England And Wales August 2002

After a long sumer, we decided to buy some saddle bags for the bike and head south. So, with that in mind, we packed some clothes, our map, a travel book, and filled up the bike with gas. From there, we headed east. After, travelling east for a bit, we rechecked our map, corrected our headings, and started south. Our first destination, the tourist trap known as Blackpool, and then speed trap after speed trap we continued thru England to Wales. Below is pics from our summer adventure.

England - Blackpool - If you have ever seen pictures or heard about Blackpool, this is the stereotypical shot - the beach, the tower, the warfs, the milling people. We were lucky in that the Scottish schools were already back to school (sort of, but that's another story) and the English schools were just starting to open, so the town was busy, but not crowded. You could tell that this was a tourist town.

On this peer was a ferris wheel, as well as several theaters and concert halls.

Looking the other way, is another warf with amusement rides and more of a carnival atmosphere. Nice beach as well.

At the end (or at least as far as we went) was an amusement park. According to the literature, Blackpool is the rollercoaster capital of the world. I am not sure if that is true, but as you can see, that one is pretty big. On the right side, is the entrance way to the amusement peir.

This is the world's fastest rollercoaster - it reaches speads of around 85 miles per hour. The problem is that it takes 30 minutes to get onto it, and the ride only lasts about 2 minutes. But, hey, it was fun.

On the lower right, it looks like a double decker bus, but it is actually a double decker tram. They have them running up and down the coast. And, just over a little is a horse and buggy, which will also take you for a ride around the waterfront.

Ooh... and the rollercoaster lights up really nice too!!!

Another quick shot of the rollercoaster.

This is the boardwalk at night. Blackpool is like a mini-Vegas, but different and beautiful in it's own way. It still has it's Vegas lights, but also has a beautiful beach and a great amusement park, without the Disneyland lineups.

This shot shows the really interesting street lighting. These cute little fellows include Mr. SpaceMan, Mr. 70's Dude with nice glasses, and Mr. Groovie 60's Dude. On closer inspection, they are actually pies - notice the Holland's" truck? The trucks go between each of the pies thru the night. At the end of the picture, you can see golden M of McDonalds, and Ronald is a blury figure down the street. What Ronald was doing was kicking a football (or soccer ball to you in NA) to the centre of the road, and it was being headded by a FryGuy, over to another FryGuy. If you look a couple pictures back, you will see Ronald, Grimmace, the FryGuys, and the footballs. Each football lights up one after the other, as if Ronald kicked it. Even further down the road was these really far out space creatures in their UFO's (pronounced U-Foes in the UK) that were shooting laser beams across the street towards the other space aliens. It was totally surreal. Sorry, no pictures on those ones.

After walking down to the tower that night, we dragged our butts to our B+B and slept the sleep of the tourist. We had a big breakfast, and were off to Wales.

Wales - Brecon Beacons - After walking up in England, once again, we headed south aiming for Cardif. Even though Cardif is only about 5 inches south of Blackpool, it took us almost all day to make it to Newport, which is just a little east of our target. After leaving Newport, we headed north to Brecon Beacons, which is the mountains of Wales. They are doing a conservation effort, where the farmers and the government share a co-op of the hills, and the sheep are allowed to use the forests, as long as they don't harm the forrest. It was quite a weird walking along, and hearing bbbaaaaa bbaaaa. Then, out of nowhere the sheep appear from out of the ferns.

And look at how thick the ferns are! How many sheep are lost in the ferns?

Another shot looking towards the tourist information centre. Notice how nice and manacured the lawn looks? The sheep have had a hay day there. Mmmm. Golf grass!

Wales - Harlech - We tried to do as much side roads or smaller highways as we could, time permitting. Which we were bombing along some little road, we looked up and found this little gem. The one thing that we noticed is that Welsh castles are quite different than English or Scottish castles - they are the traditional storybook, or movie castles. What I mean is that they are the four walled encampments, with a tourret at each corner.

Another shot looking straight onto the castle.

Wales - Newgale - After a couple really nice days, Wednesday was, well, horrible. The winds were fierce, the rain was relentless, and the mist was, well misty. We were soaked and cold, even the inside of my helmet was wet. I have been dryer scuba diving - honest. Ironically the town is called "Newgale". We unfortunately didn't get a chance to visit Oldgale or Gale. On the beach, they have a gravel breakwater which is about 10 feet high. I guess this allows enough protection from the water and wind, as there were quite a few tent and caravan campers. On the good side, you have are really close to the ocean, but on the down side, you couldn't see the beach or ocean from the camp because of this gravel wall.

Just a little on the right from the last picture, is downtown Newgale. And, just infront of the camera is the bench, where the locals can get away from the hectic pace of city life.

Wales - Portmeirion - What can I say about it that all ready hasn't been said? It's actually a really famous town, also made popular from the hit TV series of "Prisoner". For those of you that are unfamiliar with Portmeirion, here's a little exerpt from the brocure:

Croeso. Gobeithio y gwnewch chi fwynhau eich ymweliad a phentref Portmeirion. Nod Clough Williams-Ellis oedd dangos bod modd datblygu lle prydferth heb ei ddifetha. Rydym yn dilyn ei athroniaeth hyd heddiw gan roi pwyslais ar gyflogi'n lleoll, defnyddio cynnrch lleol ac wryth gwrs arddel polisi dwyieithiog llawn. Rydym yn ceisio creu twristiaeth gynaladwy ar hyd y flwyddyn a fydd o les i'r gymuned leol yn hytrach na'i thanseilio. Diolch i chithau am ymweld a thrwy hynny ein helpu ni i gyrraedd y nod.

I really couldn't have said it any better than that. Do you know how hard that was to type? It was really difficult!!! For those of you who's Welsh isn't up to much, I'll try and loosely translate...

