious large stone house with 13 fireplaces) just as he lived in it, the little town of Rye, the home of Victorian actress Ellen Terry with its collection of threatre costumes and posters--each with lovely English gardens. But to get to these places we have had to drive on English roads, and it isn’t getting any easier.

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Most of the campgrounds and places we want to visit are off the main roads (and, quite frankly, they, except for the rare divided highway, aren’t much better than the country ones.) Most of them have no shoulder and, in fact, have curbs with hedges right up to the edge of the road. Granted, sharp corners and intersections are well marked (if the hedges haven’t grown over the signs), but speed limits often seem at least 10 mph too high, and we sometimes hear our driver’s side mirror hitting hedges on the left. The entrances to the campgrounds have proved to be most exciting: long, single-lane twisting ribbons, lined with trees, with no room for passing . . . hence the rule “leave before noon / arrive after noon.” So far it has worked. Susan has learned to ride with her shoes on at all times. You just never know when one has to hop out and direct traffic, help with backing up, or in this case, look ahead down the road to see what we are getting into.

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All this is probably more unsettling for Susan,(who is in the above photo) who sits in Rover’s “sui-side” seat (the one closest to oncoming traffic). She has developed a simple avoidance technique of closing her eyes as large vehicles approach and pass. For his part, even though the British roads have been more narrow than we experienced in Italy, David is happier driving here because (xenophobia alert) British drivers are sane.
On Sunday we were running low on gas, and many service stations were closed. But the warning light hadn’t yet come on, and we were entering Brighton, a large city. So no problem, right?
Wrong.
In town, we turned left up a half-mile hill pitched at about 8 percent. We were nearly to the top when Rover balked and died at an intersection. David got her started again and pulled into a no parking zone along the street to get her out of the way. She died again. David thought (hoped?) the steep hill and low gas level were the problem. Someone walking by told us where the nearest gas station was--back down the hill, of course--so Susan stayed with the vehicle to explain to police why we were in a no parking lane while David walked the mile back to the gas station, bought a can and 5 liters of gas, and walked back up the hill, futilely flagging taxis along the way.
Rover started right up, we backed up, turned around, drove back to the gas station, bought more gas . . . and stopped at Starbucks to celebrate. Then we drove back up the steep hill and on to the Brighton campsite. We are close to the channel and Brighton’s huge marina but cannot see it from here . . . something about chalk cliffs in the way. The campground is a big place and appears to be nearly full. There are two big class A American RVs here, but both have Great Britain license plates. We have WiFi access here: £5 for 5 hours, good at any of the campgrounds associated with one of the UK’s two major camping clubs (confusingly enough, the other club offers a different WiFi plan).
Compared to our drive in, our time in Brighton today was relaxing. We left Rover in the campground and walked to the bus, which took us to the center of the city in minutes. We toured the ridiculously opulent Chinese-influenced Brighton Pavilion, the resort home of George IV in the 1800s. It was a very good tour in that it let us into many more rooms than we are normally allowed to see. We walked all over: along the Brighton Marina with hundreds of sailboats and up and down the Brighton Pier (basically a casino/amusement park), where we napped on deck chairs in the afternoon. Dinner in the city and a bus and walk back to Rover in a sprinkle led by a very bright rainbow finished out the day.

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We are still having incredibly good weather. Only twice has it rained a little, both times overnight. Everyone is complaining about the lack of rain. And Rover really could use a good bath.