Cruising The English Way

The United Kingdom drives on the left side of the road, just like India. But that’s about as much similarity as you’ll find between the two countries’ roads. BUNNY PUNIA takes the Mercedes-AMG C43 for a spin from Barnstaple to Newquay.

Freedom means different things to different people. For me, it translates into solo road trips, which help me escape from the daily 9-to-5 grind and explore new destinations with breathtaking vistas at my own pace. In June this year, my voyage was on the scenic ocean route from Barnstaple to Newquay in the United Kingdom in one of the best performance saloons in the world—the Mercedes-AMG C43.

My official reason to be in the UK was to attend the MGLive! 2018 at the holy grail of motorsports in the country, the Silverstone Circuit. But post the weekend craze, it was time to unwind and explore the countryside. The road trip started at Kettering, which was my base for the weekend, and it was here that MercedesBenz UK delivered the stunning AMG C43.

There are two ways to reach Barnstaple from Kettering—the quicker one includes a series of motorways, but the scenic option passes through countryside stretches via the ‘A’ roads. I took the latter, of course, driving with the sunroof open as the cool breeze made the summer sun bearable. My first pit-stop was Stevenage, where a hot Indian meal awaited me, thanks to a childhood friend’s great choice of place to settle at. By early noon, I was back on the road for the four-hour drive to Barnstaple. You cover ground rapidly in countries like the UK, courtesy of generous speed limits (112 km/h on roads with a divider and 96 km/h on others). This, coupled with excellent road manners, means that it is easy to cover 90 kilometres every hour without even trying. But when you are new to a country, you want to capture as many vistas as possible and end up stopping a lot. There are designated parking stops by the highway for this.