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Published: June 20th 2008
Stonehenge
About as close as we got to it - Rick, Katie, Hannah, BradAnother long weekend, another holiday. You don’t have to think too hard for excuses to get away over here, and this time we’re off to Wales, and more specifically horse riding in the Brecon Beacons National Park.
We started the trip with a whistle stop tour of a collection of the best sights to see between London and Wales, starting at the infamous Stonehenge. We were up and on the road so early, Stonehenge hadn’t actually opened! However, there is not much that you can’t see from the outside, and somehow Rick convinced the security guard to take photos for us from within the fence.
Next stop was Avebury, said to rival Stonehenge, but personally not a chance. The large stone circles are impressive, but not as good as the ones in Scotland, and besides Stonehenge is the real McCoy. There is something quite special about trying to work out how they got those huge stones all perfectly in to place. And we thing we’re the advanced race.
It didn’t take us long to get to Wales, and just over the border was our next stop: Cheptow Castle, the oldest surviving stone fortification in Britain, built in 1067. The
Avebury
Hannah & Katie hanging out with the stones at Avebury little township was having their market day when we arrived, so each bought some of the local delicacies before searching through the castle ruins on the edge of the River Wye.
Not much further up the same river, set in a tranquil valley is the beautiful Tintern Abbey, or at least what is left of it. The guide book suggested this place would get your poetic juices flowing, and its easy to see why.
Only days earlier I had flicked through the pages of my travel guide to find a picture of Caerphilly Castle, and instantly I decided that we had to go there! The township of the same name is just north of Cardiff (which we purposely missed because most of us had been therefore and the castle is the only thing really worth seeing), so it worked our perfectly.
Caerphilly Castle is exactly what I would think of as a typical old castle: lots of towers, stone walls, and a big moat around the outside that’s actually full of water. It’s the second largest castle in Europe, only surpassed by Winsor, and was built around 1271. So just a couple hundred years older than me.
By
Damsels in Distress
Hannah & Katie waiting for their knight in shining armour at Chepstow Castle the time we finished looking though the castle, it was time to get to our campsite in the Brecon Beacons National Park before it got too dark to put up our tents. We spent the rest of the night in the rural pub playing darts, pool, cards and chatting to the locals.
We had an early rise the following morning to find it was raining😞 We were not impressed, as we had booked our day-long cross-county horse trek! I’d never been on a horse before, except being lead around on a pony at school fairs, so I was already a bit nervous, and none of us were prepared for weather like this!
However, it seemed that we were going to be doing it rain, hail or shine!
My big black horse, Minty, seemed to be the tallest of them all, and certainly had a mind of her own!
We had a marvellous time trotting through the little lanes of the villages in the national park. Minty seemed to know what she was doing, so I could sit back and enjoy the ride.
However, that didn’t last long. The wind and rain soon came while we were winding
Chepstow Castle
Rick, Katie, Hannah, Brad our way up a steep hill with tall trees swaying about and scaring the horses (and me!). From there on in, I was wet, cold and rather scared! I had no idea how to hold on properly when Minty ran, and when a spooked horse starts running, it seems theres no stopping it!
I have no idea how didn’t have a face-to-face meeting with the pavement!
Two and a half hours later, I’d never been so glad to see a pub! - our lunch stop, where we all had a big feed and tried to dry off a bit.
I made an executive decision to stay at the pub and watch the Formula 1 racing in Monaco while the others went back over the ranges in the storm. The other had a great time running back without scaredy-cat me, and I was in the large armchair by the fire, perfect.
Nevertheless, our horse riding adventures were no match to the extreme sport of cheese rolling. Pretty simple concept: find one extremely steep hill, a large round of cheese and a whole bunch of kamikaze idiots keen enough to chase it down the hill… all to win: the cheese.
It
Tough Guys
Rick & Brad try on the latest technology in protective headwear sounds simple on paper, but once you’ve seen the hill with your own eyes, and the line up of ambulances they have at the bottom, you’ll soon have second thoughts!
Needless to say, we had a great time watching people hurtle themselves down the hill (which is seriously steeper than it looks in the photos!) and then slowly but surely get carried away. I’ve heard a static that 60%!o(MISSING)f people that enter get hurt. Thankfully that wasn’t our Brad or Rick, cos that would have been a long trip back to London!
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