'Fair is foul, and foul is fair' and so is this damn English weather.

We now find ourselves on the last full day before we give the car back in London tomorrow. By the time we do so, we will have travelled 4800 kms, enough to have driven from Melbourne to Cairns and then turned around and driven back to Sydney. I’ve lost count of the number of roundabouts, but I’m sure it would number in the hundreds. In some ways I will be glad to hand back the keys, but we are both aware that with this goes our sense of freedom. From here on in, it’s buses and trains all the way back to Australia (not forgetting the odd Etihad jet).

Yesterday was our day in Birmingham, a nice but otherwise pretty garden variety city, and today we visited Stratford upon-Avon, and Oxford, where we are spending the night. Birmingham was the largest city we’ve encountered so far (we flew into London, but drove straight to Bath), at around one million inhabitants. It is also home to an extensive system of canals, which appear to be virtually everywhere in the southern half of England. To get a real feel for the city, we did what we normally do and hopped on a city bus – it’s a great way to see a city and its people (warts and all).

Some of Birmingham's canal network

We left Birmingham early, and battled gale force wind and rain all the way to Stratford upon-Avon, the birthplace of the great playwright William Shakespeare. It is a lovely little town built on the pretty Avon River. As you would expect, Shakespeare is exploited on every street. See where Shakespeare was born, see where Shakespeare went to school, see where Shakespeare took a pee (you can’t believe the number of gullible tourist who believed that one – still, I guess I shouldn’t have started it). We were planning to take a short trip down the river, that is until the clouds unleashed their fury.

The Avon River at Stratford

The house where Shakespeare spent a lot of his early years writing.

After leaving Stratford, we travelled to Oxford. It is undoubtedly a lovely place, but I must admit, I don’t think I’ve met a bigger bunch of pompous or pretentious twats riding bikes; talk about silver spoons. It is one of the busiest places we’ve been to, with parking almost impossible. The university is virtually everywhere and made up of constituent colleges, one in particular, Christ Church, has produced thirteen British Prime Ministers. It is a remarkably beautiful set of buildings, and almost made me wish I was a student again.

Christ Church, Oxford.

Lovely scene at Oxford

Oxford is full of beautiful streets like this (and even more beautiful people).

This evening we had a meal at your quintessential English pub, complete with thatched roof, and a couple of locals downing a pint (well, of course we had to join them, it was the neighbourly thing to do). It was so quaint it looked like it came out of the set for James Herriot’s ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. 

The Plough Inn, about two minutes walk from where we are staying. How English can you get!

That's me sinking a pint of the local brew, as recommended by the resident alcoholic.

It will be an early start tomorrow into London. Hopefully, the car’s return will go okay, hopefully we’ll negotiate the trains and buses to get to our accommodation, and hopefully this bloody awful weather will ruin somebody else’s holiday. 

Right outside our window - 5 star accommodation here is not what it is back home.

The other feature of our lives over the past four weeks which will leave us tomorrow is Karen, our trusted GPS. Although we’ve had the odd temper tantrum, a few choice expletives and even one or two dummy-spits (me, not Karen; she’s actually been pretty well behaved), she has really never failed us. We’ll now pack her away in the suitcase, and keep her quiet until we get home (if only I could do the same with Alison).

Karen, our trusty GPS assistant - hey, it's not my fault she's also got a good sense of direction.