Journey to the Mountains of the Moon - 1994 (2)

Planning the Great Adventure
Phase 1 – Assemble the Information, Rough out a Plan
Once the basic idea was hatched it was necessary to start searching for information. In the early 1990s the internet was not the magnificent source of information that it is today. Finding information was done by searching libraries, looking through travel magazines and writing to adventure tour operators to glean information.

I had discussed the idea of trekking the Ruwenzoris with son Dominic with whom I frequently went bushwalking. He expressed immediate interest having previously been trekking the Annapurna circuit in Nepal with his friend John. Dominic extended the idea by suggesting that we also ‘do’ Mt Kenya while in East Africa – it would be a shame to spend all that money, travel all that way, and not get maximum value from it!

We lived in Nairobi from 1974 to 1976 working a two-year contract and I had done a weekend trek up Mt Kenya with a group of expatriate colleagues. Dominic and twin brother Garth would have dearly loved to go at that time but I felt they were too young and I also didn’t know quite what to expect. So now it was only natural that Dominic would want to take the opportunity to address this past omission from his education in nature’s classroom.

Our researches unearthed a surprising number of good information sources. There was Guy Yeoman’s coffee-table format book “Africa’s Mountains of the Moon”. An amusing tale by journalist John Preston – “Touching the Moon”. And also an article from another book (?) “Mountains of the Moon – A Ruwenzori Journey” by John Cleare. About Mt Kenya we new enough from the Lonely Planet Guide “Trekking in East Africa” and my own previous experiences. We had also heard about a book “No Picnic on Mt Kenya” written by an Italian prisoner-of-war – Felice Benuzzi- about his and his compatriots’ experiences escaping from internment at Nanyuki on the western flanks of Mt Kenya for the sole purpose of climbing the mountain. Unfortunately we couldn’t get hold of a copy prior to our journey to East Africa. It wasn’t until a couple of years afterwards that Dominic managed to pick up a second-hand copy of “No Picnic …” in a bookshop in Kathmandu while in Nepal on another trek!

Little by little planning started as we gathered more and more information. I had already ‘done’ Mt Kenya, and Kenya is the easiest place to start an East African odyssey so we decided that the order of things would be to arrive in Nairobi, organise our needs for Mt Kenya and make our way to Nanyuki. At Nanyuki we would be able to find transport to the start of our chosen route up Mt Kenya – the Sirimon Gate approach. Having ‘cracked’ Mt Kenya we would head back to Nairobi and regroup before travelling across to Western Uganda to do the Ruwenzori trek. The plan was loose enough to provide any flexibility we needed and to be able to do some typically touristy things if we felt so inclined.

Living in Nairobi a mere 20 years previously had provided us with enough knowledge, we thought, of how things are done in Kenya so that we could leave all of the ground logistics until our arrival. The Lonely Planet guides are invaluable sources of information for this approach but you have to make sure that your copy is reasonably up-to-date. The political situation can change very quickly in most African countries – a fact of which we were very aware. During the time that we lived in Nairobi, an outspoken politician disappeared. Thre were reports of sightings of him from all over Africa but about two weeks later his body was discovered in the Ngong Hills just outside Nairobi. At that time we were all sent home from work and the kids were sent home from school, although the student rioting was over very quickly.

With the basic idea reasonably well worked out we turned our thoughts to actually making the trip happen. Fortunately project planning and management in one discipline has large areas of commonality with project planning and management in other disciplines. It was a relatively easy matter to work back from our intended goal and work out the relative timings for when we would have to do what.

We worked out that the best time of year to travel, for various reasons such as sub-equatorial weather patterns, would be around July-August. The time we would need to complete the Mt Kenya and Ruwenzori treks was around four to five weeks but we allowed six weeks to be on the safe side. Little by little the plan started to become tangible – we made sure passports were up-to-date, arranged necessary visas for Kenya, and booked our airline tickets to take us to Nairobi and back via Johannesburg. We booked our leave, arranged for necessary vaccinations and inoculations, and made check lists for gear, clothing and foodstuffs that we would need to take.

