North to south through the Principality

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Saturday 25th July
North to South through the Principality
The plan today to get to our destination in Bridgend is to drive a huge S shape through the Principality of Wales.From our starting point in Prestatyn on the north coast we will drive south inland and then swing west to the mid Wales coast taking in some coastline travelling south and then swinging back inland to the east before the final drive south through the famed coal valley of the Rhondda to Bridgend.
The microwave has proved its worth during our stay in Prestatyn but we do prefer to not draw attention to ourselves by carrying it in and out while there are people around.Our stay at Graig Park Country Club was easier to transport the microwave in as the room we were staying in ewas detached from the reception area and it should have been just as easy to take it out.But everyone seems to be leaving at the same time as us today and we had to wait for the moment to get it into the car when there was no one around.Silly really but we guess we are not supposed to be making our meals in our rooms in hotels in this country as they don’t supply anything like a fridge that makes life easier in looking after oneself for meals.
First call is in at the Sainsbury’s store just down the road for something to add to the rolls for lunch.
In the car park we saw something that we should have started to do when we arrived in the UK and picked up RR.There was a car that had clearly travelled around the country like us with the tickets that you get in the pay and display parks you find everywhere,even in the smallest of villages sometimes,to place on your windscreen.Invariably the tickets come as a peel off piece that you gum to the windscreen with the part showing the time you have purchased.
This car had tickets gummed all around the windscreen!!There must have been at least 70 or 80 of them.The tickets all look the same,printed with in black ink and are of a uniform size.
What an idea!!You collect a few yourself by paying and then hunt around the car park for the discarded ones that seem to be everywhere and stick them on the winscreen so that when you go into a park you do it without paying and even if someone comes along to check they give up trying to find the one applicable to that car park because there are so many to check!!!Would we do that??of course not even if this is the BBA!!
We started the journey on the A525 through pleasant rolling farmland with only moderate traffic.
Farmland though we have found in the UK means “farm vehicles”on the narrow road with trucks and cars travelling usually at speeds of perhaps 10 or 15 mph!!Often long lines of cars queue behind the farm vehicles as it is difficult to get past them without taking some risk.There don’t appear to be the tracks and farm roads we have in NZ on which farmers are able to take their vehicles and implements around their farms or to neighbouring properties without being on public roads.
Ar Ruthin as we changed to the A494 we came across the sight of people decked out in their fine clothes and a tall man in a suit with tails hurrying up the road to a church for a wedding.Locals had gathered on the pavement opposite the packed church to see the bride arrive.It all reminded us of Leigh’s special day back in January!!
We were now well into the Welsh countryside with sheep everywhere in the paddocks.One thing that stands out between the Scottish and Welsh countryside is that Scotland seemed to have a lot of cropping especially in the east lowlands while here in Wales farming is all about sheep!!
Whether it was something to do with the day of the week we are not sure but we seem to be encountering more farm vehicles today than ever before on this adventure.
And the envitable had to happen with a car taking a dangerous move on a blind corner in overtaking a tractor.It was an Audi and we have found that people who drive these cars in the UK are usually carefree about their driving.How they missed a head on collision we don’t know.
Another of the interesting things we have noticed in the UK are the number of bus shelters even in the isolated countryside places.In the village of Rhewl(no more than a dozen houses and a shop)there were 3 bus shelters on the road through the settlement.We guess the construction and installation of bus shelters must have been and probably still is a profitable businesses for the people involved in setting up the huge network of them all over the country from the far north of Scotland to where we are today in mid Wales.In passing you hardly ever see anyone standing in these countryside shelters.
We continued on through villages with unpronounceable Welsh names like Gwyddelwern and Cefn-ddwysarn(it took at least 2 minutes to spell them correctly for this blog) and soon arrived in Bala for a stop to get some exercise.
The Essiteddford(a kind of festival peculiar to Wales) is to happen in this town next weekend although today it seemed busy enough to think it had already started by the number of people in the high street.In field on the edge of a town another small temporary town was under construction with a giant circus type tent and dozens of other similar smaller structures around and about the main tent.There were even temporary plastic footpaths laid for people to get around the site if the weather became wet.
The B4403 followed the railway line down one side of Bala Lake so we opted for that than the main road.Initially it seemed like a good idea as we thought we might be on the road when the steam train came by.That didn’t happen as we noted at the station that the train had left sometime ago and would be at the other end by now.
What did happen was that the road became very narrow with the few passing bays not signposted as they were in Scotland.And the drivers using the road,probably not being locals,thought that they always had right of way!!This resulted us in meeting up with a 4 wheel drive that wasn’t going to back up and Gretchen having to reverse RR back a 100 yards to a spot where the other vehicle could just squeeze by.Shortly after the same thing looked like it was going to happen again but theis time Gretchen kept her foot on the accelerator and the other car had to reverse to a spot we could pass it.
All this delayed us a bit and we were longer reaching the coast where we had planned to stop for lunch.
After a morning of driving past farms and sheep the seaside was a welcome change of scenery and we stopped at Borth which is a beach holiday destination for Brits.The beach actually didn’t look too bad with plenty of sand above the waterline for families to be out with their kids doing beach activities.There were even people in the water swimming and some attempting to catch a wave and surf.With the car temperature registering 18C it couldn’t have been any warmer in the sea and although there was little wind it was no wonder that swimmers coming back up the beach were reaching for their towels very quickly.Above the street that ran along the beach there was the usual bunting out trying to give the place a festive air.
To get to Borth we had to come off the main road and take the B4572 which also meant that when we left the seaside town we had to rejoin the main road the A487.
Now almost everywhere in this country there are roundabouts even when they are not needed with only a through road .We must admit that they do control the traffic very well generally and give everyone transitting a chance to keep moving even if at low speed.
However this was one intersection where there was no roundabout BUT they did need one!!!With heavy holiday traffic taking advantage of the fine sunny day and out for a drive we sat and waited for what seemed like 5 minutes to get a chance to enter the A487 and even then it was when Gretchen had got tired of waiting and planted her foot.!!!
At Aberystwyth,a nice looking seaside town with a University we switched inland again onto the A44 and back to the Welsh countryside again.Gretchen had read or heard somewhere recently that there are 40 million sheep in Wales and although this number seemed high when we have that number in NZ it may have been correct by the number we have passed already today!!
The villages now came few and far between as we drove east and at Sennybridge we turned south on the A4067 and into the Brecon Beacons National Park.Unlike in NZ where the National Parks are set aside from farming,in the UK farming is carried out although there are restrictions on what farmers or people that own property within a National Park can do with their homes and farmland.
The next feature we came across as we got closer to our destination was a coal mine with a long conveyer building leading down from the hillside to the road.We knew we were near the coal mines of South Wales or at least what was left of the industry.
The road we were now on was the A4061 climbing steadily up a hill that plateaued and there before us was the famed Rhondda Valley which was where the greatest amount of coal had been mined in the heyday of the industry.
As the road twisted and turned down the hill we had views of the dozens of terraced houses that had been coalminers homes either side of the main street that ran up the valley at Treherbert that led to a coal mine of the past.
We now found ourselves in the valley itself driving through little towns that all joined each other in a row until the valley opened out to farmland again.It is not obvious whether there is still mining in this area but the terraced houses that lined the road still looked occupied and the people had to work somewhere in the area.
At exit #36 on the M4 we found our hotel stay for the next 2 nights at the Premier Inn.We were fortunate to get two nights at GBP29 per night and the hotel we understand is a step up from the more basic Travelodge so we are looking forward to a little more luxury from our home for the next two nights.

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