Ellie and Sarah's Road Trips: July 2010

This morning we embarked on our final road tripping adventure before the summer - this time to the village of UFFINGTON! Although the skies were grey and the world was a little damp, we knew this was never going to stop us - mainly 'coz we were in a car and we weren't gonna get wet!

So we left Oxford, with Chocolate Eclairs to hand - that's right, we know the importance of having good sweets to hand when you are in search of a village - if you end up in a ditch somewhere (which was a real possibility :P) it is important to be well sugared up! Having been to the area around Uffington before as we had previously been very lost there as we searched for Ginge once upon a time, we knew, more or less how to get there, and soon we saw signs to Uffington.

Uffington itself was a fairly pleasant village, not remarkable in itself, it had the standard villagey items (as remembered from GCSE geography...so maybe not 100% accurate) such as a church, and a school, and a pub, and not much else, however, rumour has it, on the hills around Uffington is a White horse cut into the hillside, this massive 374feet long (according to wikipedia) figure is fairly famous, and some would say obvious to see, but could we find it? Not even a smidgen of the white chalk used to create it, not even a stray neigh carried on the wind...all we could find were 2 signs pointing in opposite directions - whose bright idea was that! So we blindly followed one of these signs, and found a hill, which we felt would have been the perfect location for this horse, if only they had thought to ask us where to put it (ignore the fact that it was constructed in the prehistoric ages). As we wound our way up the smallest of country lanes, avoiding hitting any grazing sheep and feeling as though we were on the mountains of Nepal...and not in Uffington, we found some people doing, what only environment lovers would think to do on a rainy day, inserting new posts, i assume where some poor, unsuspecting driver had come off the hill path, crushing the posts in the process and hurtled into the valley below, either that or the old ones had rotted away - seems more plausible somehow. As the roads got narrower, we both decided, lets not push our luck (learning from experience), and turned around, receiving some odd looks from the post planters, as if to say, 'you think you can just come up here, and disturb our roads and our environmental auras.' So we went back down off the mountain, and journeyed around the bottom of the hill - not a horse to be found! I think people have been lying to us :P

So we journeyed out of Uffington, and into Ashbury, now we had definitely been here before, and knew that if we journeyed any further in the wrong direction we would no longer be in Oxfordshire, and although this has been a recurring theme in our road tripping adventures, it was not always intentional, and more hassle then its worth, so we journeyed back along to Oxford, via Abingdon, as Sarah's love for this town was so intense, and she felt the need to share it with Ellie, and what a privilege it was...

And so that was it, we had returned to Oxford, after our final road trip of the summer...but not our final road trip altogether...we will be back in September, to explore the exciting world of places such as Ducklington and Goosey, as we have only made a small dent in the ever exciting world of Oxfordshire villages!

Check out our journey in picture form:

So very very important.

It was very wet.

That is what we like to see!

Twinned with Le Chevain...incase u were wondering.

What a quaint village Uffington was :)

On the hill road - the sheep were watching...

Gotta love a bit of Abingdon.

Thanks for reading, have a happy summer!

Love,

Ellie and Sarah

xxxxx

Our second road tripping adventure was to Brill after a suggestion from a friend that it is a village full of incest and it has a windmill! Now Ellie, being from Guernsey, was not interested in the incest part of it, that was every day kinda stuff, but the windmill, how exciting! And so off we went, with the excitement of Brill lingering over us, and the knowledge that it couldn't possibly be more disappointing then Ginge!

Today we were joined by Emily, a friend of Sarah, who felt she needed to venture to Brill to truly get the Oxfordshire experience, except of course it was in Buckinghamshire, but that is besides the point! At least this time we left the county on purpose! Along the M40 we drove, with images of windmills in our heads, and pick-n-mix in our hands, keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of Brill.

Sarah, having previously had the pleasure of journeying to Brill, confidently new the way, however, after getting so unbelievably lost on our last adventure, we knew never to have that much belief in Sarah's navigational skills.

After driving through Bicester, excited by the roundabout with little metal lambs on it...metal animals seem to play a big part in Oxfordshire life...we found ourselves driving through Ludgershall. Now I know what you are thinking...so far so good...we were thinking the same, but we were far to optomistic. Now Ludgershall was the only route to Brill that Sarah knew, as well as being the easiest route to take, and yet somehow we managed to choose the one night of the whole year that they held BIKE NIGHT! We realised that this explained the huge number of motorbikes that passed us, and on seeing the sign, Sarah felt it was needed, no, she felt it was her duty to shout BIKE NIGHT loudly at every single one of them...o how we laughed! :P However, we carried on driving, and came across approximatley 250 bikers - quite an intimidating sight by anyone's standards, and a man trying to get us to park, he must of thought, 'why on Earth would you have any other need to pass through Ludgershall other then BIKE NIGHT', he simply couldn't understand our need to go to Brill and see the Windmill!!

And so we turned around - maybe mounting a grassy verge in the process, and tried to guess our way to Brill, seeing huge numbers of bikers, by this stage they were very late for BIKE NIGHT, and a few of them gave us odd looks as Sarah still insisted on shouting BIKE NIGHT at them! Following various signs to Brill, and Ellie and Emily preventing Sarah from going the opposite way to an arrow which said Advised Alternative Route, we saw, in all its glory on the hill, like we had heard in the rumours - BRILL!

And what a Brilliant feeling it was, and now the search was on to find the windmill (quickly stopping to take a picture of the Brill sign). Passing an old fire station, advertising for part-time firefighters, we've got the number if anyone is interested :P we followed the road aptly named Windmill Road - common sense dictates that it was the most logical road to try first, and we soon found it - the windmill! It was like something out of Trumpton (you so must have watched it, with 'Pugh! Pugh! Barney McGrew! Cuthbert! Dibble! and Grub!' and Windy Miller), it was just a world none of us really realised existed anymore. We had truly found Brill on the Hill with the Windmill!

And so our Brill adventure was over, but we weren't back in Oxford yet - we were not even back in Oxfordshire! Avoiding Ludgershall altogether, we found our way back to Oxford through a series of humorously named villages, first being Oakley, and then Worminghall, where Sarah got so distracted by a gate with a hole in it she didn't watch the road, and soon we found ourselves in the centre of the road, thank goodness for quiet country roads, is all I can say, otherwise the gate would probably have a hole and bits of car in it! And then came Ickford and Shabbington, little villages which were stuck a few hundred years back, with thatched roofs, and due to the lack of part-time firefighters in the area, no one had told them the fire risk that comes with thatched roofs, one stray spark, and the village of Shabbington would be no more! Anyway, enough of this slightly morbid corner that's been turned! Whilst driving through Ickford, Sarah got very excited by a horse being ridden on the road, and let us give you a little advice, if you take a really obvious photo of a lady on a horse, she will give you a dirty look!

We soon manoeuvred over the bridges of Shabbington, having completed our run of funny villages, and soon found ourselves, much to everyone's surprise, back on the M40. And with the smell of triumph (and cow manure) in the air, Sarah felt she would hedge her bets with a sour strawberry lace, not a thing anyone should really do when driving, resulting in her unable to deal with the level of sourness it had, clutching her neck and driving with her little finger. The fear this bought to both Ellie and Emily was extreme, pleading with her to eat it quickly and maintain composure so that we did not crash!

As we entered Oxford, we were amazed that we had managed to survive this road trip, and felt our lives were now completely satisfied as we had seen BIKE NIGHT and Brill on the Hill with the WINDMILL!!

Check out some photos: