Wed, 30 Oct 2002

author Tim	location Hay-on-Wye, Wales
posted 19:04 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/Wales/North Wales ( all photos )

Empty, Foggy, Empty Wales ( 16 photos )
Wales, for the moment at least, is on hold. We're still in it, but only by a mile or so.
This morning we left the hostel after a great Continental breakfast - a very welcome change from the "full cooked" we get almost everywhere. Heading straight down the road to the slate mine nearby.
Due to recent storm activity, there's lots of debris on the road. Following behind a semi-trailer which had to swerve to avoid it, we came across a large branch blocking half the road. Our SES training came back as Liz pulled the car up, and I did my best to clear it out in the 60mph zone. Just as I was tidying it up, my horrible knee reminded me that it had been a long time since it last played up badly, and promptly collapsed. Agony ensued. Suffice to say, it's nice and swollen, and Liz has been driving all day (quite well, I might add!).
Arriving at the slate mine, we went on an underground train tour, where we were shown how the mining was done 150 years ago - truly horrible conditions. These days, it's all done from the top, much faster, and with a little more regard for the humans doing the work. Not a bad way to spend the morning.
Driving South, we headed past several touristy places, and then into the big town of Aberystwyth. A few spins around the block found us the "i", where we learnt that the only thing interesting in the area that we had wanted to do - a thirteen mile narrow-guage train ride through the mountains - stopped last week. If we were going to be around, would we be interested in a ride next Easter?
By this stage getting a little late, we turned our thoughts to accommodoation. Possibilities included hostels (almost all closed), expensive hotels, or of course B&Bs. The "i" had told us that central Wales is almost as interesting as Northen Wales (not very).
So we drove directly East, heading for England, land of the non-Welsh speaking, and interesting things to see and do.
We are now in the town of Hay-on-Wye, famous for its bookshops which we intend to spend the best part of tomorrow exploring. The B&B is expensive, but very new, clean, and welcome after a fairly stressful day. This involved hilly drives through one-track roads at night in fog! One of the trips was to a YHA hostel about twenty miles from nowhere, which ended up being closed!
We're hoping to find a hostel for a couple of nights tomorrow and then drive to the airport to pick Margaret up! Wow, that's gone fast...

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