Off to Wales
A Welsh adventure to start the journey13 16 Sep 07
After the National MC Museum we had the economy class tour of Birmingham. Despite our best efforts riding the late night local buses, and our failure o find any real Brum-Balti food, we quite liked the place. It has a real try-hard feel to it and an interesting ethnic mix. Folks from Brm would understand the Gold Coast better than most other Brits.
Our trip down to Abergavenny, at the start o the Brecon Beacon National Park, was an uneventful roll through a pleasant, if cluttered English countryside. The only accommodation we could find was a spare room at the local conference centre together with a group from the Orange mobile phone company. This was a great deal with a huge comfortable room in a lovely old converted country house. Although I am sure that we provided a little amusement to the conference attendees when we rolled up and parked right outside the window of a presentation room.
Jo finds out how the corporate training pound is spent in Wales
Another pretty cottage in another pretty town
Interestingly, the place was booked out for a food festival over the weekend. We thought this a great joke as, like in other UK towns, we struggled to find anything worth eating.
A run over the National Park south to north then north to south was an interesting introduction to Wales with bare-arsed hills and rain over 300 m. Interesting from an Australian perspective, the park is grazed and there are little farming communities all over. Kylie was taking us via some very small back lanes with lots of blind corners and the surface slick with rain and sheep shit. Despite all this it was a great ride and got us into a flash B&B near Carmarthen in good order.
We met up with Nick that night and Sarah and her Mike and Mikes dad John the next morning. All piled into the train for a couple of hours of British Rail entertainment down to Cardiff.
Sarah and Nick on the train to Cardiff
Mike and John Green at the mercy of British Rail
The stadium was great, definitely the best place we have seen to watch rugby. The atmosphere was electric but we were hoping the Welsh would sing a little more. Still it is hard to get enthusiastic about singing when your team is being taken apart.
The best place anywhere to watch rugby!
More BR nonsense on the way back, a great dinner with the family at a very nice restaurant and we settled into our bed in the 16th century farm house content that we had a pretty good Welsh adventure.
A family happy snap at John Green's home at Capel Dewi, Carmarthen, Wales