The Ruwenzori part of the trip would be organised in Kasese, Uganda and we knew that our accommodations on the trek would be in the huts provided. For Mt Kenya, however, we opted for a different approach. I was well aware that guides and porters are available along with a hut for the normal trek with one overnight on the mountain. We wished to take a more ‘leisurely’ approach (well slower anyway) so we decided that we would do our own porterage and guiding and would carry tent and cooking equipment with us.

Dominic had ‘earned’ a good two-person expedition tent as a result of some work he had done and he had not used it up to now. It was exactly right for our purpose so we got some practice in erecting it so as to not be caught out when we really needed to use it. The sight of that fairly large tent erected in our living room was quite amusing. My wife Patricia asked "why we didn’t erect it outside on the lawn?" The obvious answer was that we didn’t want to get it wet so that we’d have to dry it out before packing it up again!

Journey to the Mountains of the Moon - 1994 (1)

21 July 1994 – My diary notes reveal that we left Bujuku Hut just after 10am heading for Elena Hut. This was, without doubt, one of the hardest days we had in the Ruwenzoris. Bujuku Hut is at around 3970 metres ASL and Elena Hut is at 4540m – the highest hut in the Ruwenzori Ranges and basically the midpoint of the trek.

Our journey to the Ruwenzoris was anything but straightforward. It started in 1992 when I was all but immobilised at home in Canberra with a ruptured lumbar disc. During recovery and learning to self-manage the condition, my doctor - ?Bell – encouraged me to take a more holistic approach to managing my life. He encouraged me to think about what I would do if money was no object. The back trauma provided an ideal opportunity or this sort of re-appraisal so I was quite happy to consider possibilities.

Beginnings
I’d recently been reading ‘The Last Hero’ (not the Terry Pratchett Discworld novel) but the one by Peter Forbath which tells the highly fictionalised story of Henry Morton Stanley’s real expedition to the Upper Nile region via the Congo River to rescue Emin Pasha after the fall of Khartoum in 1885. The journey takes Stanley close to the Ruwenzori Mountains and the source (or one of them) of the Nile. It is a stirring tale and awakened my interest in visiting a part of Africa which I had not been to.

At around the same time I had also read Alan Moorehead’s popular history ‘The White Nile’ which tells the history of European exploration and colonisation of the Nile region and, of course, the search for the source of the Nile. In conjunction with Forbath’s novel this book was sufficient to make one of my new ‘life goals’ to be to visit the regions discussed. Further research into the region threw up the possibilities of trekking the Ruwenzoris and so the idea was born. It was not yet a plan but at least the basis of something to plan for.

About the Ruwenzoris
The Ruwenzori Range is thought to be the ‘Mountains of the Moon’ mentioned by Ptolemy but the identification is not absolutely certain. Nevertheless, the poetic name sticks and is appropriate given the mystique that the range has. It is frequently misty or cloudy and it is rare to sight the peaks at all. The first European sighting was from the Stanley expedition in 1889 (see “The Last Hero” above) and the first ascent of the highest peak (to 10, 677 feet) was by Stanley’s expedition's 2IC William Stairs.

Margherita Peak is the highest summit of Mt Stanley and was named by the Duke of the Abruzzi during his 1906 expedition. It is the third highest peak in Africa after Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya at 5109 metres.

The geography and vegetation is quite stunning with many plant species such as giant heather, lobelia and groundsel present here which are not found in any other location.

In keeping with the misty/cloudy nature the terrain is very wet with much of the trekking path being through extremely boggy areas. River crossings could be a challenge in earlier times but are generally easy now that the bigger rivers are crossed by modern bridges.

Treks of the central circuit, taking 7 or 8 days, depending on whether or not Margherita Peak is to be attempted, are organised from the Western Ugandan town of Kasese.

