Tuesday 4th August - Salisbury to Bourton on the Water

We went out for breakfast and then Jannie went to buy the pair of sandals that she had been mulling over for the past few days. Decided on a little cafe and had crunchie granola, blueberries and yoghurt. Back to our hotel to pack our bags and get ready to leave. I had to go and get the car from the carpark and that was not easy. I wasn't able to go back out the entry as that was just across the road from our hotel. Instead I had to go up two floors and exit at that level only problem was I had to turn right and found myself on the ring road. Next roundabout and a couple of left and right turns and I was back at our hotel.

We loaded our bags into the car and got on the road. Thank goodness for our GPS as we wended our way through back streets but finally got on the A338 which is a green highway. Red is small, green is bigger and green and white are motorways. A338 was not as wide as some of our smaller suburban streets. The speed limit was 50mph but with villages every couple of miles we were travelling along very erratically as we would be down to 30mph then outside the village 40mph then onto the 50mph for a couple of miles. Still we made it to Bourton on the Water and were confronted with wall to wall cars and few parks and hundreds of people.

We found a park and went looking for our B&B. And eventually after asking found Chestnut B&B around the back of the High Street. There seems to be a High Street in every town and we have been on so many London Roads. Went into the reception area and introduced ourselves and the lady said "Jan Crooks I am Jan Crook". We were shown to our room up a steep set of stairs but hey they had a stair chair so our bags were loaded on and up they went. Brilliant. Our room is lovely and overlooks the courtyard. When I said our room I really meant our two rooms. Nice to have a second room to store our bags in.

We went for a walk in the village which was slow as all the footpaths we clogged with people and some were walking on the road . What a shambles. Lots of older people with walkers and wheelchairs, a couple of Asian Tours, there's more people here than there was at Salisbury. It's a beautiful village with very quaint buildings. The shallow river runs through the middle of the town and lots of kids and a few adults were wading in the water. One family was playing Pooh Sticks. Lovely. We found a pub and ordered sandwich and beer. When they arrived they were about 70mm thick, great slabs of bread and the cheese and ham were also slabs. Delicious but we didn't eat all the bread.

We went to the information centre and came back with a pile of pamphlets. Maps even of the town costs a quid and we have found that almost everywhere we have been. Not like in NZ when maps are given away at motels and information centres.