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Well, what can I say?
We met up in a really nice picturesque field somewhere in North East Wales on Friday evening (well done Mudsurfer), set up camp next to a fast flowing river, and fired the BBQ up. After a good feast and drink, and lots of banter, we hit the sack.
Saturday, after a breakfast of bacon butties, we set off for the first two runs of the day, led by Mudsurfer. After a trip up a picturesque dead end, he set his gyros and led us to the ACTUAL start of the first route (whos name I cant remember). For me though, the second route (the Wayfarer) was by far the better of the two. For the most part being as scenic as the Strata Florida, but with the nice touch of a steel box with notepads in for you to sign as you pass the summit of the route. It's a bit shorter than the Strata, and there are no river crossings, but at the end is something to catch the careless or the larger truck. A tight winding downhill section, culminating in a few hundred yards with rock to your left, and a dry stone wall to your right. Barely enough room for a Surf, I dread to think what it must be like in a larger Landcruiser variant!
We all got through unscathed, though I did have a hairy moment when I slid off a rock to my left and stopped within an inch of the wall. Buttock clenching! A nice lane!
Next was a road dash across to Bala to refuel the trucks and the crews, and then a dash across to Arthog near Barmouth on the Welsh coast to start the climb along the foothills of Cader Idris led by yours truly aided by GPS and Memory Map (and some bloke called Dave). Unfortunately, the weather had now closed in and after climbing a few hundred metres, we spent almost the entire, fairly easy going, trip in thick wet fog until we dropped out of the cloud above Brycrug with a fine view of the coast and Cardigan bay.
A quick pee stop, and it was press on time onto what was no doubt the hardest, rockiest, potentially truck wrecking climb of the weekend as we climbed out and South from Rhyd Yr Onen. This trail across to the Dovey valley isn't the longest, or the muddiest, or the best known trail, but boy is it hard work. Tight bends on pure billion year old Granite with no quarter given if you should be careless enough to get a line wrong. The rock is waiting to rip panels off, the ragged, uneven climbs are ready to snap the halfshafts and shred the sidewalls of the over-enthusiastic. It's a superb climb, but probably not for the faint-hearted or those who care a lot about their paintwork!
We did meet lots of Landrovers head on on this trail, and they needed us to move out of the way for them, such poor manouvrability...
(11 surfs v 5 Landies!)
Off the other end, tired and sweaty, and a road trip to the North end of Strata Florida to arrive at dusk and get to our camping spot part of the way along the trail as night fell (and the rain started falling).
A night run of four trucks with me at the front (due to all the lighting!) took us to meet with a bunch of TBR folks who had set up a small village complete with complete with catering tents, serving wenches, full service massage etc (well OK, they had a small marquee and a camp fire) for a chat, and then back up the trail to get drunk and eat burgers until we looked like one. It's amazing how completely different the trail looked in the dark. And the bombhole presented an even more sphincter-tightening ride than in daylight!
Last night, it rained like the world was ending, and dawn this morning brought a flooded camp and a torrent running down the trail itself. At this point, we decided to bail out as the rivers were rising fast. In fact, we met the TBR boys coming up the trail just after a waterfall-like bombhole (which some of us drove through) after turning back as the rivers towards the bottom of the trail were too flooded to traverse - this is in a seriously kitted out Landcruiser!
So we all did a great job of turning eleven trucks round in a very tight space and high tailed it the few miles back out of the North end of the trail.
Then Capt. Chaos somehow, despite very clear roadsigns, got us lost on the way to Rhayarder, prefering to drive about 6 miles down a dead end to nowhere. He deserves his nickname!
Pics and video to follow!
We met up in a really nice picturesque field somewhere in North East Wales on Friday evening (well done Mudsurfer), set up camp next to a fast flowing river, and fired the BBQ up. After a good feast and drink, and lots of banter, we hit the sack.
Saturday, after a breakfast of bacon butties, we set off for the first two runs of the day, led by Mudsurfer. After a trip up a picturesque dead end, he set his gyros and led us to the ACTUAL start of the first route (whos name I cant remember). For me though, the second route (the Wayfarer) was by far the better of the two. For the most part being as scenic as the Strata Florida, but with the nice touch of a steel box with notepads in for you to sign as you pass the summit of the route. It's a bit shorter than the Strata, and there are no river crossings, but at the end is something to catch the careless or the larger truck. A tight winding downhill section, culminating in a few hundred yards with rock to your left, and a dry stone wall to your right. Barely enough room for a Surf, I dread to think what it must be like in a larger Landcruiser variant!
We all got through unscathed, though I did have a hairy moment when I slid off a rock to my left and stopped within an inch of the wall. Buttock clenching! A nice lane!
Next was a road dash across to Bala to refuel the trucks and the crews, and then a dash across to Arthog near Barmouth on the Welsh coast to start the climb along the foothills of Cader Idris led by yours truly aided by GPS and Memory Map (and some bloke called Dave). Unfortunately, the weather had now closed in and after climbing a few hundred metres, we spent almost the entire, fairly easy going, trip in thick wet fog until we dropped out of the cloud above Brycrug with a fine view of the coast and Cardigan bay.
A quick pee stop, and it was press on time onto what was no doubt the hardest, rockiest, potentially truck wrecking climb of the weekend as we climbed out and South from Rhyd Yr Onen. This trail across to the Dovey valley isn't the longest, or the muddiest, or the best known trail, but boy is it hard work. Tight bends on pure billion year old Granite with no quarter given if you should be careless enough to get a line wrong. The rock is waiting to rip panels off, the ragged, uneven climbs are ready to snap the halfshafts and shred the sidewalls of the over-enthusiastic. It's a superb climb, but probably not for the faint-hearted or those who care a lot about their paintwork!
We did meet lots of Landrovers head on on this trail, and they needed us to move out of the way for them, such poor manouvrability...
(11 surfs v 5 Landies!)Off the other end, tired and sweaty, and a road trip to the North end of Strata Florida to arrive at dusk and get to our camping spot part of the way along the trail as night fell (and the rain started falling).
A night run of four trucks with me at the front (due to all the lighting!) took us to meet with a bunch of TBR folks who had set up a small village complete with complete with catering tents, serving wenches, full service massage etc (well OK, they had a small marquee and a camp fire) for a chat, and then back up the trail to get drunk and eat burgers until we looked like one. It's amazing how completely different the trail looked in the dark. And the bombhole presented an even more sphincter-tightening ride than in daylight!
Last night, it rained like the world was ending, and dawn this morning brought a flooded camp and a torrent running down the trail itself. At this point, we decided to bail out as the rivers were rising fast. In fact, we met the TBR boys coming up the trail just after a waterfall-like bombhole (which some of us drove through) after turning back as the rivers towards the bottom of the trail were too flooded to traverse - this is in a seriously kitted out Landcruiser!
So we all did a great job of turning eleven trucks round in a very tight space and high tailed it the few miles back out of the North end of the trail.
Then Capt. Chaos somehow, despite very clear roadsigns, got us lost on the way to Rhayarder, prefering to drive about 6 miles down a dead end to nowhere. He deserves his nickname!
Pics and video to follow!
Sounds like you went the opposite way on Wayfarer to us, we drove up the narrow bit. Nice and scenic up the top isn't it? 
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