Day 12 The road is long and some Narrow!

Saturday Buck House Hotel Rm 5

So off to our next destination today, heading north towards the top end of Wales..... the fridge being the front foyer worked a treat, bet the next place doesn’t come with such an expensive refrigerator......

Our plan was to weave our way up looking at various spots I had found on the Castles Map....
First stop Merthyr Tydfil now say that fast, we were looking for an old tunnel..... we did find it but it had been filled in with mosaics. Seems there are about 21 former tunnels that ,any are trying to get restored for use by Bikes or for tourism. But like many of these old fellows people don’t see their future potential until they are done. it would seem on some research this one is over 2ks long that’s unreal, all done by hand built in mid 1800’s. Interesting history but a total disappointment on getting to it!

Tried to find a number of others but either past by the signs and there is no way of turning back in these roads or we had to go off road which John was not too happy to do as it was only narrow enough for one car, muddy, wet and no way to see oncoming cars..... We even had to back up at one stage for a car not good with tight hedges with spikes buts sticking out don’t want to damage the hire car do we!!!

Next was a quick drive around A Castle now a very well restored Manor.... looked worth a visit just didn’t have the time sadly.... so pics from drive buy is all I did! Not sure of the name of the village this one was in sadly forgot to write it down. Then we hit Brecon Beacons Nation Park.....and wow we have snow drifts of the side of the road and snow capped mountains. What a view with open plains, rolling mountains and snow... and cold cold when you get out of the warm car...
onto Brecon to look at the Brecon Castle ruins now attached to a very posh Castle Brecon Hotel. Again a look from the outside it stood next to a lovely old bridge so got 2 for 1 here..... then up the Hwy or should I say weave through the smaller villages to have lunch at Newtown for lunch... Again nothing special so far the food has been very bland and uninviting.....
Another castle up the road at Welshpool was Powis Castle total restore filled with tourist.... another one that would have been worth a visit if time permitted..... last castle of the day was Chirk Castle like Powis restored and now a major tourist attraction. We also came across a double Aqueduct with the Shropshire Union Chanel going across the bottom one.... you couldn’t get to a spot to take a regally good pic of the double feature it was.... it’s unreal to see at 70 feet high and 710 feet long, with a canal tunnel at the end 450 yards long.... we are in UK here no metric sorry......
We walked from one side to the other into England one end and Wales the other end..... very interesting.

Well our day of looking has come to an end and we need to get to our hotel.... the nav took us our all the back roads think we would end up in the digglies. But we arrived at. Buck House Hotel, it’s an old English or in this case welsh hotel. And yep had to carry all our huge bags up little tight stairs to our compact but comfortable room over looking the Chapel and cemetery on the other side of the street....
The locals all checked us out, as we had to parade in and out of the dinning room. Did take our bags through the front door so no one could see how much we really have...

The noise in our room is like being with a Bill and Vic in the Dandenong’s years ago in an old pub there.... Very noisy and lots of music coming through the Lounge below.... See how we go for sleep tonight. A meal that again was pretty bland. Back to upload 3 days of pics..... what a pain the computer kept having a glitch so unable to complete this project. I had myself in one hec of a state by now, upset gut from peas and unfinished project. So bed time I think today has had enough.....Read more