Further thoughts about our trip · Oct 9, 08:01 PM
We’re still busy getting unpacked and settling back into our routine here. There are a few random things about our trip to Wales that didn’t make it into any previous posts that we’d like to share:
- Every day, when we got back home to our caravan after our adventures, we would load all of Jonathan’s photos onto his laptop (he took around 500-600 pictures a day), go through them and decide which ones we liked, and then go through those and find a few to put on the blog. We bought a cellular data card for the laptop, but it didn’t get a very good signal in the caravan, so uploading the photos was sloooooooooooooooooow. So most evenings, we sat and played gin rummy for an hour or so while the pictures uploaded.
- There is a great series of funny detective novels written by Malcolm Pryce set in Aberystwyth. The first in the series is Aberystwyth Mon Amour. Morgan read this out loud to Jonathan and Mumphy on the trip (we started it kindof late in the trip, so we didn’t get very far into the book). It is hilarious! It’s a classic film noir detective novel, except it’s set in Aberystwyth and the major crime ring is run by the Druids. It was especially fun reading it in Aberystwyth, because we recognize so many of the places mentioned in the book.
- We hate to say it, but we were rather disappointed with the friendliness of the Welsh. Or, more accurately, their lack of friendliness. When Jonathan and Morgan were in Wales 10 years ago, we found everyone to be really really friendly, especially if we expressed any interest in Welsh history or culture. They seemed flattered that we would want to visit their country, and happy to share information about it. This time, we had a very different experience. We felt like outsiders, and had the feeling that everyone, from bartenders to librarians, resented the presence of outsiders. We felt like no matter what we did, the Welsh saw us as big bumbling idiots. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, and seemed to happen pretty much everywhere. Maybe the Welsh resent the fact that tourism is one of their biggest industries. In fact, the only people who were friendly to us were people who have chosen to work in the tourist industry: people in the tourist information offices, ticket-sellers at historic sites, and of course the owners of the caravan park.
- We had unbelievable luck with the weather. We really only had one rainy day, and that was our very last day in Aberystwyth, and it was nice enough not to rain when we were actually outside on that day.
- Driving in Britain is very different from driving in the US, and definitely requires bravery. The roads are very twisty and very narrow, and instead of having shoulders or ditches next to them, they usually have stone walls or hedges, which are usually about 3 inches (literally) away from the white line, if you’re lucky enough to be on a road with a white line. Cars are a lot smaller, by necessity. When you meet another car on a narrow road that doesn’t seem wide enough, the other car usually doesn’t slow down much at all – people really know where the edges of their cars are, and just how much room they need to get by, so they’ll whoosh right past you at 50 miles an hour, with their mirror only an inch away from bashing into yours. Jonathan did an amazing job of driving – by the end of the trip, he wasn’t slowing down for oncoming cars either, but whipped right past them without batting an eye or losing a mirror. We can see why rally driving is such a popular sport in Britain – all driving is rally driving!
- The road between Borth and Aberystwyth was fun, once Jonathan got used to driving it. It had hairpin turns, big sweeping curves, narrow slaloms, and just about anything else a driver could ask for. Of course, it also had oncoming traffic and almost every curve was completely blind, which made it a little less fun. The road is at a pretty high elevation, but the town of Borth is at sea level, so when you drive from Aberystwyth to Borth, you come around a curve and all of a sudden the hill crests and you’re driving along really fast and the world just drops off in front of you. Then it’s a 25% grade down into Borth.
This is a video of the trip back from Borth to Aberystwyth—it’s slightly less fun, because you don’t get the driving-over-the-edge-of-the-world thrill you get going the other way, but it was the only time we actually managed to video it:
- Distances in Wales are totally different from distances in the US. Everything we did was within 70 miles of Borth, but it usually takes two hours or more to drive 70 miles, because all the roads are narrow and twisty and hilly and they all go through lots of little towns so you have to slow down frequently.
— MoJo
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…what a lovely wrap-up…sounds like a good time was had by all…see you in 6 weeks!!!
— Granny Goodwitch · Oct 10, 08:51 AM · #
holy crap driving in the uk! – that video brought back lots of memories, mostly involving nonstop nausea and nonchalant pheasant-splattering.
huge, huge bummer about the welsh attitudes you encountered – i’m wondering how they’re weathering the recession, as a whole? i sometimes get the impression that, worldwide, everybody’s super-grumpy right now. :P
— meghandeath · Oct 17, 05:48 PM · #