The start of the festival season and it was a first time visit to the Beardy Folk Festival, which takes place in the depths of Shropshire in Hopton Wafers, about 5 miles from my sister's house. The annual habitation check and MOT (can't believe we've had this van that long) at Camper UK in Lincoln meant that the van had to be re-packed from scratch, so it was a more stressful pack than usual for this trip. We managed it, and drove across country to park in Jenny's garden for a couple of nights, made a quick reprovision in the delightful Ludlow, a day spent cutting the lawn on her vast estate (none of which is flat) and then onto the festival site as it opened at midday on Thus 15 Jun. Unusually for Shropshire, all this was done in glorious sunshine.
Fri 16 Jun - The scars from headbutting a couple of apple trees whilst mowing were starting to heal and the day started with bright sunshine. Slowly the campers emerged from their structures and the smell of bacon wafted over the fields. If the heat continued we'd need more than bacon to cover the smell of festival goers! A warm day followed with plenty of good music, beer and ice cream and an excellent finale with the Longest Johns and the mighty Skerryvore, as well as a very weird experience with Mik Artistik's ego trip.
Sat 17 Jun - The warm weather, and the festival, continued with some average acts as well as some that were excellent, finishing off with some top quality wailing from Seth Lakeman.
Sun 18 Jun - the weather had to change and change it did. It chucked it down in the afternoon and we got soaked.
On Monday we went back over Clee Hill to rest up in Knowbury for the day, reprovisioned in Ludlow, enjoyed a lovely dinner at Jenny's and had a good night's sleep before setting out to cross the frontier into Wales and Abergavenny in the morning.
Tuesday we arrived at the pleasant enough Psycodlyn Farm campsite and drove into town for a mooch around this nice place, exploring the castle and museum. The following day we drove to the Big Pit National Mining Museum and went down the coal mine, which was a fascinating and sobering experience. The heritage town, which is widely published as a place to visit, is a run-down dump of a place and best avoided. The mine is brilliant though! Two nights at Psycodlyn meant that we could cross Monmouthshire off our county map.
Thurs 22 Jun and we packed up and headed the short distance into Brecon (and to cross Powys off our map), holding for a short while in a layby so that we could arrive at the Temporary Holiday Site run by the very friendly South Wales District Association of the Camping and Caravanning club. The site was on the beautifully maintained and well positioned Brecon Cricket Club, with just a short walk into town. There is an excellent pub run by the Brecon Rugby Club, and an excellent ice cream parlour at Llanfraes Dairy. A couple of times during our stay we had comments about how unusual our surname is. Duh! That's because it isn't Williams, Jones or Evans!
On Friday we finally managed to climb up Pen Y Fan, something I've been wanting to do for a long time. We started out at Storey's Arms in reasonable weather, but by the time we neared Corn Du the cloud had come down and it had started to rain. Visibility fell and, as usual, there were people up there in shorts and T shirts caught out be the weather. We hung around, climbing both Pen Y Fan and Corn Du a couple of times in the hope the weather lifted. Finally it did and we were rewarded with some lovely views.
On Sat 24 we had a well deserved rest after our climb up the highest Mountain in the southern UK. We just had a quick bimble around town then watched a very exciting cricket match between Brecon and Barry Island. Brecon lost.
On Sunday it was time to move on and we headed towards the Gower, passing through some horrendous roadworks through the valleys. Eventually we arrived at the CAMC site at Gowerton, a 3 star site at 5 star prices. We checked in to this half empty site (hardly surprising given the amount that the Cackyvan club now want to rip people off), then had a walk into Gowerton to get our bearings. We've stayed at some beautiful places. Gowerton isn't one of them. The wind had picked up and the weather had certainly taken a turn for the worse.
Mon 26 was meant to be a nice day. It was partially sunny, but not overly hot. We ventured out to Oxwich Bay for a day on this pleasant beach, albeit the parking charges were expensive. Later we trundled into the Mumbles for a mooch about and an Ice Cream at the famous Joe's ice cream parlour. Delicious! The roads around the Gower are horrendous through. Busy, twisty, narrow and pot holed, with 20 mph speed limits. It's very frustrating and uncomfortable to drive around there.
We'd promised the mother in law that we would visit Swansea and so, on Tuesday, in peeing rain, we boarded the 1 carriage bus-on-rails to Swansea. We wandered down past the Castle and had a good mooch around the excellent market and local church and posted some freshly made Welsh cakes to the MiL. Following an interesting visit to Swansea Museum where we tried to do some research on Mils house, we had an excellent lunch in the River House then set out on a long, long walk around the Prince of Wales dock to try and find the house that MiL was brought up in. It had been flattened in the 60's. Tired, we caught the train back to Gowerton and collapsed once we reached home.
Wednesday was raining again so we decided to do a bit of shopping then look at the Cenotaph in Swansea to see if we could see her great Uncle's name (he died on D Day). Again we negotiated the busy roads and tried to find somewhere to park so we could have a quick look. The car park opposite wanted £6! We pleaded that we would only be 10 minutes and they let us in. It took nearly 10 minutes to cross the busy road and climb the steep bank to the Cenotaph, only to find he wasn't mentioned! We retired to the Mumbles to have a well earned Joe's ice cream and some stunningly delicious popcorn cockles from the beach hut.
Thu 29 and the weather was actually quite nice, so we headed down to the delightful Rhossili for a walk along Worm's Head and a lovely lunch overlooking Rhossili bay. From there we headed to Port Eynon beach for a doss around and a bit of paddle boarding.
On Fri 30th, we packed up in the rain and headed to Hereford Rowing Club, again passing the awful roadworks. Eventually we arrived and, as they were preparing for a beer festival, we were pitched in the Rugby Club, which was quite handy. We had a quick walk around Hereford, had a look at the Cathedral and the Mappa Mundi before going out with Steve and a group of Quins supporters for a very boozy evening indeed.
Saturday was Steve's 60th birthday party in the rugby club and, as we (or at least 1 of us) was particularly the worse for wear, the other went for breakfast at the rowing club then helped set up for the party. In the evening, the hungover one was fit enough to go out and we had a great evening in the club, meeting up with many old friends from Quins.
Sunday 2nd July was a write off day. We had a little mooch around Hereford then sat around reading and dozing for the rest of the day.
The Hereford Rowing Club is a great place to stop as long as you are expecting groups of Youths to be pitched outside your door as they complete their canoe expedition.
Monday it was home in one hit.
