We had a longer driving day ahead of us today as we were heading to “The South”. We were amused that on the motorways they really do have signs directing you to “The South” or “The North”, almost as if they were two seperate parts of the country .
In any case we had a long drive on mostly motorways , Neil describing it as a boring drive. Around lunch time we finally turned of the motorway towards Milton Keynes where we stopped in to visit the museum at Bletchley Park. A highly secret establishment, Bletchley Park was where Alan Turing and other agents of the Ultra intelligence project decoded the enemy’s secret messages, most notably those that had been encrypted with the German Enigma and Tunny cipher machines. Experts have suggested that the Bletchley Park code breakers may have shortened the war by as much as two years! After the war it was used by the British governments Defence Cyber Security department, GCHQ. GCHQ is the British equivalent of our own Australian Signals Directorate, our government Cyber Spy agency. Bletchley Park, remained totally secret until the mid 1970s, today it’s a museum
We were keen to see it, for its role in WW2 and also because of our own personal interests in the Cyber Intelligence community. The museum was excellent! Many of the original huts , which look like Cold War bunkers, had displays showing equipment and personal,stories from the people who worked here. One hut had a widescreen movie talking specifically about how Bletchley Park was involved in planning for D Day. The beautiful mansion that was the centre of the grounds was the headquarters of the operation.
We had about an hours drive from Milton Keynes to Oxford. When we arrived we went for a walk into the centre of the old part of the city, where all the University College buildings are as well as the Bodleian Library, on this walm Saturday afternoon the city was packed, with tourists and students enjoying the warmest day we’ve had for a while. Oxford is really on the tourist trail, we heard more accents and saw more tour groups here than anywhere else on this trip.
We had thought we might find dinner in town but everywhere was packed! Fortunately our hotel had its own cafe/restaurant so we returned back and had a tasty Italian dinner . Risotto for me and Pizza for Neil. Then back to bed to be ready for our last day in the UK.