Having recently purchased a shiny Land Rover, I was a little surprised when Andre first approached Dad asking when he would next be planning an off-road trip to Wales. Of course needing no excuse to trek through the Welsh wilderness the trip was quickly organised a few weeks later. I have been on a few day trips to the Devils Pit since the family Land Rover obsession began, but have never actually taken part in real green laning. So when I was asked if I wanted to come along I thought, what the heck, it’s time to find out what all the fuss is about! I made sure I packed all the appropriate camera equipment; lenses, tripods etc as I figured this would be the only way I could probably make myself useful by documenting our trip.

Wednesday 23rd March 2011

Being woken up by my alarm at some ungodly hour, I knew we would have to set out super early for us to make the most of our two day trip. Andre picked me up at 6:30am and after a quick stop for petrol and emergency rations (water and two bags of Gummy bears), we made our way over to meet the rest of the crew. After about half an hour of loading various equipment into the back of the vehicles; tools, saws, ropes (and a whole manner of other confusing looking mechanical devises) and an additional half an hour of faffing and fussing we were finally on our way. It was all carefully planned; we would drive as quickly as we could up the motorway, until we reached Shrewsbury. Here we would make the most important stop off of the day, Morrison’s for breakfast (I’m pretty sure Dad gets commission or something as he always seems to take the team here on the way to Wales). We also decided it would be prudent to buy some lunch, so we wouldn’t have to make any more stops. To save time it was decided we would not check into the B & B until the evening so we would head straight out to the lanes and get a lot more ground covered.

After a quick conference meeting in the Cafe, covering the table with various Ordinance Survey maps and note pads, we chose a Lane to begin with and packed up and moved out, but not before Julian has purchased his own body weight in beer.

We arrive at our first lane early afternoon and begin a steep climb up a muddy track, about half way up the track forks into two and we are faced with two options; continue a slow steep climb, or take a hairpin left up an even steeper climb… of course we aim for the second option and we are driving up a mountainside with a wooded area to our right and a sheer drop to our left. Which as a newbie Wynona and I find rather terrifying, I think I probably left fingernail digs in the dashboard even though we were barely moving at 10mph (it felt faster OK). Of course Dad and his Disco sail through the lane with no problem, but Andre and the rest of us hit our first snag; we are quite literally stuck in the mud. After a little back and forth driving and Jamie waving his arms around to signal which direction he believes we should be moving we finally clear the mud. We stop in a small clearing to take in the view, and we are given time to check the maps and cars, I take this opportunity to snap a few pictures.

Andre at this point discovers the first piece of his car to fall off, the trim off of one of the steps has made a break for freedom. This we collect up in a plastic bag which will become almost full towards the end of the trip, almost like a bag of souvenirs.

It is quickly decided we should have in fact taken option one back at the first fork, so we have to manage a hairy three-point-turn in a tiny clearing and head back the way we came – note our map reader has at this point consumed a considerable amount of alcohol, which may be a contributing factor in the wrong turn situation. On the way back up the track to the fork, we did notice Dad’s back tyre looking a little flat so after making it up the steep track we gave the tyre a quick pump up hoping it maybe had a bit of air knocked out of as opposed to a puncture. However within a short time it was obvious this tyre did in fact have a puncture so we have to find somewhere with relatively even ground so we could change it. We found a tarmac road with a small lay-by which was perfect for changing that pesky tyre. With Andre, Jamie and Dad on the case Wynona and I decided to have a wander and go in search of lambs. Wynona had in fact never been to Wales before and we decided to go take some photos of the Lambs, as she seems to love anything cute and fluffy, on the other hand it just made me hungry for Lamb chops!

Once the tyre was fitted and we had eaten our lunch, we decided to head for a particular lane that Dad had completed on a previous trip, we figured it might be an interesting lane for Andre to try in his now slightly battered-looking discovery. Once we had turned off the tarmac road, we made our way up a well worn lane and after stopping to quickly stretch our legs we were hurried along by stories of a previous trip which included being chased away by an angry farmer and his trusty shotgun. After a couple more wrong turns, note our map reader had now consumed an amazing amount of alcohol by this point. We found the lane we were looking for at the top of steep hill it opened out into a field are which had the distinct markings of previous green lane adventurers.

Two particular parts of the lane had some nice ditches which made a real splash as we charged through them. After being nearly soaked when standing to close to take photos, I managed to get some good pictures of the vehicles getting caked in a spray of mud.