Singapore - Home

To break the long journey home, we had arranged to stay in Singapore overnight. We stayed at the Excelsior-Penisular Hotel on Coleman Street - not far away from City Hall and the shopping district. Pat and Garth had stayed here on their way to England too. We arrived in Singapore in the early evening and our car was waiting for us as we left customs. We had already paid for the car but didn't have the voucher to prove it, although fortunately we had the itinerary which had the details printed on it so the driver was reasonably happy. Twenty minutes or so from the airport to the hotel and we had to face the non-voucher situation again at the hotel, but again we were able to satisfy them with the printed itinerary. We had a comfortable room on the sixteenth floor of one of the towers which gave us a good look over towards the south. After a light dinner we were off to bed to try to recover some of the sleep lost on the flight from London.

The next day we woke reasonably early to the sound of a Koel (Indian Cuckoo) in the trees 13 stories below. We thought we had left the darn bird back in Australia but they seem to be very widespread. I'd even heard them calling in Balngalore (India) when I was there in August. We weren't due to leave until evening again so we went for a walk in the local area after breakfast. It was quite warm and very humid - normal for Singapore so we didn't move very fast. The big shopping malls are airconditioned but it was too early for most of the shops to open as they don't seem to open up much before 11am. Pat wasn't interested in going too far so we headed back to the hotel for a while and then I went out again to buy some sandals. Having to cover three seasons on the trip I hadn't the room to pack more than two pairs of shoes. The Rockports I was wearing were just too hot to walk around in so sandals it was.

After changing my footwear I went for a walk up through Fort Canning Park and then circled back around to the west and south, eventually ending up at Clarke Quay before heading back to the hotel. During my walk I was accosted by a young guy in sort of monkish clothes. He wanted me to buy a friendship bracelet and good luck charm. Since the cost was low I decided to play him along. After the exchange he headed off down the street and kept looking over his shoulder back towards me. I decided to have a bit of fun and started following him towards the river and Clarke Quay. When he saw me following he started running and ducking across the busy roads to put some distance between us. Eventually I lost sight of him but I wasn't really interested in catching up with him anyway. What he was doing is probably illegal in Singapore and he probably thought I was going to dob him in or something.

On the way back to the hotel I went into a shopping mall in the same block and it was several stores of high-tech gear witha food court in the bottom. Pat and I braved a rain-storm to go back there for lunch. Actually we didn't get wet as we were able to stay under cover all the way there and back but it really chucked it down for a few minutes. The food court was pretty busy and we ended up luching at a Deli-France on the ground floor. As a local specialty- probably not served in any non-Singaporean Deli-France - they had several varieties of curry and the chicken one I had was quite good.

I arranged a late check out at the hotel. Their normal late check out time is 2pm but I wanted anothe couple of hours for which they said I would have to pay, and I was quite happy to do that. When it came time for us to check out however, at about 4:30pm, they waived the extra charge which was much appreciated. Our driver was there promptly so we were able to get o the airport in plenty of time, having to wait for the gate lounge to open. This time we were able to get an aisle seat so the trip back to Sydney was much more comfortable.

And so, at around 6am the next morning, we were back in Sydney and our long awaited holiday was over. Long-haul travel really is the pits so it is good to spend a reasonable amount of time between the outward and homeward flights to recover and enjoy the break.

It may be sometime before we are ready to go away again but then, you never know. I've still got a hankering to spend some time in Italy :-)

England Phase 2 (2)

On this, our last Sunday in England, we wanted to head for somewhere closer to Heathrow so we wouldn't have to rush anywhere on Monday - they day we were flying home. We left Salford heading south to meet up with the A44. This would take us generally south east through places like Moreton-in-Marsh and Chipping Norton on the way to Oxford and other points south. In Chipping Norton we were briefly held up due to a Remembrance Sunday processsion. When we got to Oxford I thought it might be nice to drive through the city so that Pat could have alook at the old colleges, rather than just stick to the boring ring road. Bad idea! Oxford was also chocker with traffic and roads had been closed to divert traffic onto side streets to avoid processions. Following the example of other drivers we turned around and headed back to a likely-looking side street. This took us past the processions but the traffic was very slow. Eventually we emerged on the south side of the city ending back up on the ring road. Sometimes good ideas just turn to rubbish.

