We drove almost the length of the UK, and experienced the best and worst of English roads!
Maybe some context would be helpful...
Over the weekend of Storm Floris, in the Summer of 2025, our camping plans took a decided turn for the worse. Basically, they got cancelled by the fact that our tent would have been blown away, with us in it, had we gone camping North of Inverness as planned!
Asia, my wife, phoned me in a panic on Saturday morning (Camping due to begin Sunday), with a "what will we do?!" shriek. Ensue the wildest flights of fancy from a last-minute European holiday to actually considering still camping out somewhere (Madness, I know!). Ultimately, some kind of sanity prevailed, and Haven Holiday Parks came to the rescue.
Now, Haven has parks all over the UK, and we'd previously stayed at Craig Tara, just South of Glasgow. It's a great experience, with plenty to do for the family, especially kids. This time, however, we needed to escape Scotland. That's where I came in and found a great 6-sleeper at Devon Cliffs at a last-minute, reasonable price.
So, we unpacked the camping equipment, repacked some clothes, and jumped in the car at 4 AM on a Monday - 10 hours according to Google Maps. Not bad, we'd done it before. Let the adventure begin!
In fairness, the drive down was great, we didn't even realise we'd passed Glasgow, driving into England, there was barely any traffic, and even passing between Liverpool and Manchester was barely a speed reduction, even with increased traffic. Come Birmingham, ditto, which surprised me.
We then hit Bristol. Oh my God. Out of nowhere, traffic came to a stop. Now, this wasn't rush hour; it was the middle of the day on a Monday. But it was rammed. We sat for 2 hours on the Bristol bypass, barely drove 10 miles in that time, and at the end of it? Not an accident, not a breakdown, nothing. Just one by-pass merging into the 4 lanes that already existed.
Ultimately, the journey took us just over 12 hours. Could have been worse, you say. Well, just wait for the return!
After 3 wonderful days on the South Coast (it really is something special!) it was time to head home.
We left at 8 AM on Friday, with a great plan to avoid Bristol - drive through Cheddar Gorge (OMG!!), Wells, and then past Bath to come out north of the City. Great plan, ultimately, except that we forgot there were 3 even bigger cities to the North still. I think Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester all missed out on the fun on the way down and decided to spite us on the way back. Google Maps was RED from South of Birmingham to North of Manchester, and we barely escaped second gear throughout this period. Again, Birmingham, we hit in the middle of the day, but it was rush hour by the time we made it to the bigger Metropolis to the North.
Eventually, we made it through, and as soon as we approached Scotland again, traffic disappeared... never have we been happier to get back to our Lovely home of Scotland than we were just then!
All in all, the trip back took 16 hours!
We will NOT be doing that one again, that's for sure!