Welcome. I hope you enjoy your visit. Clough Williams-Ellis began Portmeirion in 1926 in order to demonstrate how a naturally beautiful site could be developed without spoiling it. He completed the village in 1976 when he was over 90 years old. The buildings are now listed Grade II and the site is a designated Conservation Area...

There's actually more in the brocure, but after typing all that Welsh, my fingers are tired. Basically he tried to design a town by making it beautiful by taking architecture from all around Europe, and combining them into the countryside. Clough Williams-Ellis was actually an architect by trade, so he was able to design his own town himself, using his own money and resources, building it his own way.

This is one of several beach shots.

On your ticket, it displays the next high tide time, which is real useful. You can easily get stranded on one of the sandbars, and then you have a real squishy walk back to the shore.

In the middle of the picture is a little sail boat that has somehow decided to either strand himself, or just take a break on the sandbar. I really believe that this little coffee break wasn't intentional.

This is one of the many hotels in Portmeirion. Just in the courtyard was a wedding reception, so we couldn't actually look in the hotel. For the hotels, it's a little pricy starting at 125 pounds per room per night, and that doesn't include breakfast.

A little closer view of the hotel.

A little courtyard showing off the different coloured buildings.

Another really nice courtyard. One interesting thing we noticed all around Wales is no house is painted the same colour as their neighbour's. Each house is a variety of yellows, blues, purples, oranges etc. The colours aren't hideous like something out of the 60's, but more of muted pastels. I didn't get any really good city shots to display this. Just remember this when you look at the pics of Tenby, where there's a couple of shots of the different flats.

Here we are looking up at Portmeirion from the beach. Notice the different colours of the buildings - yellow, pink, blue etc. Lovely place to have a town indeed.

Wales - Tenby - After a couple of hours driving, we were in Tenby. It was a beautiful coastal village. If it wasn't for the weather, this day could have been of postcard quality.

We are up on the cliffs looking down towards the beach and part of the village.

A closer shot of just the town.

For some reason, they had this castle boarded up. Maybe because they were still discovering more of Blue Beard's lost treasure. In the middle of the island is a cave, which we explored. Spooky!

On the left are quite a few sail boats - it appears that they are learning sailing.

A closer shot of the castle from the other side. Martha Stewart had a hand in growing the ivy, but it's getting a little out of control. She needs to come back and give it a good trim.

This is up on the cliff (from where we took the beach shot and the first castle shot) looking at the flats and ocean. The buildings in Wales are very colorful. This is a small example of the different colors they use, unfortunately this picture doesn't do the town justice.

This is the eastern part of the village. It was quite sprawling for it's size.

Here is Kim wishing we would move to Wales. They also have a cool flag with a dragon.

Wales - St. David's Head - St. David's Head is almost the most western part of Wales.

When you leave the carpark at the St. David's Head Abby, you are first greeted with the ruins of the old Abby. Just off to the right of the old Abby is the new Abby. On the right, you can see that they are just starting to repair the ruins. This project will cost an estimated 2.5million pounds. I am not really sure what they are trying to achieve - preserving the ruins... It would be an amazing feat if they would place a building around the ruins, but I think that would be unrealistic. I think they are just making the building safe, and performing archilogical digs around the site.

This is the Abby at St. David's Head. It was not as elaborate as other cathedrals or Abby's that we have been to. The building itself was impressive, but didn't have the splendour and wealth of others we have seen. Inside was very grey and raw.

Here we are, up ontop of the hill. Right behind us is the bell tower. Originally I thought that there was one person who ran around pulling the ropes for each bell, just like Quazzie Motto in Notra Dame, but there is actually one person per bell. They have sheet music on the walls and how each bell should be rung. At this Abby, there were 7 people, but there were ten ropes, so obviously three bells didn't get played that day. Another weird item was that it was louder outside the bell tower than inside - I guess that's good, or else the bell ringers would be deaf by now. In the Abby was wedding, so while they were finishing (and they took forever) we had a little tour of the grounds.

Behind the Abby was this little creek. In earlier years, it acted as a moat for protection to the worshippers inside. That's actually a lie - it's just a creek. Had you going, didn't I?

This is taken from the back of the Abby looking up at the clock tower. And that time was correct.

Wales - Tintern Abby - This is Tintern Abby, which is in the heart of the country. King Richard wanted a divorse from his current wife, and he asked the bishop for a divorse. The bishop said no. So, he then asked the pope, which also said no. So, he decided that christianaty wasn't really for him, and so he converted to being a Prodistant. And, as a final jesture, destroyed a lot of the christian Abby's and cathederals.

These buildings in front of us would have been the monk's residence.

And a little closer view of the monk's residence.

A view of the Welsh countryside inbetween the Abby and monk's residence.

This was the kitchen and working area of the the Abby. The Abby is directly behind me.

Kim is admiring the Abby, while waving good bye to you all.

Wales - Aberystwyth - When we arrived in Aberystwyth, we had the worst weather days - period. We had mist, fog, mud, rain, high winds, traffic and tractors. I have never driven on mud on a street bike before, and, if you ever get the chance, DON'T! It is very slippery. When we arrived in the hotel, we must have been a site - all wet (read: all clothing was wet and cold), muddy, and tired. After trying several hotels with no vacancies (I am sure if the had vacancy before we came in) we stumbled upon this place. It had a great view, and was surprisingly quiet for being on the main drag. We borrowed a hair dryer to dry out everything, and had a hot shower and a cup'o'tea. In the last 20 minutes of the day, the sun decided to give us a perfect ending to an eventful day. The end result was achieved so, in retrospect, it wasn't that bad.

I'll end this series with sunsets from Aberystwyth. Good night, and best wishes.