Wynmelvin » Bristol

October 27th, 2009

Russell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:04:20 +0000

BRISTOL — The first task to do today was to get the car back to the Hertz depot. Actually, the first thing was to locate a petrol station to fill up the tank. Hotel reception pointed me in the right direction. There are not many petrol stations in central Bristol. After getting in the wrong lane a couple of times I managed to deliver the car to the depot. One of the staff very kindly offered me a lift back to the hotel in the car I had just used—the first time I had sat in the passenger seat!

Then it was off to the Post Office to post my parcel. The package weighed 8.9 kilograms and would have cost £80.00 with no insurance cover, or £104.00 with a £50.00 insurance cover, to get it home. On advice I decided to repack the box into two to try and get each below five kilograms so they could go by Royal Mail rather than Parcel Force. It took a while but the total cost for the two came to £54.00 with insurance cover of £39.00 each.
Then it was back to the hotel to try and repack my luggage.

October 25th, 2009

Russell — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:08:26 +0000

BRISTOL — This morning I decided to explore Bristol and quickly decided that it is not an easy city to get around on foot. Bt the end of the day I still hadn’t found the high street and the maps I had weren’t much help in that respect. Bristol’s maritime heritage is very much to the fore and I did manage to find the SS Great Britain.

Brunel’s SS Great Britain was the first large steam ship to combine an iron hull with screw-driven propulsion and set the standard for decades to come. I found it interesting that at one point it was owned by the same family that lived in the house I visited yesterday—Tyntesfield. After investigation the ship’s hull from underwater and looking through the museum, you are given the chance to explore ship above and below decks. The ship has been very well restored as much as possible and it was very easy to imagine being back in time on one of her voyages to Australia.

I retraced my steps around the harbour-side and headed towards the city centre (or so I thought) to try and find the post office. In that I failed. I’ll have to ask reception for directions as I have a parcel of printed matter to send home to try and lighten my load!

October 24th, 2009

Russell — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:58:43 +0000

BRISTOL — This morning I crossed the Severn from Wales into England and by-passed Bristol. I headed for Tyntesfield—I wasn’t sure what it was other than it being a National Trust property. I arrived just after noon and it started bucketing down. Thankfully the rain only lasted for twenty minutes or so. It turns out that Tyntesfield is a country house. Unusually, the house is in the middle of a conservation, preservation and restoration project but is still open to the public.

The house was covered in scaffolding which meant that its unique gothic exterior was hidden from sight. It was only in the gift shop when I saw a postcard of the house that I remembered having seen the house in an episode of Antiques Roadshow. It was interesting to see the interior of the house in a state of disarray while in the process of being restored.

I drove into Bristol and headed towards the city centre. My road atlas was of no use and it took about 40 minutes of driving around before I came across signs for the Temple Meads Railway Station (I knew where the hotel was in relation to the station). I arrived to find the hotel car park full so I had to park in the handicapped spot as a token from reception was needed to exit the barriered car park. While I was checking in some one else was checking out so I was able to appropriate their car park instead.