A-roads Around Britain: January 2012

Sunday 29 January 2012

The Plan Day 1: South Coast Saunter

Over the next few weeks I plan to describe the route that I am going to take, and the major highlights along the way. Did I mention I'm not going to be using a sat nav?

Plan for Day 1: Worthing to Torquay.
(206 miles, approx. 6.5 hours driving)

The journey all starts at the Shaftesbury Avenue traffic lights on the A259, which is the part of the route nearest my home. I'm going to see a lot of the A259, in fact almost all of it. There's a lot of it on day 1, and even more on day 13. The only bits of the A259 I'm not driving will be the bit through Chichester (where the A27 is closer to the coast) and a short section on day 13 through Bexhill, where the A269 for some inexplicable reason pops into the town and out again. Hey ho.

The River Arun. The first river of many that I will be crossing...
© Copyright Chris Shaw and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

My first chance to get lost happens when I get to Portsmouth, where I will travel down one side of the city, and up the other. This will also be the first time I actually get to see the sea as the A288 makes it to the coast. There's then a lot of trundling along the A27 through Fareham, where the M27 is the more sane route to take, before heading towards the Itchen Bridge, and the first of many, many tolls. Having by this point spent most the time either in or on the edge of urban areas, I will then head into the New Forest and down to Lymington. Then it's through Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole before heading to Dorchester via the A351, A352, A353 and A354! Sadly due to the recent re-classification of roads when the Weymouth relief road was built, I won't be visiting Weymouth.

Hills to admire.
© Copyright Martin Bodman and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

From Dorchester I'll be back on a road I've driven before, until reaching Lyme Regis. The road from there to Exeter looks like it might have lots of nice hills to admire. From Exeter I'll head south down through Dawlish to Torquay.

The directions I have written for myself go as follows:

1. A259 to Chichester
2. A27 Chichester Bypass
3. A259 to Emsworth
4. A27 to A2030 (Portsmouth)
5. A2030 to A288
6. A288 Milton Road to A3
7. A3 via Hope Street to A27
8. A27 to A3025 near J8 M27
9. A3025 to Itchen Bridge to A33
10. A33 becomes A35 to Lyndhurst
11. One-Way system to A337
12. A337 to Christchurch A35
13. A35 to A350 Poole Harbour
14. A350 back to A35
15. A35 to A351
16. A351 to Wareham
17. A352 to A353
18. A353 to A354
19. A354 to Donchester
20. A35 to Charmouth
21. A3052 to A376
22. M5 J30 - A379 towards Dawlish
23. A379 to Torquay.

The route can be viewed on a map if you wish:

Day 1 - Worthing to Lymington

Day 1 - Lymington to Torquay

Note for the pedantic: Bing's routing doesn't recognise the Weymouth Relief Road, though it is there. When viewed using Bing's standard road map, if any route looks like it isn't on an A-road this is due to Bing's mapping not matching the OS mapping.

Sunday 22 January 2012

I'm going to drive around Britain...

For my holiday this year I am going to drive around Britain. Literally. Round the edge. And I'm going to do it using only A-roads. This is my blog about it, so welcome :)

(Before continuing, please note none of the Google Maps links in the Sabre thread work properly since the latest Google Maps update. Go Google!) This all started some months back when one of the posters over at SABRE posted this topic about circumnavigating the UK by car using only A-roads. Further down the page you will notice yours truly deciding to take up the challenge and cheerfully splitting the route up into 13 days of travel. That all took some time. Now all the links don't work. I did it all again with Bing maps, with the added advantage that they host OS maps, which I personally feel are more reliable for telling me what is and isn't an A-road. You may be surprised that whether a road is in fact classified as an A-road isn't always the easiest thing to work out. Then again you may not if you came here from Sabre.

I set myself some rules, they were thus:

1) As far as possible I will always stay on the A-road nearest the coast.

2) I will not double-back on myself, so A-roads that don't lead to other A-roads are out.

3) I will go clockwise. This is solely due to a mildly traumatic childhood experience when I directed the family car up Porlock Hill on the A39 in Devon. I shall be driving down it.

4) I will not use any ferries.

However, I'm going to break the rules 3 times, because I can:

1) I'm going around Anglesey anticlockwise. A lot of islands are ruled out by rule 2, but Anglesey has two A-roads accessing it (the A5 and A55), but due to a lack of available slip roads onto the A55 Britannia Bridge I can only stick to rule 1 by going anticlockwise around Anglesey. Stare at a map of North Wales for a while if you wish to see what I mean...

2) It's a long way via Gloucester, so I shall use the M48 Severn Bridge. Nothing against Gloucester, but this journey is long enough as it is.

3) Gretna. You have probably never cared, and neither had I until recently, that you cannot get from the A6071 to the A75 at Gretna without using a B-road. So I will be using the B7076 in Gretna to avoid an even bigger detour than going via Gloucester.

I will post the details of the route during this week. There will also be posts about various bits of the route, I may even do some statistics. Pressing questions such as "Is the Middlesborough Transport Bridge actually a ferry?", "What if the A890 at Strome Ferry is still closed when I reach it?" and "How many days have I booked the Travelodge breakfast bag?" will be tackled over the next few weeks. Once I've started my holiday I will try to update everyday with photos and tales of the journey.

Would prefer to not have any of that thank you...

It's 13 days, over 3000 miles, in a Citroen C3, and it all starts in glamorous fashion here at the end of March. Most of all though, it's going to be fun and I hope a great way to see lots of Britain!