25th July (Picked up car for UK drive)

Left Tor and Judith's place in the morning with our back packs. For some reason, the alarm didn't ring and we were running late. With some difficulty, we found our way to Avis at Earl's Court. We picked up the car, a Black Ford Mondeo. We assumed roles for driving. I wouldn't even pretend to be able to read maps and navigate well, therefore I will try to do more driving, while Ross does the navigation. This sorts of works out well since Ross is very good at navigation while I am good at driving manual cars.

We went on the A40, then the M40 and A40 to get to Cotswold, around the multiple villages in Cotswold. Saw lots of stone cottages, beautiful steams, stone bridges and ducks.

We drove all the way to South of Scotland. We took the A44 - M5 - M6 and then M74. Nearing Scotland, I saw a singular cow crossing an overhead bridge, thought that was very amusing. Since I was driving, we didn't manage to take a picture. We stopped for the night at the crossover to Scotland, Premier Travel Inn in Locherbie. It was a ordinary "Local Services" stop with stay, a supermarket, petrol, and 2 cafes (including Costa Coffee). We had driven 380miles in total. The cafes weren't that impressive in terms of variety of food and in the end, I had a salad while Ross had a sandwich at Costa Coffee. The Inn was very near a lake. We went for a walk around the area and felt so peaceful looking at the numerous ducks and swans swimming in the lake.