Mick & Lyn's overseas adventure 2013: Thursday 27 June 2013. Llanwrtyd Wells drive to the hills.

After the dramas of yesterday we slept well and awoke to a sunny morning but after our Welsh breakfast cooked using eggs produced by the garden chooks and sausages made by the local butcher, it started raining. Lyn was not happy as she had just hung our washing out.

We had planned to head off into the wilderness of the Welsh mountains and after deciding that the rain clouds were not low enough to affect us, we headed off with detailed maps in hand.

We quickly found ourselves amongst the Welsh hills on Lyn’s favourite narrow single lane roads with the added benefit that there was an unguarded sheer drop on Lyn’s side of the car. As she started to have an Asthma/panic attack Mick reassured her that everything would be OK and he would try to keep to the right of the single lane road.

With Lyn reassured we continued to thread our way along the mountain roads marveling at the views of the hills and lakes (reservoirs). At times we could see what were really only tracks snaking their way through the hills miles away.

At the end of the valley there was a huge dam which was holding the water in the reservoirs for the use of the towns downstream.

The rain was only intermittent so we stopped frequently to take photos. At one point we climbed steeply up the Devils Stairs (that’s its name on the map) which has a 1 in 4 gradient with the in-car GPS showing 1560 feet before we descended to almost sea level again.

The hills and roads had a sprinkling of sheep grazing on the lush vegetation, many of them with young lambs in tow. The coats of the sheep seemed to be falling off. I guess they don’t have to worry about shearing them but we weren’t sure how the farmer recovered the wool. Mick thought they were genetically modified sheep such that their coats fell off once a year!

A few miles before we reached the “A” road we found a little shop with a tea room (The Ty Te Twm) and stopped for a cup of tea and some scones with cream and jam.

We then rejoined the A483 and headed back to Llanwrtyd Wells to our B & B.

When we got back and walked in to say “hello” to the owners Lyn noticed they had taken her washing off the line and hung it in the dining room on a clothes hoist which hangs from the ceiling on a series of pulleys. They said it would dry overnight. Nothing seems to be a bother with them, such easy going people.

A footnote to our puncture adventure:

Mick rang the car hire company this morning to check on the process for getting the tyre fixed. They said that they would send a repair van to where we are staying in the bush in Wales to change the tyre! They would have to drive for 2 hours there and back from Newtown in Wales as they use the Quickfit tyre service and that is the closest.

Mick told them not to bother and told them we would be in Aberystwyth next to which he was told that there was a Quickfit dealer there and we could take the car in and they would replace the tyre.

We just have to hope that we don’t get another puncture.