South Wales

Had an amazing weekend in South Wales, on a two day tour with Shaggy Sheep. Looking back it's hard to believe we did so much in only 2 days. Starting in London on Friday evening we travelled first across the long Ail Groesfan Hafren bridge across the river Severn, crossing the border after the 23rd approach span (there are 45 altogether) then on past Newport and Cardiff finally to reach Carmarthen just before 11 o' clock. In time to have a pint of Brains bitter in Wales' smallest pub, the Plume of Feathers (full of pictures of local and overseas rugby players - obviously a big theme).

Slotted into a small Bed and Breakfast for the night (actually Shaggy's mother's place - but wonderfully transformed into a B&B), up with a standard English Breakfast and then off to the local market square for a bit of strolling around. Here I replaced my digicam's batteries and bought postcards, an almanac, and an English-Welsh dictionary and a book of Welsh poetry. We'll see if the latter turns out to be anything other than a tourist's souvenir habit ...

Then we went on to Llansteffan Castle (llan means church, so that is "the Church of Stephen") where I took an amazing picture of the view. Looks touched up with Photoshop that's how good it is. And all the time while driving we had the pleasure of observing the beautiful Welsh countryside.

Soon we were at Laugharne (pronounced 'larn'), where Dylan Thomas spent the latter part of his life after a brief stint in London. Not much going on there, but saw his grave, the boathouse where he used to sit and write, and the Brown's Hotel where he used to go for a drink. There's even a photo of him there, sitting in his corner with a lady by his side. C and I had ourselves photographed trying to strike the same pose. There's a little bookshop called Corran Bookshop just across the road, that sells 2nd hand books. I almost got permanently stuck there but fortunately C's good sense took us to Brown's Hotel in the nick of time, for some Double Dragon beer - the best Welsh beer I tasted all weekend (I tried 3 types of Welsh beer over the course of the weekend).

Grabbed a bite to eat and from there went to the horseriding farm where some of us went horseriding for a couple of hours. Not I. Instead took a long walk along the seaside all the way to White Sands, where Shaggy picked us up again. Nice little walk - very windy, and occasionally cold, but with a great view of the coast. That made up most of the afternoon and from there we went back to St Davids - Britain's smallest city (it's a city because of its cathedral) - which we'd passed on our way to the coast (we'd also stopped briefly at St Non's well).

At St Davids we got a chance to wander around the cathedral and the Bishop's Palace (the latter apparently a magnificent structure in its heyday several centuries ago). I had a cup of coffee and really good chocolate cake in the local Espresso Bar - which closed 15 minutes later.

Then we were almost on our way back to Carmarthen, but first we stopped at the Preseli Stones, also believed to be the source of the stones at Stonehenge - had an amazing photograph taken in the near dark. Then it was time to have dinner - this time at a pub with delicious Welsh cawl. We also tried some of the ffagodau (faggots) ... it's an acquired taste. Quite a capable local duo was playing 60s music live in the pub. Nice. Then some of us were too tired to have another one, and so went off to bed. But for the diehards there was another chance to experience some of the local atmosphere - off to a farm bar, a local noncommercial bar that sells beer on tap and of course everything else. Open all night - or until the last person leaves.

Up again early the next day, we were in for our biggest surprise yet: a walk up one of the Brecon Beacons ridges. But first we had breakfast, this time with cockles and laver bread. Cockles taste like mussles, but they're smaller - quite nice. So what was so surprising? The snow, the snow! (to start off with) To my complete disbelief my hands, after the first 10 minutes of icy cold, adapted and I made it without gloves all the way up the ridge and back. I even made several small snowballs with my bare hands. Only on the last piece, in the "little snowstorm" at the top, did I feel the cold that strikes you to the bone, where you feel as if you'll never heat up again. That was a little scary - not the cold, the wind. Snow was sweeping up through a concave part of the slope up the ridge on the back of a strong gust - probably the effect of the cold, the snow, and the shape of the mountain. The snow hits you with force and I had to cover my face and my eyes for the last couple hundred meters (it only affected that part of the path). When I got to the top the wind suddenly became much stronger and you could lean into it at a slant without falling over. Man. I was first at the top - but first to leave the top as well. The second time when the wind picked up strength like that I figured it's quite enough! One can drop off the mountain like that ...

We paid a brief visit to Aberfan, to the cemetary where the graves of the children and others of the Aberfan disaster of 21 October 1966 - 144 died including 116 school children - could be seen. At first I thought it was a disaster like you might read about of the early days of English industrialisation. But when I saw the date and realised how recent it actually was I was surprised. The incident, in which a waste tip of the coal mine on the mountain started sliding down and into the village, rocked Britain and drew sympathy from an international community of benefactors of the fund. It became a symbol of the exploitation of communities for coal mining, and a spur for change.

The last major event was the visit to Cardiff's Open Air Museum. Suffice it to say it's a great concept well executed. All manner of Welsh historical dwellings recreated or brought on site, and you can walk around, ask questions of people who look after the dwelling - great stuff. I even bought a slice of bread baked in the on-site historical bakery!

And then we were all just really tired and took it easy in the van, listening to Tom Jones and Stereophonics and German reggae, all the way back to London.