I had thought we might overnight at Henly-on-Thames, famous for the annual rowing regatta between Oxford and Cambridge. Traffic wasn't too bad heading into the town and I was looking for what might be a car park close to the centre of town. Not knowing the place we ended up just past the town centre with a forced left turn onto a bridge across the river. No problem thinks I. I'll just drive across the river turn around and head back into town from the other direction. Right? Wrong! Traffic coming into town from the south east was stopped and stretched right back up the hill for a bout 1.5 miles. Oh well, we're flexible so just carry on to Maidenhead.

At Maidenhead, we found the centre of town and parked in a multi-story carpark while we had a break and a bite to eat. Parking wasn't free, it was the kind where you pay on your ticket on your way back to the car and then use it to get out of the boom gate on the way out. Despite charging for Sunday parking, they dain not to operate the elevators on Sunday so you have to trudge up umpteen flights of stairs to your car - very unfriendly. I told Pat to wait by the way out while I went up to get the car and I'd pick her up as I came out through the boom gate. She jokingly remarked that if I was going to get rid of her this might be the best chance I'd get. Prophetic words. As I drove towards the boom gate I didn't see any sign of her. I was distracted by another way out which was for people who hadn't yet paid but properly bypassed that lane and took the correct way out but no sign of Pat (that I could see). I thought "OK - I'll park somewhere close then walk back and find her". Wrong again. One way streets, no on-street parking for miles, and no idea where the one-way system would take me in a town which I didn't know at all. Well, nothing for it but to drive and keep track of my heading and try to circle back around. I was able to u-turn in a side street about a mile and a half away and completed the loop back to the carpark after about ten minutes. Fortunately Pat was waiting on the side of the road, wodering whether I had taken her up on the offer of leaving her there. Fortunately we were able to have a good laugh about it.

After such an experience we decided to head a little further south to Windsor and check out accomodation around there. We found a hotel in our voucher book which looked like a good prospect and on calling them discovered that they had rooms available. This was just a bit further south from Windsor near the A30 near a village called Englefield Green, Egham. This is just outside Windsor Great Park and in quite a nice area. The girl at the hotel gave me directions on how to get there and we found the right road with no problems. However, even driving up and down the road about three times we still couldn't find the hotel. Eventually I called in at the pub at Englefield Green and asked one of the girls how to find the hotel - and she didn't know - but an American lady overheard my enquiry and was able to tell us how to get there. It turned out that we had driven past the discreet entrance several times.

The Saville Court Hotel is now run by the McDonalds group but was originally the country home of some Baron or other (Cohen?). It is set in about 10 hectares of parklike land. It has apparently been renovated in the last year or so and we found it very comfortable. It has over 140 rooms but there were apparently only about 20 people in the hotel while we were there. It was at this time that we discovered that we did not have our book of vouchers from Qantas and couldn't find them even though we practically unpacked and repacked our suitcases in the back of the Zafira. No point in worrying however. We thought that we must have left them in the cottage in Wales.

In the morning we saw squirrels frolicking under the trees and I saw two groups of parrots (yes, parrots) fly over. Then while we were watching out from our bedroom window, a small deer came across towards the building. We also saw a woodpecker busily looking for grubs in the lawn - very special.

