Bogged Down in Wales

We left Aston Marina before midday on Friday on our inaugural trip in the mighty motorhome.

The weather was atrocious , but the scenery was stunning as we passed through Snowdonia.

They don't seem to have traffic lights at roadworks in Wales, but they have this funny little car that you have to follow in convoy each way ...

I think it was to make sure that you stick to the 10 MPH limit ...

The weather was decidedly dodgy, well it was Wales, but the motorhome drove a treat ... very easy to drive, just rolls around a bit on the corners!

We arrived at out remote campsite at Llanfendigaid ...

This house was next door, which was owned by the chap that owned the campsite plus there were a couple of cottages.  You can rent out the house and the cottages, the house sleeps 19!  There was a group of writers staying there whilst we were there.

Check it out here

We even had a view of the sea, plus on the grounds there was a huge heated undercover pool for the use of the campers plus house guests ... we planned to give that a go!

It pissed down really heavily overnight, but it was so warm and cosy in the van!  It may have been remote, but we had 240v 'shore power' and water etc.

We were booked in for 3 nights.  On Saturday morning Elaine was feeling a bit rough and needed some drugs.  The closest town was about 7 miles away, so we got the van ready to move off ... no probs I thought, but as soon as I tried to pull away the drive wheels sank into the mud!   We tried everything to get out, deflated the tyres, set up some wooden duckboards, all to no avail!  We were going nowhere, we were also plastered in mud ... Elaine moreso since she had done a complete splat in the mud backwards at one point, whilst we were trying a manouevre with a piece of Tarp we found in a yard (too hard to describe any further!)

But 'aha' help was at hand!  There was one other caravan on the site, which we originally thought was empty, but after about two hours of our faffing about a rather fat large gentleman (from the Black Country) came over!  He had thought we were 'southerners' when we were talking to each other so didn't want to help us, but when we told him we were 'Aussies' he was fine!  (It pays to have 'dual nationalities').  He had a small car and lots of rope so gave us a tug out of the bog and we were away.  There were four other spots on the site, but we coudn't get to any of them, it was just too boggy!

We got Elaine her stuff from a local town then headed off towards civilisation at Barmouth ... dropping off a slab of beer to our friend who pulled us out of the bog of death!

We stopped at a lovely site in Barmouth and parked up on gravel ... luxury !

I took the dogs for a walk and ended up watching the South Africans beating the Welsh in the rugger, but the commentary was in Welsh!!!  Havn't heard anyone speak it yet!

This morning the weather was glorious, so we took ourselves and the doggies for a walk into Barmouth.

Could do with a bit of sand on the beach ...

Too true!

The doggies were happy and made a sandcastle ...

Bombo loves the beach and goes mental on the sand ...

It is a really lovely town ...

With some spectacular views ...

The palm trees have been put away for winter ...

Nice mural ...

We popped in for a cup of coffee but got thrown out for indecent behaviour, I can't make out why???

We were a bit peckish after our walk so we decided to treat ourselves to some chips and gravy/curry sauce which we ate on the sea front in the sunshine... Elaine said it was like manna from heaven!

After a while luxuriating in the sun and taking in the wonderful scenery we decided to head back to the caravan park ... but we had to pass the local pub on the way, so it would have been rude not to pop in for a swift half ... just to help the local economy!  We commented while sitting there that we used to be 'champagne and prawns by the pool people' but now enjoy 'chips, gravy and guinness by the seaside' equally as much !!!

We were going back to the boat tomorrow but are enjoying the maiden voyage to much, so we will stay out for a bit longer.

 I am pleased to say the motorhome is behaving impeccably and everything works as it should :)