Wow, what a trip.  I’ll admit this was my first motorcycle road trip and I had high hopes and wasn’t disappointed.

 Russ and I set off  mid morning Friday morning heading for lunch at Symonds Yat.  The Saracens Head is a wonderful place to wile away a hour and the food wasn’t bad either.  Sat beside the River Wye the pub where it runs through steep sided valley and it is beautiful.  If you haven’t been already you really should.  From here we set off across the Breacon Beacons heading for our day 1 camp site at Newgale.  at about 230 miles in and sat next to the sea with a pub a few minutes walk away it made the ideal place to end our first day of the road trip.  Situated just North of Milford Sound and South of St Davids we were at the South Western tip of Wales and in great shape for the next couple of days adventuring.  During the day we had met some real characters as well between filling stations and supermarkets.  Strangely they were all on bikes !

Saturday morning, having struck camp, started out with a search for breakfast.  This proved to be surprisingly difficult but eventually we found a great shack in Fishguard serving superb  breakfast rolls and acceptable tea.  Fortified and huinger satisfied we set off up the coast to Aberyswyth.  Great roads, lovely scenary and not too much traffic made it a pleasant trip….other than the prodigious heat.  Now I hate to whinge especially when we were being so lucky with the weather after recent weeks but bloody hell it was hot.  The air temperature gauge on Russ’ VFR was showing a consistent 27 degrees C which, with a complete set of bike gear even with vents open, was very nearly unbearable unless speeds above 60mph were maintained.  Regular stops to take on fluid were essentail if not entirely welcome with the consequent stops required to off load fluid !  From Aberyswyth we headed inland to Devil’s Bridge.  Another stop, more fluid and a moment to appreciate some great scenary then onwards to find our camp site at Cemmaes.  Now that should have beem a simple task but could we find it ?  Could we hell.  We found the village OK but that was as far as we got so, eventually, we decided to head up the A470 in the direction of Dolgellau to see what we could find.  Fortune smiled on us and just short of Dolgellou we found a fantastic little camp site, a very warm welcome for bikers and a bunch of trail riders from Birmingham.  The site at Dinas Mawddwy was brilliant, basic but brilliant and the company friendly and helpful, a real find and highly recommended if you’re looking for a campsite in the area.

We were both now suffering from the affect of the heat which made both of feel worse than we should have given the great time we were having.  However, that aside, day 3 started with the usual search for breakfast.  A Little Chef on the A470 at Delgellau served the purpose nicely before we set off around the Snowdonia National Park.  This was a particularly poingant part of the trip for us having spent many childhood holidays at a farm on the slopes of Snowdon.

 From Beddgelert we travelled around Snowdon, spotting the old farm house along the way, to Caernarfon,  down through Llanberis and on to the Ponderosa Café for lunch.  The scenary and roads around here are just tunning.  It’s an absolute biking must, not fast or furious just miles and miles of sweeping bends and stunning views.  The Ponderosa and Horseshoe pass were must do’s on my list of places to go and proved to be particularly amusing.  Whilst we were eating lunch a very large group of scooters from the Wrexham Scooter Club arrived.  I’d forgotten how good 2 stroke smelled.  The downside of this event being the horror the scooterists mode of dress invoked.  Maybe it’s because I’m getting old and, hopefully wiser, but seeing riders and passengers, many of them kids, riding motorcycles in T-shirts and shorts caused me great dis-comfort.  I may have been dehydrated and dripping in sweat as a result of wearing a full set of safety gear but rather that than the potential for massive scaring and skin grafts.  Some guys view of sensible clothing also added a degree of amusement.  Picture this: a Suzuki Van Van, large rider wearing motorcycle boots, good gloves, proper helmet and a back protector….strapped on over a T-shirt and shorts !!!  What’s that all about ?  The Horseshoe Pass isn’t as spectacular as I had hoped for but it was very pretty and worth doing.

Anyway, from here it gets a little less interesting.  We had planned to camp another night before the blast home on Monday but having found our camp site and given the lack of shade and 34 degree C temperature we took the decision to find how far we could get on the way home in the cool evening before looking for somewhere to camp for the evening.  As it turned out as far as we got was all the way home making it a 350 mile day.  That in it’s own right was a bit of a surprise, I didn’t think I had it in me to do a 350 mile day on the bike just yet.

At the end of the day Russ and I had a great time, met some fantastic characters, saw some spectacular views and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  I have some excellant memories of this little trip and it has well and truely built the desire to do more and longer trips.  Hopefully next time the Old Dragon will come along with us.  However, the first order of business is to find a more suitable steed for touring.  I have a fancy for a Yamaha TDM900 which should prove a better choice than Jessica.  The next trip is now under investigation and it looks like we have 3 possible destinations: Scotland, the Lake District or Yorkshire.  Watch this space, I don’t think it’ll be long before we head off again.