Our last day in England was a bit of a non-event. We decided just to drive for a while so headed down to Basingstoke where we had lunch. AFter lunch we headed up through Newbury, where our friend George works, and then onto the M4 back to Heathrow. We got to the airport a little too early and they wouldn't let us check in for a couple of hours so we just found a seat and read our books for a while until it was check in time. The flight to Singapore wasn't as good as it could have been as they had put us into inside sides in the middle group across the cabin so we didn't have an aisle seat between us. Having an aisle seat makes it much easier to get in and out to go to the toilet without disturbing others. The young bloke sitting next to Pat was a bit of a mongrel who made his displeasure at being disturbed well known - tough!

Wales (4), England Phase 2

On Saturday morning it was time to pack up and head back to England so that we wouldn't have to rush to make our plane from Heathrow on Monday night. After packing up and saying our goodbyes to Lisa at the Cottages, we headed east on the A44 which would take us through Llangurig and Rhyader and eventually to Worcester. As we progressed eastwards the nature of the countryside changed from the wildish terrain of the Cambrian Mountains and then through between the Brecon Beacons to the south and the Black Mountains to the north until, in Herefordshire it was back to rolling fields and hedgerows. The closer we got to Worcester the more 'English' the countryside became.

We had thought to stay a night at Worcester but the Saturday traffic in the city was so dreadful that we couldn't bear the thought of trying to find somewhere to stay in the mad melee so carried on eastwards. Stratford-upon-Avon is only about 25 miles away from Worcester so it seemed like a good alternative. It was busy in Stratford too but we parked the car and had a walk around the town. It was again wuite busy but more with tourists than stressed out shoppers. We couldn't find suitable accomodation in Stratford but the lady at the information centre found us a room at Salford Manor just north of Evesham. This turned out to be quite a nice hotel set in a bit of land just outside Salford village. It had originally been a guest house for Salford Priory and dated back to the 1500s. We didn't discover the only flaw for our stay until we went to bed that night - the bedsprings were totally knackered and we had to sleep hanging onto the sides of the bed to avoid crashing together in the middle. There's always something!

Apart from the bed the Salford Manor hotel was good. At dinner, Pat couldn't face anything on the menu so asked for just a poached egg on toast which they had not the slightest hesitation in accepting on the order. When you get service like that it highlights the contrast between that and the 'must stick to the script' restaurants which seem to be the norm. Our room was not in the main building but in another separate wing but only a short stroll to the main building for dinner, and for breakfast the following morning. Memo to self - check the bed in future to make sure it doesn't date from the same era as the building!

Wales (4)

Friday being our last full day in Wales we decided to head south along the coast. We took a detour to New Quay which seemed to be a typical coastal holiday village before cointinuing to Cardigan where we hoped to spend a bit more time. Our inexperience with local customs showed mightily when we turnd off the main road into Cardigan. (We should have been warned by the fact that an earlier turn into the town was blocked off). We discovered that Friday is market day in Cardigan (and probably in many other country towns). The streets were crammed with stalls, pedestrians, and very slow-moving one-way traffic - a bit like an Ikea store. We followed down through the town looking for a carpark which we eventually found down on the quayside but was full to overflowing.

Negotiating our way out of the car park we still had to follow the one-way system which lead us back to the main road - at the junction which had been blocked off when we approached from the north so we had no option but to turn onto the highway heading north! We could have turned around further on and headed back south again past Cardigan but didn't really have sufficient motivation. We stopped in Aberaeron for lunch and a walk around on the way back. We found a little cafe on the main road which seemed to be the right sort of place for us to eat but it turned out to be the unfriendliest place we had come across in all of our travels. After waiting for some sort of indication that they might be interested in finding out what we wanted, we got up and walked out. Its doubtful that they even noticed!

Since we had re-packing to do and expected to be travelling further on Saturday we headed back to our cottage and a bit of veging-out.

