Day 16 - UK

10 April 2011

After a leisurely breakfast we headed north through Snowdonia National Park toward Llangollan. What amazing landscape from the forested hills, to the rolling pasture land to the mountains of slate. Seeing so much slate everywhere was just mind boggling. That stuff costs a fortune at home and here it was in abundance!

We decided to go to the Slate Mine in Rhiwbryfdir (please don’t ask me to pronounce these Welsh names when I get home. I haven’t a clue!). We parked the car and walked into the entrance. The noticeboad stated it was a 30 minute tour underground for 10 pound each. Were they kidding??!

Not a chance in hell. It was a beautiful day outside and that was a ridiculous amount of money. We turned around and walked out.

We got back in the car and drove to Llangollan. Wow, what a gorgeous town. It was absolutely pumping. There were numerous people there, most of them clearly tourist trade.  There was so much to do, from white water rafting, to steam train trips, aqueduct canal cruises to horse drawn canal boat cruises. It seemed like every café and pub was overflowing with people. It was lunchtime but we have virtually no money on this trip for eating out so we headed up to the canal boats.

I liked the idea of a horse-drawn canal boat ride and it just so happened the motorized canal boat tours were booked out and the horse-drawn trip was about to leave. Usually it’s only a 45-minute trip but they were trialling a 2-hour trip and that was the one about to leave. We paid our money and jumped on board.

I’ll admit I was a little worried that it might involve a bit of animal cruelty but I needn’t have worried. The horse ambled along the path with one of the crew and it could barely be called exercise. Several times it stopped to graze the edge of the pathways and quite frankly it seemed to enjoy the trip.

We cruised up the canal for 45 minutes and then had a 30 minute stop so we could walk up the path to Horseshoe Falls and a lovely park. We sat for 10 minutes and then wandered back to the canal boat. Then we returned the way we had come. It was a beautiful day and such a relaxing, idyllic trip. I absolutely loved it.

By the time we got back I was starving and it wasn’t the easiest walking past all the cafes and bakeries and cake shops but it was a choice of canal boat ride or lunch and well, food is food right?

We wandered around the town and then left. It was another town that was worth at least a couple of days visit but we are limited with time so we took off. 

I swear every motorcycle club with a 100km radius was visiting Llangollan that day and so as we climbed up and out the steep hills we were passed by numerous bikes. Half way up and out we pulled over to the side of the road and had lunch. It wasn’t exactly peaceful but we didn’t have a lot of choice.

With lunch over we drove up the rest of the mountainside and drove over the top of Ruabon mountain. As we crested the hill the traffic slowed right down and there were easily a couple of hundred of cars and hundreds of motorbikes parked on either side of the road. What the hell? I was looking for an accident but no, it was just a café / pub and it was packed and spilling out onto both sides of the road.

“Bloody hell their scones must be good!” I wanted to stop just to find out but the queue would have been a good hour long. You’ve got to wonder if they were using secret herbs and spices in the recipe. I did also wonder how their plumbing would cope. Imagine all those people wanting to use the toilet!

We didn’t stop though. Instead we headed for Chester. We figured we’d find a quiet country lane to park the van for the night. No such luck. Our attempts to find somewhere to park for free failed and we couldn’t find a campground with fees for less than 20 pound a night!

Aaron decided he was fine to keep driving and so we headed towards Liverpool. It turns out the GPS doesn’t like Liverpool Football club and refused to acknowledge Anfield as a road or area. It took us way off track and Aaron was resigned to having to drive straight past the city. No bloody way. I may not give a damn about football but we were so damn close it was ridiculous not to try and find it. We took a left and ignored the GPS requests to turn around. Eventually we discovered a sign with a football on it.

“Follow that sign!” and so we did. Every couple of kms there was another football on a sign and eventually a sign for Anfield. Not only did we find the stadium but Anfield Road was deserted and we pulled up and parked on a yellow line so Aaron could get a photo.

Aaron got to touch the Shankly Gates (I didn’t know this but Aaron has advised me this is their name) and it was there we saw the memorial to the people who had lost their lives at the Hillsborough tragedy. There were many flowers and photos and we discovered it was mere days before the 22nd anniversary. It was very sad to see all the names and the ages. Most of them so young.

We took photos and then departed.

‘You’ll never walk alone’ (as per popular request by Aaron)

To be fair, Liverpool, around Anfield and Evertonwas a shit dump. There was no way we were going to park anywhere around there. We carried on north. I’d seen a place called Whalley on the map and it looked to have some country lanes.

We got there and within 15 minutes had found an okay place to park. It was a dead end lane so we decided it was our best option. There was a public walking track through the farm behind us and it proved to be a nice short walk, not to mention a good place for a quick discreet pee.

We were there several hours, reading, making dinner and getting ready to settle in for the night and then I checked my cellphone. It was 8pm and I’d received a text message from friend Val at 4pm.

“Where are you? Can you visit?” I’d thought she lived in Derby but it turns out she’d moved to Flookburgh in Cumbria. It was nowhere near where we were planning to go but it turns out it was in the Lake District and only about 90km away.

“Yep, we’ll visit. Is tonight too late or do you fancy visitors tomorrow?”

The phone rang.

“Where are you?”

“Parked on the side of a country lane”

“Tonight is absolutely fine. We’ll expect to see you this evening”

And quick as a flash we put the seats, bed, etc into driving mode and took off. Aaron told the GPS to take the shortest route.

Turns out the fastest route is over the Forest of Bowland. Turns out there is no Forest but an endless, skinny, winding track over undulating hillside. Aaron drove like a bat out of hell in the fast fading light and I hung on for dear life. Oh my god it was the scariest drive of my life. In the UK there are virtually no signs to indicate which way a road might turn and how hard the turn will be. I had visions of us hurtling over the side of a mountain. I tried to calm myself with the knowledge that my will and funeral plan had been drawn up prior to departure but to be fair I was pretty shit scared and it didn’t help.

However, we got to Val’s place eventually and Aaron had knocked 30 minutes of the GPS estimated drive time. He was well impressed and I was just well relieved.