Tour of Wales - Part Two

After our pleasant few days at Luckshall it was time to get back into Wales. Our first stop was Tredegar House at Newport as we wanted to visit Cardiff, a place that is new to us. As a campsite Tredegar House is pleasant enough and it’s within the grounds of Tredegar Country Park and House. One thing we quickly discovered was that it was not as convenient as we had thought as a staging post for visiting Cardiff. It seems that the bus stop for the Cardiff bus is a fair walk from the site entrance and the journey takes forty minutes so you would have to get your timings right. An alternative and the one we chose was to take a taxi to Newport station and take the train into Cardiff which seemed to work quite well for us albeit a bit more expensive.

I was quite impressed with Cardiff and although we perhaps only had a sample I would certainly like to go back. Obviously the City is an important shopping centre. The mix of old and new seemed to be quite sympathetic. After some lunch at the large John Lewis store we made our way to Cardiff Central Market. I have to say the fishmonger there had a magnificent display of almost every variety of fish available in the UK and more beside! One strange thing we noticed wandering around were Snowdogs which are sculptures of dogs in various guises. Apparently there are 43 of them dotted around the City but we only saw a handful. They are raising money for the Tŷ Hafan children’s charity. They are great fun and you can even download an App to your phone should you wish. We had to escape the odd shower here and there but when we got to the Castle the sun was out. Inside the walls is the original Norman Keep. We decided not to explore inside but continued past the walls and magnificent Tower and made our way down to the river. I wanted to have a look at the Millennium Stadium which has now been open twenty years. As we were about to turn back towards the Centre the heavens opened with no sign of letting up so we made our way back to the station for our journey back to Newport.

Whilst at this site we also wanted to visit Tredegar House. As is our luck so to speak we always seem to arrive at buildings clad in scaffolding, and in this case polythene as well!!! The roof was in poor shape and needed all ten thousand tiles replaced.  I hope they were Welsh slates!!! The House was the home of the Morgan family, one of them was in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Eventually the family dwindled and the estate was sold and became a school. That is how it came into the ownership of Newport Council although the National Trust administer the House. The gardens were not as impressive as I thought they would be but the ornate gates to the House make up for that.

Nearly the third week in September and time to move on again. This time the Brecon Beacons CMC site. Brecon is about 50 miles north of Newport. The road was particularly attractive particularly once past Merthyr Tydfil with some lovely scenery. Apart from having a quick look around the site we just settled into our new location and I was somehow unprepared for what happen next. Margaret often complains of feeling a bit dizzy when she initially gets up from a sitting position or reaches above her head. This has been discussed with her doctor several times and she has been told that it is not an unusual phenomenon! For some reason I nipped out of the van and Margaret decided to close the overhead blinds above the fixed bed. Imagine my shock when I re-entered the van to find her collapsed on the bed!!! Fortunately I could tell she was still breathing and I managed to turn her over as she gradually came round but feeling very spaced out and feeling sick. I was obviously concerned so tried to ring 111 for further advice but it seems this service was not available where we were in Wales. I felt I had no choice but to call an ambulance which arrived pretty quickly, fortunately they were let in by the warden who had seen it arrive. To cut a fairly long story short we were both taken to Abergavenny Hospital A&E department. The ambulance crew made it clear to us that they were unable to take us back but that seemed like a minor detail at the time. She was seen by a lovely lady doctor who did all sorts of test, put her on a drip. Obviously these things all take time. Fortunately the verdict was that she suffered a sudden drop in blood pressure as she reached up which caused her to faint and no particular action needed to be taken except to be more careful when reaching up! We were released from hospital care at about 2.30 in the morning. As an aside, apparently a previous Prime Minster by the name of Margaret was also prone to fainting, not many people know that!

We now had to get back to Brecon some 20 miles away. In my naivety I just thought that it was just a case of calling a taxi and biting the bullet as regards the cost. How wrong I was. The guy on reception and I went through a whole list of supposedly 24 hour taxi services but it seems in Abergavenny this does not extend into the early hours of the morning! A nurse from A&E came into reception and saw us still waiting there and said that usually a taxi turns up on spec between 3.oo and 3.30am which raised our hopes a bit. 3.30am came and went and we resigned ourselves to waiting a few more hours. By a stroke of luck, around 4.00am, I saw a car approach reception which looked as if it might be a taxi, which it was. I made sure I was first outside to bag it. We got back to Brecon about 4.45am and £40 poorer. In fairness it was a round trip of about 40 miles so perhaps the price was not that bad. As you can imagine the next day was a bit of a blur as we both recovered. It was also nice when one of the wardens called round to ask if everything was OK.

On the third day on site we both felt we needed to do something so we walked into Brecon along the canal. Brecon Basin is the end of the canal in this direction and it has been nicely finish with space for mooring. The local theatre faces out onto the basin and has a nice café overlooking the canal. Refreshed by a cup of tea we walked into the town which seemed to have a nice range of shops, including several supermarkets. Brecon is also a Garrison Town.

The next day we decided to walk along the canal in the other direction to Brynich Lock and a little beyond to see the aqueduct over the River Usk. There was some activity on the canal and we even managed to time our arrival at the lock to see a boat going through. There are some lovely views of the countryside from the towpath. We retraced our steps back to the campsite, although first we had to negotiate crossing two dual carriageways to get back into the campsite via the special gate.

This was our last site in Wales, which we are unlikely to forget in a while!!! Medical problems apart we did enjoy Brecon and could see us returning at some point. It might be a good spot to hire a car to get out and about. The last few days of the holiday saw us making our way to the Club’s Broadway site in Worcestershire. We had three nights there and a couple of things of note. The Wanderer, supposedly the first purpose built caravan is now on permanent display in the old Goods Yard Shed at Broadway. Across the road from the site Broadway Railway Station is almost complete and they hope to have train running by Spring 2018.

More of this Blog and more photographs can be seen here http://www.davidklyne.co.uk/travels_in_the_uk_2017.html