• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

Driving in Wales

Share this page

Boink

Boink

Yoda
Bronze
Country flag
Online
I've done it before but it was a long time ago.

My wife and I were just there for a week (visiting my her relatives in south Wales and then driving to north Wales for several days in the Snowdonia and Conwy area). Anyway, this video was shot with me as the passenger on a typical small Welsh road. Many of you may know that there are no motorways (freeways) in Wales (except the M4 coming from England to Cardiff). Their "A" roads can be very narrow in spots.
In this video (the driver was a Welsh relative) nicely captures at least a little of the experience. It's really not this bad in too many places (unless you go "B" roads); and many of the A-road are very nice. Still, it's slow going from south to north (maybe 4 hours).

 
Forgot this one... taken a bit further north. It's a "B" road though many A-roads can be just like this. One must stay constantly alert and the going is slow. In this one I'm driving and filming. :wink-new: I'd say it takes about 4 hours to go from the south to the north. Beautiful country.

 
Only killed one seagull... that swooped down for something right in front of us (hitting the front bumper).
One thing new this trip was the use of built-in navigation (which came with the car and I didn't have to pay for). It was fantastic (specially with various round-a-bouts). We also tried my phone and it worked well (using Google Maps).
 
Believe it or not, that was a road... one lane but fairly common there!
 
Pretty common all over Great Britain.
Some of the best driving roads in Wales are (or used to be) in the North, in Denbighshire, through Clocaenog forest. Not the Forestry Commission roads, though I've driven those when rallying too, but ordinary B roads and "whites", so-called because they're white on an Ordnance Survey map.
Memories...
 
But what is unique (I think) to Wales is the lack of motorways... with only the M4 coming into Cardiff from the east (and ending there).
The smaller roads are fun anyway.
 
You can certainly see why Minis & MGs and Triumphs etc make sense in that context, both in terms of size and fun.
 
My favourite piece of driving in the UK is the Hardknott/Wrynose pass in the Lake District. Great for the driver, not so great for the passenger. Even more fun at night in the rain (at least then you get plenty of warning of oncoming traffic from the headlights). Most of it is 1 in 3 and lots of rocks await the unwary and some of the switchbacks leave you on three wheels. Here's one permanently on three wheels...

 
WOW!!!
 
What they said. WOW. Great film.
 
We also "ran into" wild horses in southern Wales (in a park area). It was dusk, and I'm thankful I wasn't driving... the Welsh driver (a friend) knew to expect them.
 
Boink said:
We also "ran into" wild horses in southern Wales (in a park area). It was dusk, and I'm thankful I wasn't driving... the Welsh driver (a friend) knew to expect them.
Click to expand...

I've had many occasions to drive on White Sands Missle Range after hours and they have Oryx and Ibex roaming all over! Either of those beasts will walk right out in front of an oncoming vehicle and just stand there and dare you to hit it!
 
Yep... that's what these things did (though I don't know the kind of horses).
 
Not being much of a traveler, not sure if I'll ever get to the UK much less Wales but, if I did, it would be interesting if one could rent a Gilbern for the weekend. :single_eye:
 
Back
Top