Roadtrip to West Country and southern Wales

More photos can be found at my Picasa Web Album (photos from other places will go up there when I get the time).

So on the weekend I met up with Tracey and Shonay, two sisters from Australia, and Terry, a Welshman now living in Luton, and we headed out for a trip in a hired car. The car was a Renault Mégane, incidentally - Karen at the Coylet called me Renault for a while when she had trouble remembering my name, and when I meet people from countries on the continent I sometimes refer to that car as a way of helping them pronounce my name (it's how my name ends up getting said in French, afterall).

I should mention here that this was a "mystery" tour - Terry planned it out and gave us an itinerary that looked like this:
Leave Blackfriars 0608 for luton (cheap day single £11.90)
Arrive Luton 0656 - where I will be waiting.
Leave Luton 0700 and head for 1st secret location. (approx 2Hrs 30mins.) -
Catch up on some sleep.
Leave at 1000 for second secret lcation. (approx 1 Hour)
Leave at 1300 for scenic drive to third secret location with stops. (approx
1 Hour)

Head for Wales. (approx 2 Hours)
arrive at fourth secret location.
Leave at 1600 for scenic drive through Valleys and Brecon National Park.
Arrive at Final secret location when ever! & crash out for the night.

Set of around 0900 for sixth secret location (approx 2 hours )
Leave at 1200 for final drive and possibly one more stop before arriving
back at Luton before 1600.
Say our goodbyes and reflect.

So our first secret location was Stonehenge. Then we drove into the West Country, stopping in the town of Warminister for breakfast. Then into Somerset where we visited Wookey Hole, where there is a series of caves, some with really big chambers (see the link for stats on the size as I don't remember - they were big to me). There's also a legend of a witch living in the caves, that was explained to us by our hilarious, deadpan-and-monotone tourguide.

Then it was up though Cheddar Gorge - the sun roof came in handy for viewing the cliffs as they're high.

Into southern Wales. First mystery stop there, Caerphilly castle, dating from near 1300. It's tower leans due to being hit at some point.


The town of Caerphilly was pretty, and the sun certainly helped it out.


From Caerphilly we drove up through some of the valleys and Terry told us about the times he'd spent running up those hills loaded down with gear in his military days. Wales is very pretty; I'd like to see more of it.

We stayed the night in Monmouth, ate at a pub and hung out at some others. This is the river running through town (river Wye I think?).
It was a day of cool clouds for me - coming out from dinner I took this one.
Sunday we drove to Tintirn, famous for its Abbey.
As you can see it was not sunny Sunday, but you take what you get. We had breakfast (2nd full English in two days! I like the beans at breakfast thing) at a cool hotel called The Anchor with great staff.

Then it was a drive out of Wales, into the Midlands, where we stopped in Stratford-upon-Avon and wandered around the high street, the market, and the river before heading back to Luton.

I'm still in London a few days more. I have a job interview of sorts tomorrow, so I could be hear longer - I'll let you know about that if it pans out.