So Easter Weekend - 4 days, a perfect opportunity to go away somewhere. We now have a fairly distinct list of what we want to try and achieve in the UK before we have to leave, and the suggestion was we hire a car or preferably campervan of some sort and go to the Lakes District over that time. We decided to take the following Tuesday off and make it 5 days, we got quotes for camping grounds for where to base the vehicle during our time there, quotes on vehicle hire, and were all ready to push the button and book everything when we decided to re-check the validity of driving on our "foreign" drivers licenses when we discovered they were technically invalid - it had been longer than 12 months since we'd entered the country and started residing here. There were ways around this, but they were either problematic or there wasn't enough time before the trip (it takes 3 weeks to get your license swapped for a UK one - we didn't quite have that). Wondering what we should do, around this time Sasha and I caught up with Rachel & Jeremy and we were discussing various trips and things and explaining our Lakes District conundrum - when it occurred to us why don't we bring forward our Cornwall trip and do it Easter Weekend instead. Cornwall, the lower part of England is reputed to be quite pretty and lovely to visit - we'd contemplated it during the Christmas/New Year period but it seemed to be shut down during that time of year. With the weather nicer, it seemed like a good time to go and was the only longer-than-two-days trip we had on the cards other than the Lakes District - but we'd originally only contemplated a 3-day trip to Cornwall, not 5. 5 seemed a bit much. It was Sasha who came up with the suggestion we fit two trips in the 5-day period - visit Cornwall, and somewhere else on our list such as York. Running the numbers and figures, doing Cornwall then York wasn't really feasible - but Cardiff, also on our list was. We scoped it out, visiting Cornwall first, then Cardiff - we'd catch the Overnight train from London to Penzance, then work our way up to St Austell, then up to Cardiff and back to London - effectively 3 days in Cornwall, and 2 days in Cardiff. When we finally had settled on the itinerary and were satisfied there was reasonable accommodation options, we went to book it starting with the sleeper train - only to find that there were no sleeper berths left, just seats on the overnight train. Problem. It all became rather messy, until we resolved to flip the trip around the other way - Cardiff first, then Cornwall. Finding a way to make it work (and finding that the cost came down a little), we booked the travel portion and then booked accommodation - including our first Airbnb booking experiences. All of this took time - and with the vagaries of Airbnb, we didn't manage to nail down the last of our accommodation bookings until about a week out from travelling! all a bit close to the wire, but we go there.
One last thing before getting to it - both Sasha and I initially had the impression Cornwall was not just a region, but a city as well - people always say they're going to a particular town or city, so when people say they're going to Cornwall for Christmas or on holiday you just assume its the same as them telling you they're going to York. But there is no Cornwall city, its just a region - in fact there isn't exactly a "main city" in the area, none of the places in Cornwall stand out as the main place there. Quite why people don't tell you where in particular in Cornwall they're going I don't know - is it the lack of a main identifiable city? is it just one of those things like saying you're going to the West Coast in NZ? I don't know. Its a curious thing - however it did make our planning a little difficult initially as we weren't then sure where to go or stay stay when going to Cornwall!
Day 0 - Paddington to Cardiff
The train departed, we settled in for the 2hr journey and ate our dinner that we'd bought from the supermarket. The train got even more full at Reading and Swindon (crazy that it was even possible to be more full!) and didn't ease off until Bristol. We were about 15-20mins late into Cardiff in the end due to various things, but once we'd arrived we headed off towards our Airbnb accommodation. This wasn't easy as we happened to leave the station just as people from some kind of game were heading to the station - and we encountered a small stadium-sized flood of people on the footpaths heading in the opposite direction to us! We got to our accommodation, met one of our hosts in their lovely house, was shown to the room we were staying in and then settled in for the night.
Day 1 - The Beacons Beckon
Luckily for us, although the previous day's weather had been a bit crap this day was an absolute sun-shining stunner. We made our way to Cardiff Station (via a quick look around some of Cardiff's main streets and grabbing breakfast from a Tesco's), jumped on our train and headed for Pontypridd. Rattled might be a better term than headed, as our train was a "Pacer" - a type of train built on the cheap in the early 80's using a bus body on a train chassis and they are hated for their rough and rattly ride. At Pontypridd we changed onto a 'proper' railcar, and rode to Merthyr Tydfil. This was the end of the line, and we changed to a local bus which after taking a rather convoluted route through Merthyr Tydfil dropped us off at the curiously named Pant Cemetary - a short walk from here was the terminus of the Brecon Mountain Railway, our train ride into the Brecons.
Day 2 - Time Travelling, Train Travelling
Day 3 - Sweating in the Rain
Day 4 - Cliffs and Beaches
Day 5 - Penzance back to Paddington
Summing Up
I am also glad I got to Cardiff, finally - I felt like it had been a bit of an omission, one which has now been rectified. Sure, you could say I didn't get to see much of the place, but I did do all the things I wanted to do there (namely Dr Who and drink Brains) plus I got to go to the Brecon Beacons, as well as fit in the steam train in the process. The Friday going to the Beacons was exceptionally lucky weather, as the whole entire weekend was supposed to be pouring rain - to have a sunny, blue sky day for the entire day was just incredible and especially for our most outdoorsy day. That we also had periods of sunshine or not-constant rain on the subsequent days was also lucky. One thing was for certain however - the weather was pretty crap everywhere else in the UK and the further north you went the worse it was. Had we stuck to the original plan and gone camping in a campervan in the Lakes District, it wouldn't have been that pleasant! By the way, we covered quite some territory during this trip - so guess what? Here's a map:
So two distinct trips brought forward, rolled into one, and well and truly ticked off. I'm very glad to have seen and done both, I enjoyed them a lot and everything seemed to work out bar the Lost Gardens of Heligan which as it turned out was never going to work for us unless we'd been able to stick to the very first original plan - but even then we'd still be trying to squeeze both Heligan and Eden into the same day and probably having a lesser experience of both because of it. Would I go back? Yes but there's no real immediate reason to, and I don't expect to visit either Cardiff or Cornwall before I have to leave the UK. In doing this trip, it has provided opportunities and a conundrum - the conundrum being when do we go to the Lakes District now? that at the moment remains mostly un-resolved but might feature in a bigger trip around the upper-UK at some point. For now though is the opportunities - an un-defined weekend during which we would have otherwise gone to Cardiff now freed up, and also the very much defined three-day weekend opportunity when we'd originally intended to go to Cornwall. After a quick kick around of ideas, the three-day weekend destination has been decided on - a jaunt to the Republic of Ireland, somewhere I haven't been and somewhere where Sasha has, but as she puts it "I've only ever really seen the insides of Pubs there". So after having done Northern Ireland twice, I'll actually get to do the proper Ireland...