Road Trip: Struggles and Successes

Although I have titled the post Struggles and Successes I want to start with 5 of my favourite things from the road trip. Diving straight back into my every day life after coming home means that sometimes it feels as if I didn't really go away. For this reason it was really nice to go through the photos I took while I was away this afternoon. I borrowed my Dad's laptop to connect my camera and saved a few to include today.

Dartmoor National Park

My Favourite Things

1. Wide, open spaces and a sense of space and freedom
2. My horse ride on Dartmoor
3. Bizzare Bath
4. The coastal path walk from Lands End to Sennen Cove
5. An evening relaxing in the Thermae Bath Spa
6. The Lost Gardens
7. Cute local art galleries
8. Eating a proper Cornish Pasty and cream teas
9. Walking along Newquay beach with my toes in the sea
10. Overcoming challenges

Usually if a challenge arises my first action is to quite possibly panic, closely followed by a phone call to my Dad. On the third day of the trip I had a difficult time locating my B&B in Dartmoor, when I finally arrived, following directions from a pub around the corner, and checked in I decided to head back to the pub to relax with a nice cold drink and catch the remainder of the sun. Soon after sitting down at one of the tables outside a huge gust of wind blew over my large glass of Coke and cracked the corner of my phone screen. I was not best pleased and went inside to ask for another one, choosing to remain seated inside this time. I then went to use my mobile to realise that the screen wouldn't work. I can't do anything on my phone if the screen doesn't work. I tried to keep calm and take the battery out and re-start it but nothing improved. Then I really started to panic, to a point where I nearly cried, I certainly felt like crying being away from home alone and having lost my way to contact my family and friends and to navigate. In a sense I had lost my safety net. This time I couldn't call my Dad to fix it, I had to do it myself. Luckily, I had taken my laptop and the B&B I was staying at had free wifi so I was able to contact people through that as well as Google the nearest EE store to by any type of phone as long as I could call my parents. It may sound silly that that was such a challenging time for me but I have become very reliant on my mobile and all the things it can do now, perhaps more than I realised and I'm sure I am not alone.

There were times when I felt vulnerable being alone, luckily this was not often. The one thing that made me feel particularly vulnerable was removing my glasses and not being able to see clearly. This is why I chose not to try kayaking or surfing. I feel more comfortable doing new things, in new places without my glasses with friends. I ended up keeping my glasses on when I went to the spa in Bath. Although I felt a little self conscious about it, I felt better than not wearing them. Also, in the rooftop outdoor pool other people were wearing glasses and sunglasses. I thought, why visit the spa with lovely views and not really be able to see them! Gazing out over the city and the rolling hills was a great way to end my trip.

Bath

Roman Baths

SS Great Britain, Bristol

Lands End

Lands End

St Michael's Mount

Falmouth

Bournemouth

Road Trip: Holiday and Personal Challenge

I had the idea to go on a road trip in the UK at the beginning of the year. I wanted to have a holiday and to get away for a while after finishing university. I decided to stay in the UK because I thought about going alone and am not brave enough to go abroad, especially for the first time. I also started thinking that we live in an amazing country and I have not seen very much of it, usually choosing to go abroad for holidays because there is often more guarantee of nice, hot weather. I cannot say whether my trip in the UK was more expensive than going abroad because 1, I went away for two weeks, usually abroad I would go for one and 2, I decided not to calculate the total of my recent trip because I think too much about spending money so I would have constantly been watching what I spend and therefore, holding back. The decision to go alone arose from friends having other plans and the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of challenging myself. I swayed between feelings of excitement and nervousness. My nervousness was displayed through avoidance. The day before I left instead of finalising my itinerary (I'm a bit of a planner) and packing I went to the cinema. When I did get around to packing, before going to bed that night, I packed almost everything (prepared for all types of British weather). This was ok because I had the space in my car, what I didn't consider though, was carrying my full size suitcase and other bags up the many stairs to each of my rooms and back down again on the day of my departure. I had big plans to do some crazy things, things that I haven't done before, like kayaking and surfing (feel like you should if you visit Cornwall).

This didn't quite happen. I felt a little deflated towards the end of my trip because I felt I hadn't achieved what I wanted to. However, throughout the trip I weighed up my own feelings, what I wanted to do and what I thought I should be doing. In the end I decided that I should be enjoying myself and doing what I wanted to do rather than constantly trying to challenge myself and stress myself out. So I did a lot of wandering around exploring, quite often accompanied by my camera and book and broke up my days with coffee and food breaks. I experienced euphoric feelings of freedom at periods while I was away, it felt so nice to be away from daily stresses and responsibilities. Although, on the other hand, at times I was not sure how I felt. I think this is because I am currently in limbo, one chapter is closing and I am waiting for another to begin. As I have already written about, I have submitted my final university assignments and am awaiting the results and am due to start a new job in around two weeks. I also felt a great sense of space, whether I was by the beach in Bournemouth and Cornwall or out on the Moors in Dartmoor National Park or by the rivers in Bristol and Bath.



                                       
















Hopefully more photos will follow but my laptop is running really slowly and I fear it may not handle ones from my DSLR and there are no more phone camera pictures because on my third day away it broke!