Wales

Howard

Howard

Howard

Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2007
Posts
16,318
Location
South East
Morning all

I got back last night from a two-day trip to Wales, basically for the sole purpose of going for one big hoon.

Let me just say this; If get the chance to go, go. There are some utterly sublime roads over there. The country is full of them. We visited the Brecon Beacons and surrounding areas on day one, and the Elan Valley and surrounding areas on day two. Elan Valley is a stunning place. Twisty mountainside roads, and a fantastic view, and places to occasionally pull over and rest/take photos/whatever :) It's a fantastic experience just driving around with no other cars, or civilisation in sight. A great deal more pleasant than congested city life, that's for sure!

My MX-5 really felt at home on these Welsh roads, it was a fantastic experience. Only had one "dodgy" back end moment too, and the years of playing LFS must have paid off cos I managed to control it ;) The HUGE patches of ice you'd occasionally come across were fun as well :D The other car in the photos (below) is my friend's, and is also great on the twisties!


At the end of day one, Tomtom found us a nice little hotel to stay in. Gotta love technology :)

Pictures Here and here


Well worth a trip if you don't live too far away, even though it was a 2.5 hour drive for me to the meeting place (Abergavenny) and a 4.5 hour drive home because we didn't realise how far northwest we'd got :o 600 miles of driving in total, and my car didn't skip a beat :)
 
I stayed at Dinas Mawddwy in mid wales on the A470 last year and decided to take the direct but minor road from there north to Bala. It was purely accidental but the most amazing road I've ever driven on. It doesn't have a number but you can see it on the map between the two places that I've named.
 
Looks like a lot of fun, it's most certainly on my list for the coming year as I have a friend who lives out that way. As an aside, I also feel practice in LFS has saved my skin a few times as well!
 
I drove to rhyl in the focus a few weeks ago, let here at 1am and got there at sunrise, what an awesome view that was. Got lost on the way, went into southwales and looped back on myself into chester somehow :S then got lost in chester a few times. Awesome roads when no one else is on them!
 
Cool, good to here as we are planning a roadtrip this year. Isn't North Wales the spiritual home of the traffic taliban? I know they like their speed cameras up there.
 
We actually heard a lot about them being very strict on speed over there. However, I did not see one speed camera, and only one police car throughout the entire journey. Probably just a fluke, though :D
 
howardcanning said:
We actually heard a lot about them being very strict on speed over there. However, I did not see one speed camera, and only one police car throughout the entire journey. Probably just a fluke, though :D
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Same here, i drove from chester to Conwy (sp?) and never saw one traffic car or speed camera!!
 
howardcanning said:
We actually heard a lot about them being very strict on speed over there. However, I did not see one speed camera, and only one police car throughout the entire journey. Probably just a fluke, though :D
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It is with their mobile vans around every other corner.

twoblacklines said:
Same here, i drove from chester to Conwy (sp?) and never saw one traffic car or speed camera!!
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Well if you went down the A55 which I guess to you then there is only 5ish spots they sat in :)

Off the 55 then is 1000s
 
I live 5 minutes away from Brecon Beacons, nothing better winters morning, roof down heating full blast going for a blast up to Hereford.
 
im thinking of doing north wales in the next few days.
250miles there, two days there looking at the sights, 250miles back. But the plan was to go in winter to see snow capped snowdonia etc, but all the snow has melted and its just really icey instead. booooooooo lol.
 
I took the bike back to Wales (went uni in Aber) in summer for a few days. Amazing roads, I spent my time north of Aber and popped over to that island full of old people too. The roads around The Mountain were/are great fun, though lots of cars about.

HEDIT: Don't much fancy it in the Octavia, and I've no space for an MX-5 to add to the collection though :(
 
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Hmmm I live in conwy and drive towards the north west very often and i have to say that this whole "speed camera crazy north wales" thing is a total myth. They have 2 unmarked cars that tend to sit around the colwyn bay a55 stretch where it drops to 50mph and zero speed cameras.

I've hardly ever seen a mobile speed camera set up in my 5 years of living here except occasionally along a b-road called abegele/conwy road which they call the "arrive alive campaign", which is why they park it along a long straight with no pedestrians at all and minimal danger rather than outside a couple of schools further along :p

Infact, i find waaaaay more cameras as soon as i hit england, especially in the built up areas.
 
Nice pictures, looks like a great place to drive.

Howard you need a new sig, your current one has alloys which are are out of date :p

EDIT: did you just update that as I posted lol?
 
Shimmy said:
Nice pictures, looks like a great place to drive.

Howard you need a new sig, your current one has alloys which are are out of date :p

EDIT: did you just update that as I posted lol?
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Hehe no you're right, my sig pictures (there's 4 or 5 of them that rotate as a PHP file when you reload the page) are quite old, so I think I'm gonna make some new ones now!
 
Quality :D

As you can see, we had a hooning partner. He was actually taking that corner at 45mph. No lie. ;)
 
bobert50 said:
Hmmm I live in conwy and drive towards the north west very often and i have to say that this whole "speed camera crazy north wales" thing is a total myth. They have 2 unmarked cars that tend to sit around the colwyn bay a55 stretch where it drops to 50mph and zero speed cameras.

I've hardly ever seen a mobile speed camera set up in my 5 years of living here except occasionally along a b-road called abegele/conwy road which they call the "arrive alive campaign", which is why they park it along a long straight with no pedestrians at all and minimal danger rather than outside a couple of schools further along :p

Infact, i find waaaaay more cameras as soon as i hit england, especially in the built up areas.
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Absolutely. I've been driving in North Wales (moved here) for nigh on 20 years, fixed cameras are very rare and mobile camera placement positions are second nature. They are not around every corner and don't number in the thousands.

There are a few sneaky ones (Llandudno) but that is no different across the UK. As mentioned, "Arrive Alive" even used to give you a schedule of their placements on their site. Those sights have not changed. If you know the right roads and use some common sense, it is an absolutely brilliant place to drive.

Why do magazines, e-magazines and television use them otherwise? Hell, get a job at the Shell station in Betws and you could lord it in the Daily Encounters thread.
 
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I live approx 7 miles from Nant-y-moch reservoir and the road that takes you from Ponterwyd to Talybont is the scariest road i've ever driven. I've never suffered from from vertigo but this baby freaked me out.
 
North Wales do have a few really nasty cameras, and Brunstrom is always in the news ranting about how people who do 31mph are all child killers and how heroin should be legal. (or for bonus points, breaking into his own headquarters because he couldn't be bothered to go home and get his pass)

I particularly (dis)like the SPECS installation just before the ferry terminal at Hollyhead, dual carriageway with a pointless 50 limit and SPECS cameras monitoring in one direction only... towards the ferry, great way to ruin someone's holiday if they got delayed earlier on in the journey
 
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