Up early this morning to organise things for the trip.
Richard drove me in to Exeter this morning to pick up the hire car. We had ordered a Vauxhall Insignia (or similar size car - what we would call mid-size in Australia). Big enough for a bit of luggage and 4 passengers. When we got there the man said how would you like a Mercedes. So we ended up with a Mercedes B class. Quite an impressive package – plenty of room for people and luggage – not a lot of power though.
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| One 'dead' Mercedes |
Packed the car and off we went up the M5. Got about 30 miles north of Exeter and the car became quite sluggish, then warning messages began flashing up on the dash – SRS Failure, ABS Failure – Power steering failure (and it did) and then a big red battery sign. Pulled into the service centre at Bridgewater and turned the car off. Turned it back on – nothing. The car was dead. Phoned Mercedes breakdown service and they sent a service vehicle out (took 1.5 hours for him to get there). Fortunately, there was a Costa Coffee shop at the Service Centre. The problem was the battery was flat and because everything on the car is electronic (including the power steering) it all failed. The repairman changed the battery and did some tests and discovered that the alternator was defective. We rang Alamo at Weston-Super- Mare a little up the road to arrange a swap vehicle and the kind Mercedes repair man escorted us all the way in case we were to run out of electrics again.
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| The Beach at Weston-Super-Mare |
The swap was no problem, they said. They had a Vauxhall there we could take. The only problem was when it was driven out it was only an Astra (smaller car). There was no way we were going to get the four of us and our luggage in there and besides, we had paid for a larger car. When this was explained to them there was quite a bit of umming and erring. The only larger car they had in the shop was a Mercedes Station Wagon and that’s what we ended up with. A very nice car to drive but quite a bit bigger than the B series. Hopefully, there are not too many narrow roads in Wales. It's got gadgets all over the place and as in all hire cars they don't leave you with the vehicle handbook. I'm sure we will still be trying to operate some things when we hand the car back in 5 days.
By this time it was about 3 o’clock and we were getting rather peckish. We drove down to the waterfront at Weston-Super-Mare and had lunch sitting in the sun – it’s another lovely spot. We went for a walk along the boulevard. The tide was out (huge tides here - something like the second biggest in the world at 15 feet) and there were lots of people on the beach (obviously a very popular holiday destination) – and donkey rides – and draft horse cart rides etc etc. Weston-Super-Mare also has an amazing pier (Grand Pier), stretching several hundred meters out to sea.
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| The Grand Pier |
There was some sort of emergency happening while we were there – fire engines, ambulances, police cars and lots of activity further down the beach. Not sure what it was all about but it was being taken seriously.
Obviously, our plans to visit Glastonbury were out the window by now so it was straight up the motorway and across the Severn River (bridge toll £5.70) into Wales and on to Abergavenny where we are staying at Mulberry House (a Youth Hostel) – individual bedrooms but bathroom down the hall - quite adequate for one night. Walked into town for some dinner and then back to Mulberry House.
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| Our 'second' Mercedes at Mulberry House |
It’s been an eventful day.
