The Land of Worried Sheep

 The annual SKCC Rogue Runners trip to Wales was a resounding success, with no disasters to mar the event.

You'll be deeply upset to hear that I didn't take my video camera with me and I didn't take a huge number of photos, so I've grabbed some others from other people.

Friday - home to Llangollen (320 miles)

As usual, the trip started with a stupidly early meet at Newlands Corner - 4.15am is no hour for a man to be up IMO. It was so early, there was fog around, which took a while to burn off as the sun came up. Only 4 of us met here, the other 6 were all at the hotel in Newport, which was our target for breakfast. The route to Newport was the same as last year - nice quiet roads (as you'd expect at that time) and we didn't join the M4 until Bath.

Breakfast was...average...but we met up with the rest of the group; 4 Elise's including new guy, Alistair's tweaked 300bhp beauty, a Caterham, Tiger, Quantum Extreme, Quantum coupe, an MX5 and me. Our merry band set off over the Brecon Beacons and, amazingly, we managed to stay together for the first 30 or so miles (about the only time on the trip we would manage that).

I'm afraid I really can't recall names of places very well, sorry, so you'll have to bear with me. The route up to Llangollen was a mix of some great roads with some traffic to lots of single track lanes with no traffic and sometimes, green grass down the middle.

About the only mishap of the trip was the Quantum knocking it's exhaust off on a speed hump - this was me helping Tony fix it:

We eventually arrived at The Hand in Llangollen, where the usual Tetris parking ensued:

Saturday - Llangollen Circular route (220 miles)

As 2 of us (me and Rob in the Quantum Extreme) hadn't filled up with petrol, the rest of the group, in true Top Gear fashion, set off and left us to catch up. We started off up the famous Horsehoe pass, a great road followed by many miles of good tarmac. As always on these trips, groups formed and broke up all over the place; often, someone arrived at a junction with 1 or more others arriving from a completely different direction - despite the fact we all supposedly had the same sat-nav route!

The route took us to Caernarfon in the west, down to Barmouth in the south (I'm reading this off the sat-nav route - I had no idea of these names at the time) and back to Llangollen, via Snowdon, the Llanberis pass and various other places.

At one point, I was separated from the others and found myself on a great road with a shiny Audi RS4 (I think) right on my tail. I'm a little shamed to admit that I drove like a maniac, certainly on the edge of my ability, for about 5 miles, with the Audi 3 inches from my rear - man, he was quick. I hope he thought the same of me - it would be embarrassing if he was drinking coffee and driving one-handed!

A rare occasion when we all met up at a coffee stop:

A great run through the Elan valley (one of 3 routes we took through this great area):

A great day, with a curry for tea at a local restaurant to cap it all.

Sunday - Llangollen to Llandrindod Wells (220 miles)

Similar to the Saturday; great roads, less-great sump-polishing lanes, groups of differing numbers all over the place. The Elan valley was done twice over the day (I think) using different routes:

We managed a couple of stops with most of the cast together:

...and all ended up at the Highland Moors hotel in one piece:

Monday - Llandrindod Wells to Merthyr Tydfill (210 miles)

 Initially, we were supposed to do the Elan Valley again but there was a closed road right in the middle, so we had to skip it, adding a 10 mile detour to the route. We still managed a 2nd (or 3rd?) stop at the  Two Hoots cafe in Devil's Bridge.

A superb run up the Black Mountains road, to that same car park I took pictures at last year:

 There were a few too many tiny lanes today and the going was slow. The initial route was 250 miles - our group of 4 at the end of the day chopped off the last 40 miles as our sat-navs were estimating an ETA of 7.30 pm - too much for our old bones. We arrived last at the B&B - everyone else had also cut the route short:

Tuesday - Merthyr to home (210 miles)

A day tinged with sadness - it had been a truly enjoyable trip. A few left for home immediately while 5 of us set off on a vague route east over the Brecons again. What threatened to be pokey little lanes again turned out be some lovely, sweeping roads and continued on into England and the Cotswolds. I had a great final 50 mile blat with 3 of the Elise's:

I left them at the M4 to head home, arriving at 4pm.

This was my 3rd time on this trip and probably the best; the roads seemed a little quieter and, apart from those single lane tracks, great drives. 

However, the highlight was Zedster; completely reliable, no problem keeping up with the Elise's and sounding awesome. One of the Elise drivers asked me if I had a turbo because he kept hearing the whistle from my air intake, even over the noise of his 300bhp exhaust.

I was so proud of Zedster, I washed him when I got home - he was that good :-)