As we didn’t know how deep these trenches would be, our strategy was to power through and hope for the best, which resulted in Andre losing yet another piece of car for the souvenir bag! Once we had made our way through the trenches and our Disco’s were well and truly covered in mud we decided to head back towards the B & B, with one last lane to tackle. This lane turned out to be a narrow track road with a ridiculous amount of boulders and rocks to drive over. A very slow and bumpy drive down this track, we were trying to be extra cautious not to lose any more pieces of the car before the day was over. It was around 18:30 when we finally arrived at the B &B, and we all headed straight to our rooms so we could unpack and go in search of food. Seeing all the little lambs, had made me hungry for lamb chops, but it turned out that everyone else clearly had the same idea as the restaurant were all out of lamb! So a gammon steak and a generous helping of apple pie later I was ready for bed, I left the rest of the crew playing pool and of course drinking alcohol – our map reader had consumed almost two cases of beer at this point.

Thursday 24th March 2011

After a huge breakfast and another conference meeting complete with ordinance survey maps spread out over the table, we had a route planned out and were ready to check out and set off. Whilst loading up the cars we gave the tyres a quick top-up (the tyre we had changed the previous day was looking a little flat), and head off to the first lane. We began the day by back tracking to the last lane of the previous day, the narrow track with what felt like a million boulders and rocks, but we missed the turning on to this lane and ending up take a series of winding hairpin turns toward a village – note our map reader clearly believes in hair-of-the-dog and had yet again begun consuming alcohol, which resulted in a missed turn. Luckily after making it through the village we turned onto a bumpy mud track that took us up a steep hill which pointed us in the correct general direction. This particular lane had not been attempted before by our team, so we were not sure what to expect. As we climbed higher we found the lane becoming narrower, we had a wall of rock on either side, which gave us a lane so narrow we couldn’t open the car doors and had to keep pushing onwards hoping the space would not become any tighter. Being in the second car, you could see just how well adapted for the situations a Land rover can be, even though during parts of the track it seemed like the car could easily tip as we were driving almost on two wheels, the Disco had no trouble at all making it through. As we could hear more scrapes and scratches of tree branches, destroying the paint work on Andre’s Disco, the lane opened up into a clearing area where we got out stretching our legs and once again assessing the damage (more pieces of car for Andre’s souvenir bag).

We had made it up the track to the top of a hill, here the landscape opened out into a never ending field, which Wynona dubbed the Australian outback, there was a main trench that had been cut into the earth by tyre treads and we made our way along this path taking in the views as we went. We had to make another stop to pump up the tyre, and discovered the foot pump no longer wished to play the co-operation game. At this point we only had a few options, so it was decided we would push through the lane as quickly as possible and we would find a place to change the tyre again, this time using Andre’s spare. Once over the hill we had made it back onto tarmac, so we decided to pull over at the first lay-by and quickly change over the tyres.

Once the tyre was on and we were packed up, we made our way towards the Pistyll Rhaedr waterfall, hoping that lightning would not strike a third time and we would have no more tyre woes along the way.

We arrived at the waterfall which was an impressive sight of natural beauty, as we had visited mid-week the area was very quiet with few visitors. I took full advantage of the area and took as many photos as I could. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to climb to the top (which takes about half an hour), but we were able to climb down to the bottom. Taking pictures from the very foot of the waterfall was fun, but you had to tread carefully so you wouldn’t fall in (as Jamie discovered the hard way). We were only able to make this a brief stop as we also intended to head for Lake Vyrnwy before making our way back to London.

We took a forest route towards Lake Vyrnwy, through a dense wooded area reminiscent of Deliverance, and I was half expecting a hillbilly ambush at any moment. The forest opened out into a huge expanse of pine trees covering an entire mountainside and the views were fantastic all the way to the Lake. Once we arrived at the Lake we drove across a medieval looking dam, and far out from the dam stood a tower in the distance, it made a great location for photography and had a small car park area which boasted public toilet of the year winner 2003.

Having snapped rolls of film the day was beginning to push on and we still had to get back to London so we drove a circuit of the Lake before we had to make our way out of Wales. It was time to head home and although our excursion was brief, I would definitely recommend it to anyone considering a green lane trip. I had a lot of fun and astoundingly we also had fantastic weather (which in Wales was a real surprise). Although  Andre will probably spend the next two weeks trying to T-Cut the scratches out of his Disco, so if you do plan a trip like this, don’t forget to remove any loose parts first (aerials, steps and trims), otherwise you will be driving home with a bag of souvenirs just like Andre.

Until next time!                              

Emma Turpin