Wales (3)

Thursday morning we decided to head northwards. The intention was to visit Porthmadog and Portmeirion, travelling up on the slightly inland A470 and then drive back down the coast on the A496. Being another sunny day, the drive north through Machynlleth and Dolgellau was very pleasant and showing us a variety of scenery from rolling pastures, wooded hills, and sub-alpine terrain. Heading along the coast of Tremadoc Bay we called in at Portmeirion and had a bit of a look around but decided not to actually go into the purpose built village. It is regarded by sum as a 'folly' of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis who built the place about 75 years ago.

Porthmadog was a suitable place for lunch although the little cafe we chose wouldn't have won any awards. We pushed on through Porthmadog to Tremadog intending to circle back east off the A498 and pick up the road heading south-west through Maentwrog (B4410). However, our Collins road map let us down once again and we only discovered our error just before reaching Beddgelert while waiting at a road works traffic signal. Ho - hum! Ah well, checking the infamous map once again we could see that continuing north-east would actually take us past Mt Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) and then we could loop across to the east through Capel Curig and Betws-y-Coed. From there we could turn south again.

As it turned out, I enjoyed the drive although Pat wasn't so chuffed as she was on the side of the car next to the steep drop-off into the valley below. We stopped at a viewpoint which had a good outlook of Mt Snowdon and also the valley to the south of where we were. The sun was still shining but there was a lot of black cloud around which gave some peculiar lighting challenges - particularly looking back down the valley to where the sunlight was reflecting off Lake Gwynnan.After leaving the viewpoint we headed north east past Pen y Pass on on to Capel Curig. On this section the road is mainly following the high valleys with substantial mountains on either side so it is very beautiful. (You might have guessed that I like mountain country).

We didn't linger in either Capel Curig or Betws-y-coed but turned south towards the slate capital of Blaenau Ffestiniog and, a little further south, Ffestiniog. Since we had taken an unexpected detour it was a bit later in the day than we had anticipated so we decided just to head back down to Aberystwyth the way that we had come. The return journey was somewhat slower than our northbound trip as, for many miles, we were following a house on the back of a truck and there were very few places where it would have been viable to overtake. The driver certainly seemed to know his job as he negotiated narrow lines and one-way sections through villages caused by parked vehicles. Even travelling behind the truck it didn't take too long for us to get to Aberystwyth again to round off another day.

Wales(2)

To sample some more of the Welsh scenery we drove inland on the A485 to take us to Devil's Bridge by way of Tregaron and then via the B4343 through Pontrhydfendigaid (no the keyboard didn't go crazy) and 'Ysbyty Ystwyth' (and no, the keyboard didn't forget where the 'rest' of the vowels are). Incidentally 'Ysbyty Ystwyth' contains two 'vowels' - 'w' and 'y'.

Again it was a very pleasant day and quite a good drive along these much smaller country roads. There is a very pleasant village at Devil's Bridge, situated at the head of Rheidol Valley, which is a bit of a tourist spot but most of the touristy stuff was already closed down for the winter. You can still pay by coins to get through the turnstile and walk the tracks but Pat wasn't interested in walking and I satisfied my exercise needs by walking back down from the carpark to have a look from the side of the bridge.
This shot is looking directly down from the upstream side of the bridge at the narrow cataract. The present bridge is actually the third one on the spot and the first two are still underneath it. From downstream you can see all three bridges, the first one built in (I think) the 13th century, and the second (I think) in the 18th century. Apparently Devil's Bridge is a common name given to bridges in narrow, hazardous locations.

Heading away from Devil's Bridge we headed back down the Rheidol Valley towards Aberystwyth where we had lunch and then back to the cottage. Although the distance we travelled wasn't great it had been slow going because of the narrow roads and, in any case, we wanted time to appreciate the Landscape.

