I write this as we drive along the M4 from Cardiff to London, after 4 nights in Cardiff and exploring the surrounds of South Wales.
We had a great 4 days exploring with our taxi Driver Taff (Sean’s mate from Perth) and the lovely Navine, our sat nav tour guide, who sent us through all the lovely back streets and country lanes that you would never find on your average road map. It was definitely the best way too see the area, although the poor sheep we terrorised along the way may disagree.
Wales is a beautiful country with the most gorgeous sights. From castles (340 something of them) to the rolling hills, mountains, waterfalls and caves, we saw the lot.
Taff’s aunty gave us some great tips on where to visit, so first on the list was the outlet shopping mall, where I dragged the boys around for a few hours, but managed to come home with just a bag of chocolates, somehow I seem to have completely lost all shopping skills since leaving Australia, and no matter how hard I try, just cant seem to buy anything. After dragging the boys around all day they decided it was their turn to choose what to do so I was dragged off to the Welsh casino. I’m sure it was the worlds dodgiest casino, and was refusing to spend any money there, but once inside we found the rapid roulette machines, so I decided to give it a go, and set myself a 10 pound limit, an hour later I walked out with 70pounds!!! Seems like my luck was in, only problem is now I need to spend it, and with my new found lack of shopping skills that might not be so easy.
The next day we were off sightseeing. A scenic drive out to the Brecon Beacons with plenty of stops along the way for Sean to stick his head out the sunroof and take some photos. The mountains and valleys were like nothing I’ve ever seen, and definitely nothing we would see at home, the ripples and chasms down the side of the hills were amazing, the boys turned down the suggesting of the lady at the visitors centre who said a leisurely stroll up to the top of the mountain for an hour and a half would give us some great photos, so we jumped back in the car and went to see the Welsh show caves instead. I was expecting horrible bat filled caves like at home, but they were nothing like that. These caves deep in the mountains seemed to be a drainage system for all the water from the mountains, so were full on waterfalls and ponds, beautiful, but thanks to Sean reading out a story from the paper a last week about a cave collapse in Thailand, I wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as I might have otherwise. One of the caves was called the Cathedral cave, and was absolutely stunning, but deafeningly loud with the massive waterfall inside it, this is apparently used for weddings all the time, and as you walk through they play wedding music to set the scene, I’m really not sure why anyone would want to get married in somewhere quite so noisy, or to ruin there dress as they walk though all the clay mud, but that’s just me.
Fro the caves we headed off to see some more waterfalls above ground this time. Another leisurely stroll suggested by the lady at the visitor centre, this time we thought we could handle it (she told us it was only 5 mins down the hill from the car park, but when we saw the hill we realised the important question we didn’t ask was how long it would take us to walk back up!!!! I’ve never seen such a steep hill, so we walked far enough to put our cameras on full zoom and take a few snaps of the waterfall, then it was back to the car for another scenic drive with Navine. Next stop was the Welsh Grogg shop (no its not a bottle shop) and after driving round in circles looking for it, we managed to find it 5 mins before it closed thanks to two essential pieces of technology, my blackberry and Navine the Sat Nav. Yes we are officially Yuppy tourists!
Our third day of sightseeing took us to the Cardiff Castle and then the Millennium stadium, so the boys could drool over the cardboard cut outs of rugby players and incredible size of the grandstands!
And of course I can’t leave out the important detail of how we filled in al those gaps of time in between all the sightseeing. There was the usual pub meals and several ciders, but most importantly lots of puppy cuddles with Taff’s uncles two 7 week old Red setter pups Roxy and Ruby.
The weather over here is definitely starting to turn, so we are starting to see the change in the scenery, and I am looking forward to the sights of winter, and hopefully some snow!
