Boulders, baths, and buses in Britain

Stonehenge in the sunlight.

Another incredibly early morning. Another round of hauling my partly-broken suitcase up and down stairs through tube stations. Another Contiki check in and a new busload of people.

My second Contiki tour was populated mostly by Aussie girls around my age. In fact, I'd say we occupied about three-quarters of the bus, with a handful of Canadians, Americans, a couple of Kiwis, and later on two South Africans completing the mix. It was in stark contrast to the more diverse mixture of nationalities, ages and backgrounds from the Europe Contiki - and I kind of missed that diversity, even if being surrounded by familiar accents helped me feel more at home.

Our first stop on the tour was a visit to Stonehenge. When asked what I thought of Stonehenge after the visit, I replied simply with "stony." The weather was cold and windy, resulting in many attempted portrait photographs that showed a smiling face almost completely obscured by hair, with those famous boulders arranged in the background (occasionally the sun would make an appearance, at which point everyone rushed to take photos of Stonehenge in the sunlight).

I also discovered that Cannon make drop-proof digital cameras. As I walked back towards the bus, my precious IXUS 70 slipped from my grasp, clattering across the concrete and sending the battery sliding away across the path. Apprehensively, I picked up the snapshot acquisition device and inspected the damage. There were scratches on one corner, but otherwise everything was intact, and all in perfect working order. It was one of the few things that didn't end up broken as a result of my travels.

After Stonehenge, we visited the small and Romanesque town of Bath. We were given ample free time to explore the town. In fact, it almost felt like a little bit too much free time: Bath was small and apart from the Roman baths, there wasn't much there. I tried to feel interested and impressed by the Roman baths and the town itself. I faked enthusiasm for the baths and the tour so far.

But the truth was I wanted to be in London still. Or even Europe. I began to question why I'd signed up for this tour in the first place. The England and Scotland tour was utterly different from my adventures in Europe, and I already knew it wouldn't measure up to my expectations. I guess my expectations had been a bit too high, or unrealistic. The UK tour was all about charm, and plenty of history, and cute country towns, and quaint little shops. I'm not much of a history enthusiast and could experience quaint country shops and highland scenery in the Southern Highlands near Sydney back at home.

So why was I here? And could I really muster up enough optimism and enthusiasm to enjoy the rest of the tour? It felt almost boring compared to incredible Europe, where we went to a new and strikingly different city every day, combined with unique experiences (Bobsledding! Gondolas! Bike tours! Cable cars! Being able to legally get stoned if one chose to do so in the Netherlands!). Each day looked like it would be fairly similar in character to the day before: castles. Scenery. Small towns with cute shops. Historical things. Pubs.

Even the way the tour was conducted was different. Our tour manager was definitely not Kat, who had excellent music taste and let us do our own thing while on the bus. Our new tour manager was warm and friendly and went the extra mile to make sure we were all OK and enjoying ourselves, but things also began to feel a bit more like a school excursion. We were forced to introduce ourselves while on the bus to the rest of the group (speaking in front of a group like that almost single-handedly brought back all the stupid social anxiety I'd managed to suppress while overseas so far), a DVD was put on for longer bus drives, there was a strange blind dating game we played before we got to Gretna Green on a later day, and the day song quickly became irritating.

An underwhelming start to the tour was capped off by a noisy hens night and lack of elevators at our first hotel (and of course my room wasn't on the ground floor and was situated directly above the hens night where there was a truly awful band playing covers of 80's songs and the singer couldn't stay on key for more than a few seconds). I longed for London, but resolved to try my best to have fun on the rest of the tour, even if it wasn't as good as I'd been hoping for.