25 June 2016 - Knight’s Folly Farm, Bitton, near Bristol, Gloucestershire

We woke to similar erratic weather as yesterday, and the political situation no less volitile. We hung about to follow updates on that stage, to establish the weather situation and to ring Chis’s brother at a sociable hour.

Chris suggested that heading west to Bath with a view to undertaking a walking tour, something we had discussed last night as having been most enjoyable last year, would be as vulnerable to the dodgy weather as it was then. So it seemed that my Plan B, a drive to the west to explore the settlements on the eastern shores of the Bristol Channel would be best. And so we set off with more speciific plans than that woolly idea.

The first was to visit the Clifton Suspension Bridge Visitor Centre, a very vague spot on the local tourist brochure, not appearing on our navigational device and not to be found as we drove in the general direction seeking the appropriate sign posts.

So we carried on to Portishead, the settlement just to the south of the mouth of the River Avon. We arrived at the centre and searched for signage to take us somewhere significant, frustrated by the lack of signage here as well, ending up in residential areas and none the wiser. Frustrations were voiced by The Chauffeur, none of which could be sensibly allayed by The Back Seat Driver / Navigator, so we headed south along the B3124, further frustrated by the Saturday leisure cyclists. So far this had not proved to be a Fun Day Out. 

The Clevedon Pier

On arriving at Clevedon, we were correctly directed to the seashore, and there found a parking spot near the Clevedon Pier, opened in 1869 and is England’s only Grade I listed pier, complete with a Victorian Pagoda. 

Instead we wandered up the street past a number of residences perched on the cliffs above the coast, all undergoing substantial renovation. From here we could see a great dark weather band rolling south to greet us so high tailed it back to the car. We could see little point in staying longer so decided to head toward home and drive over the Clifton Suspension Bridge since there seemed little else a tourist could do.

Chris asked which route we should take; return via the cyclist ridden route or … ? I suggested we may as well take the faster M5 just to the west. Alas, on entering the motorway, we found ourselves locked in a four lane traffic jam and took a long time to travel the five miles before the next junction where we turned into the Service Centre, that which we had hung about in some days ago en route to Bristol from Dulverton. There we sat in the car and ate our lunch, people watching, and watching dog owners walking their desperate dogs on a grassy bank whereupon the canine relieved themselves and the humans ignored the resulting deposits. We called into the Centre to buy a paper and marvel at the massive facilities which we made use of.

Then on we continued east toward Bristol, soon crossing the Clifton Suspension Bridge after paying the required £1 for the privilege of doing so. We were delighted to find a parking spot up the hill not too far away from the exit road, and we walked back down to the bridge to admire this great engineering feat. 

In 1829, a competition was launched to find someone to design a crossing over the Avon Gorge. After a second competition, the first having been unsuccessful, twenty three year old Ismabard Kingdom Brunel was appointed as project manager. The bridge took thirty three years to complete, the initial funding for the bridge was generated in 1754 by Bristol wine merchant William Vick who left £1,000 in his will to go toward the construction of a toll-free stone bridge across the gorge.

Brunel died in 1859 aged fifty three before the work was completed. With financial help from the Institution of Civil Engineers, work resumed on the bridge in 1862 under the supervision of Sir John Hawkshaw and William Henry Barlow, who modified Brunel’s original plan by widening the roadway and by increasing the suspension chains from two to three on each side. Construction was completed in the summer of 1864. Although originally designed to cater for horse-drawn traffic, the bridge today serves as a crossing for more than four million vehicles every year. Today it is a Grade I listed building; it was a day for Grade I viewings.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge

Here too we were plagued by rain, but set off anyway, clad in raincoats and under umbrellas. As we sheltered from a particularly fierce storm, we fell into conversation with a couple of Australian girls, both from Sydney, and currently working in London. We discussed a number of issues including the very recent referendum, which interestingly they had registered to vote. They, like 75% of their age group, between eighteen and twenty four, (or 56% if we were mistaken and they fell in the twenty five to forty nine age group), had voted to remain. It would seem, after listening to the television reports tonight and reading the newspaper tonight, over 52% of the population in total would have voted similarly if they had thought through the consequences of their protest vote. Too late now!!

We were home soon after 2.30 pm. Early enough for me to cook up a big pot of bolognaise sauce for freezing, and to watch two soccer games played in France; Switzerland versus Poland, and Northern Ireland versus Wales, the second team of each the winners. More interesting was news that the All Blacks had slaughtered the touring Welsh team in New Zealand, and the English rugby team had slaughtered the Wallabies.

The rain storms have continued all afternoon; we just hope they will have abated by morning as we pack up camp and head toward London.