Shamballa Cruising Yacht Club: Road Trip 4: Wales with an Oxford detour

Our first stop in Wales was Caerphilly Castle, a 13^th Century castle with elaborate water fortifications of artificial lakes. Caerphilly Castle was built by a rather unsavoury character, Robert de Clare, though probably he was no worse than other powerful Medieval men of the time. De Clare lead the massacre of Jews in Canterbury in 1264, was excommunicated by the Pope, spearheaded the English takeover of Wales under Edward I (building Caerphilly to subdue the locals), then got involved in private wars against other wealthy men over land disputes. The displays in the Castle were very well done, complete with Medieval weaponry.

Caerphilly courtyard

Large dining room

Lakes around Caerphilly

More water defences

Bob trying out medieval weapons

Moat around Caerphilly Castle

Through the cold, gray, dreary drizzle we drove to the centre of Wales to the little town of Rhayader where our friend Peggy lived. We spent a few hours at the local pub across from Peggy’s house to await her arrival. It was a great pub and a wonderful place to while away some time on a rainy afternoon. We were given a hard time about the cricket, Australia having just performed shockingly badly in the latest Test (I mean really – all out for 60 is just humiliating!). Bob’s counter that the Australian lost was all carefully planned solely to boost sagging British morale nearly caused an international incident – all in good fun.

We had a lovely visit with Peggy in her beautiful 15^th Century Tudor cottage. It was great sleeping in a comfortable bed after 10 days in our little campervan.

Peggy's beautiful 16th Century cottage

Peggy suggested we check out the nearby Elan Valley (Cwm Elan) which was quite magic despite the continuing drizzle. The Elan Valley is the site of much natural beauty and several reservoirs with the wonderful names of Claerwen, Craig-goch, Pen-y-garreg, Garreg-ddu, and Caban-coch. These dams were used during WWII in the testing for the Dam Busters raid which flooded the Ruhr Valley.

Dam of the Elan Valley

Moors of the Elan Valley

We really liked Wales and wished we could have spent more time there, especially when it isn’t raining. I was quite sad when we crossed the border and there were no more road signs in English and Welsh and I loved seeing those unpronounceable names.

Welsh place names

Peggy, who is the president of the Mediterranean Section of the Cruising Association (CA, Med Sec) convinced us we had to go to the CA summer party near London. So we detoured to Oxford so we could make a day trip to London to attend the very pleasant afternoon party in New Maldon meeting new yachties and hearing their stories.

Oxford itself looked a bit seedy from my memories of it in 1988. Evenso it was good to see again with the boaters on the Thames, the grand buildings and fantastic museums. We only had a short time in the Ashmolean Museum but saw the fantastic Arundle Marbles and Egyptian papyrus and mummies.