Nine
Reservoirs 12th May 2002
Asda Car Park,
Dowlais Top
11 cars turned up at Asda on Dowlais Top near Merthyr
Tydfil with a couple of new faces. Neil and Tina didn’t have far to come from
New Tredegar. Mike and Sue came along from Swansea for their first run, having
been at the monthly meeting earlier in the week.
Patrick
and Ruth had come over from the Western region for the day with a top dog
registration number and two of the nattiest flying jackets around. Hello to you
two if you happen to read this at any time.
We didn’t quite
break our attendance record with the 11 cars, but something turned up later to
fix that…
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We set off along the route Mark had planned out, passing
Pont Sticill and then Tal-Y-Bont reservoirs. Next place was Brecon where we got
a bit confused and drove straight through Brecon and missed the turning where
we all did a U-turn to go back along the right route.
It was certainly worth
going back because the roads we went on between Brecon and Builth were stunning,
with really twisting stretches and some single track passing places to
negotiate.
It'll take a while to wipe
the grins off some of those faces.
Attendance record
smashed (accidentally)
As we made our way to Brecon with our 11 cars, we just
happened to turn onto the main road behind a silver MK-II. Weren’t they
surprised to suddenly find themselves at the head of a 12 car convoy!!
Eventually they pulled over and Mark explained to them who we were. Anyway, it
made our day, because this meant that the maximum number of cars in a
South-Wales convoy has now risen to 12 (hurrah).
Builth Wells
When we got to Builth,
it was into the park for some leg stretching and “other things”. This was also
the first real chance to have a proper chat with the new members and visitors
before setting off on the long run to lunch.
Clive did his Boy Scout impression with his flask of coffee and chocolate
biscuits.
Lunch
We stopped at the Vulcan Arms for lunch. Gruppen Fuhrer Jones gave strict orders preventing anybody from having starters or deserts, to make sure we didn’t spend all afternoon eatin’, drinkin’ and chattin’. Lunch was excellent, and served in double-quick time by the excellent staff at the Vulcan, which is to be highly recommended. My advice would be to only have the three bean chilli on a fine day with the roof down as a courtesy to your passenger.
Neil and Tina left us here to head home. Let’s hope we’ll see you again on a
future event (I know you're reading this).
Devil’s Bridge
Next stop was Devil’s Bridge
with the highlight being the multi-award winning public loo. (Do you realise
how embarrassing it can be taking pictures in a gents loo?)
Really it was a chance
to have the forbidden desert at the ice-cream shop, and to try in vain to spot
a steam train at the station.
Llyn Brianne
We continued on to a spot where we’ve ended up before, at Llyn
Brianne reservoir. This was the last of the reservoirs we spotted today. Not
really sure if it was nine or in fact ten we saw along the way.
Then there were 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4,
3, 2, 1
After Llyn Brianne, various cars peeled off as they got to convenient points to make their respective ways home. Eventually, there were only Mark and Chris and us left together and we parted company near Mark and Chris’ home.
As ever this had been a great day. Stunning scenery, demanding roads (we didn't hang around either!), excellent food and great company. Mark and Chris must be commended on their choice of routes, with special dedication shown when they actually did the run on Thursday to check it was up to scratch. So how come we still got lost then? Sadly, this run yet again failed to keep Michelle awake the whole time; probably only a full blown race track day would do that.
For more pictures, click here.
"Hi Ho Silver"