My close friend Abhi from the UConn FSAE had been living in Oxford for the past year while he completed his Masters. The next stop was to pay him an overdue visit to catch and visit Oxford and London. It was two long days of riding to get down there so when I finally arrived it was nice to be in good company. Over the next couple of days I got the grand tour of Oxford and we got to visit many of the amazing museums open to the public. The plethora of Oxford museums span an amazing diversity of fields with some unbelievable artifacts. The collection of marble statues and ancient Greek/ Egyptian artifacts in the Ashmolean is particularly amazing. The Botanical Gardens were a nice relaxing visit the next day. Oxford Brooks (where Abhi's program is) had multiple past F1 cars and replicas on display which were quite cool to see. Besides all of that it was nice to just hang out with a friend and enjoy some downtime.
We took the bus into London one day to see the typical tourist sights, at least from the outside. I must admit my interest in standing in lines and guided audio tours was limited. Plus that made more time for the amazing museums and walking about the city. At the National Gallery we saw some quite cool works, the highlight for me being the many Monet's and van Gogh's on display. We took a break for lunch over the covered market which was quite a cool place to walk around. Lastly we visited the British Museum which was an absolute highlight. The unbelievable volume and significance of the works and artifacts on display was hard to believe.
Although it was hard to say goodbye I was ready to start putting the miles on and decided I would try to get down to Dover in just two days of riding, while also circumventing London by staying to the south. I did manage this with two long 80 mile days in a row. For both nights I wild camped, the first time since Scotland. The first night was particularly cool finding a grove of large Sycamores in the midst of new growth pine forest. Eventually I made it down to the coast and the next morning was met with a full view of White Cliffs of Dover on the way to my ferry across the channel to France.