Chancery, Aberystwyth

To get to Aberystwyth from Cardiff, we took the M4 west past Swansea to the point where it divides into the A48 and A483 at Pont Abraham. The A483 would take us north to Llanwrda where we could take a left and head across towards the coast at Aberaeron on the A482. Now that we were on real Welsh roads the nature of the driving changed quite a lot. The roads are much windier and narrower with some sections through the smaller towns where only one-way traffic is viable because of cars parked on the main road. I got a little bamboozled in Ammanford and turned right instead of left. Again the unfamiliar destination names give it away so we stopped, consulted the map, and headed back a short distance to pick up the road we should have been on.

After turning on to the A482 at Llanwrda the country was much hillier and the road even narrower and windier but it was very scenic and the weather was continuing to be kind. When making the booking for the cottage I had suggested it would take us maybe 2 - 2.5 hours to get there from Cardiff. In the event it was more like 3.5 but no matter because we weren't in any burning hurry. Lisa's directions to find the farm and cottages from the south were spot on and in a short time after arriving we were getting settled in.
The cottages were originally a stables and tack room but had been well fitted out inside with all mod-cons and even a few little extras provided by Lisa.

After unpacking we headed into Aberystwyth to stock up on the necessary supplies. It was moderately busy in the town but again, with a bit of nose-following, we found a supermarket where we could stock up. Aberstwyth is right on the coast and is quite a pleasant town with adequate facilities. It is the home of the Welsh National Library which is quite an imposing building up on the hill behind the town. Like many country towns they have had to install a one-way system to cope with traffic flow through the narrow streets.

One of the most difficult things we encountered in Wales was the language - particularly trying to get our tongues around Welsh place names. I'd thought Russian was hardish - particularly with the Cyrillic alphabet - but Welsh is on another plane altogether!

Cardiff, Wales

We left Bath on the Monday morning, having drunk enough Bathwater for a lifetime (joke). We were heading to Cardiff primarily to obtain information on self-catering accomodation in either Pembrokeshire or Cardiganshire - we weren't too fussed which. We had been to Wales only once in about 1973 when we decided to head over to North Wales from where we were living in Long Whatton, Leicestershire. On that occassion we journeyed via Shrewsbury towards Wrewxham, turning off to Llangollen and then through Betws y Coed to Bangor, returning along the North Coast via Conwy, Llandudno, Colwyn Bay, Rhyl and Chester. That time we had planned to overnight somewhere although we were pretty strapped for funds. In the end we just kept on driving and ended up back at home after a lightning one-day tour of North Wales. The memories of the trip still remain though and we wanted to see more of the Welsh countryside this time.

From Bath to Cardiff you are pretty much stuck with motorways unless you want to go a long way out of your way. We took the slightly more northerly M48 via Severn View although that rejoins the M4 fairly soon.

We had arranged to stay at the Novotel in Cardiff which is close to the city centre where we could visit the city information centre to obtain the details of self-catering holidays that we needed. When I rang up to book the hotel from Bath I tried to tell the Lithuanian booking receptionist that I wanted to use one of our hotel vouchers as you are supposed to let them know when you are making a booking. She didn't have a clue what I was talking about and neither did the Chinese girl she passed me on to so I told them not to bother, just make the booking and we could sort it out on check in. When we arrived at the hotel I went through the same rigmarole again without any luck so the receptionist called the manager to help sort it out. He pointed out to me that the vouchers stated that they were only valid for a certain period which had already passed. After eating humble pie and just paying with Visa I resolved to sort that matter out back in Australia as it was obviously an error. Anyway we checked in. This was one of the best hotels that we stayed in although not the most expensive.

After sorting out our stuff we headed for the city centre on foot and found the information centre. The guy was most helpful and gave us a heap of stuff to take away and study to work out what we would do. We lunched at a pub on Church Street just down from the castle. I had braised faggots and peas which was delicious and washed down with a half of Cider.

Back at the hotel we perused the brochures and eventually settled on trying to get a cottage just outside of Aberystwyth. On ringing up I was told that a cottage was available for the four nights we wanted to we made the booking at Blue Glass Cottages at Chancery near Aberystwyth in Cardiganshire.