9 April 2011
I got up early. I’d tossed and turned all night and I had enough of being in bed. I had a long soak in the shower and then went and got our breakfast stuff out of the van. I got Aaron up as soon as the coffee had finished brewing.
Poor Aaron, he just wants to indulge in sleeping in this holiday and I’m up between 6:30 and 7:00 every morning wanting him to get breakfast over and done with so we can hit the road.
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| Pembridge |
First stop this morning was Pembridge. We’d driven through it on the way in but we actually decided to stop this time. It was just a small village but all old tudor buildings all wonky and sunken and it was just gorgeous.
It was just a 15 minute walk up the high street and back and then we drove to Aberystwyth on the Welsh west coast.
We had a wander around the shops and the waterfront at Aberystwyth and although quite different from what we’ve seen so far it wasn’t really our thing and so we left.
We drove until we found a layby to park and have lunch and a break. As usual it was a stop that from a distance looks pretty but up close it’s just another dumping ground for people’s inorganic rubbish.
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| Water-powered tram - CAT |
Our afternoon jaunt was the Centre for Alternative Technology in Pantperthog. We’d never heard of it but it had been recommended by the lady at the art gallery in Dartmoor National Park
We spent several hours there and although the place is amazing it’s not really set up for passing visitors. They run numerous courses on everything, from half day courses to full on study. There was so much we wanted to find out and learn but we were only able to pick up limited information. As with the Eden Project, if we lived in the UK
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| Bug housing |
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| Eco fencing |
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| Firewood storage |
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| Garden structures |
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| Retaining wall ideas |
Still, we saw some things we liked the look of and I took photos. There were firewood piles, bug houses, eco fences, etc that all sparked my interest so it was definitely worth it from that perspective.
CAT also apparently have a comprehensive website and are happy to impart information via email so we’ll check that out when we get home.
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| A great newspaper |
The other thing we discovered while we were there is a fantastic publication called ’The Positive News’ newspaper. The paper only reports good stories about sustainability and environmental projects happening internationally. It was a great read but it’s only a quarterly paper with an annual subscription of 15 pounds. It’s too expensive to justify ordering it but again they appear to have a website that has their stories on it so I’ll check it out when I get home.
When we eventually left CAT we needed to find a place to stop for the night. It was one of our freebie nights so we needed to find a quiet country lane somewhere. We saw several nice rest stops but they all had ‘No camping overnight’ signs. Bugger!
Eventually we got to a 'Road Closed’ sign and our GPS was telling us we had to turn around and retrace our tracks from that morning. We needed to go north and the GPS was telling us this was the only road unless we went miles out of our way. The paper map was telling us different though and we decided it was worth a shot.
Once we took the turn off on the map we suddenly found ourselves on forestry roads with numerous choices of turn off, none of them even on the map and absolutely no signage for any of them (Bloody Wales!). Somehow we managed to pick all the correct rights and lefts and found ourselves on the tiniest roads winding up and over steep hills.
As we came around a sharp corner we discovered a convenient pull in in a very secluded area. We expected not to see anyone but obviously all the locals cut off from the main road new the back road and it turned out to be a very busy road for a few hours. God knows how everyone managed to pass each other when it was such a skinny, hairy road. I guess they’re used to it though.
By night time the road was completely devoid of traffic though and it was a quiet night in a wooded area.
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