excursions: Wales| June 2007

crew:   Dick, Phil, Julian, Richard, Genea, David, Jamie, Mark and Jasmin

vehicle(s):  1992 Discovery 3.5 V8, 1992 Discovery 200TDI and 1987 Landrover 110 3.5V8 CSW

Wales – June 2007

               When we originally planned to go to Wales we were going to take “Uriah” the white 3.5 V8 110 but it was running like a dog, so I decided to take the blue CSW 110 instead. We were taking 3 cars in total: the CSW 110, my 3-door 200 TDI Discovery and Phil’s 3.5 gas converted V8 Discovery. We had hired the self-catering farmhouse at Llanerchindda farm as there were so many of us going. Our party consisted of: me, Julian, Richard, Phil, Genea, David, Jamie, Mark and Jasmin. We were a mixed bunch Julian, Richard, Genea and Jasmin had never been off-roading before and David had never driven green lanes before. Jasmin is Colombian and had never even been to Wales so she had no idea what to expect. The plan was to drive Strata Florida on the Saturday and then to drive various other lanes on the Sunday. Although I, Phil, David and Jamie had been to Llanerchindda before we’d never managed to get very far up Strata Florida. On our previous attempt Phil’s Disco’ had been playing up and my 5-door Disco’, which was ill equipped, had become firmly wedged on some rocks, causing the tow bar to be ripped off, causing us to abandon the trip. The time before that, they had declared foot and mouth restrictions on the day we arrived so we didn’t drive any lanes at all. This time we hoped to be more successful.

Friday 29th June 2007
We set off from Barnet around 7pm for the M25. Myself, Julian and Richard are in the blue 3.5 V8 110 CSW with Richard driving. Mark, Jasmin, Jamie and David are in the 200TDI 3 door Discovery with David driving. Phil who set out earlier with Genea, has warned us that traffic is very heavy on the M25 between South Mimms and St Albans, so we decide to go via Watford. First we fill the 110 up with petrol at the Shell garage, on Stirling corner on the A1, then we stop for a quick bite at the drive-in Macdonalds on the A41 just south of Watford. Richard’s never driven a 110 before and Julian is not happy with Richard’s driving and he refuses to get back in the car after the meal break. So Julian gets in the 3 door Disco’ with David, Mark and Jasmin, Jamie joins us in the 110. We set off with the 110 leading the way, with David behind in the Disco’, by the time we eventually join the M25, Phil is already on the M4 at about Reading. Traffic is very heavy and by the time we arrive at Reading we have to stop at the services to top up the oil in the 3 door Discovery. Julian has been drinking steadily since the start of the journey. He has consumed a lot of alcohol and needs the toilet but can’t be bothered to walk across the car park. So, much to our dismay, he just urinates in the car park in full view of passers by. On leaving, due to a slight navigation error, we do 2 circuits of the garage before getting the oil for the Discovery. It’s so expensive I only get a litre and tell David to take it easy until we get some more. Unfortunately his idea of “taking it easy” is different to mine. I let him overtake us in a traffic jam so he’s in front, but when we endeavour to catch up (even driving at 85mph) it takes a very long time. By the time we reach the Severn bridge, most of the oil has been burnt out of the Discovery’s engine and the oil light is coming on. We stop at the 1st services after Toll booths and top up the oil again. But by Merther Tydfil the oil light is coming on again. The 110 is now also dangerously low on fuel and we can’t find any services open, it is just after midnight. The Blue 110 always plays up when the fuel is low and sure enough we breakdown on the main road. After a bit of coaxing we get her going again and continue at a reduced speed. Phil and Genea have already arrived hours before and are relaxing at Llanerchindda farm. The 110 eventually grinds to a halt again due to the dodgy fuel pump and low fuel. We are in the middle of nowhere with still some way to go. There are 10 litres in the emergency can in the back so I pour it into the tank. That’s about 25 miles worth of juice and we’ve still got about 20 miles or so to go. We continue on with very light throttle to try and eek as many miles as we can from the remaining juice, eventually creeping up the single track road from Cynghordy in the early hours. As we come round a hair pin bend under the viaduct we nearly crash head on with another Defender. By the time we arrive at the farm it is very late and Julian is thoroughly pissed. He then proceeds to devour Phil’s whiskey while we unload the car. I drag myself off to bed thoroughly exhausted.

Saturday 30th June 2007
Next morning I am greeted by the news that Julian has thrown up all over lounge floor and his Duvet. He denies its anything to do with him and still pissed goes to the downstairs bathroom and proceeds to urinate all over the floor. I spend the next 20 minutes clearing up the lounge and bathroom. Then I put his duvet cover in the wash. What a great start to the day, I’m already fed up and we haven’t even started. After breakfast I go down to Llandovery and fill up the110 with petrol. I also buy 5 litres of diesel engine oil for the 3 door Discovery. David follows on down a few minutes later and I wait in the garage until David arrives with the Disco’. Then we fill the Disco’ with diesel and top up the engine oil, before returning to the farm. After a brief chat with Mark or Andrew (never too sure which one is which) I mark up the maps. I elect to navigate and Richard to drive for the first part. We leave the farm in convoy; the 110, 3 door Discovery with Phil’s Discovery bringing up the rear. Climbing directly up the steep hill we follow the road until we reach the gate of the first lane. We turn off tarmac here proceed down a steep but well maintained lane to the road below. There is a slight drizzle and its overcast but no wind. We drop down onto the road and set off for Llyn Bryne Reservoir eventually arriving at Llyn Bryne dam car park. There is no sign of the others, it seems that the engine in the 200TDI Disco’ had started to smoke badly, David had pulled up, but as soon as he put it in neutral the engine just revved up to unbelievable limits. He turned off the ignition but it just kept running as it was burning the sump oil. David and Jamie jumped out of car leaving Jasmin and Mark trapped in the back. After a bit of a panic they also scrambled out leaving the car creating a smoke screen. Eventually engine stopped with a bang!

Back in the car park I get out and start to walk back to see where they are and about halfway down the hill I see Discovery with an eerie blue haze all around it. I wander down and get told the sorry tale. After a bit of pondering I decide to try and restart the engine. It restarts so I drive it slowly up to the car park using the brakes to stop the engine over revving. When I get to the car park I stall the engine with the brakes, the car is now well and truly stuffed. We decide to leave the 3 door Disco’ behind for recovery tomorrow and continue on with the 2 remaining cars (Richard, me, Mark, Jasmin, Jamie and David in the 110 and Phil, Genea and Julian in Phil’s Disco). We stop at a sight seeing point for pictures of the reservoir. Richard continues driving until we get to the place where I got stuck, in Strata Florida, the previous December.

Richard and I swap over at this point and drive thru’ the first stream, all is ok apart from a bit of wheel spin. Phil follows in his Disco, (without any wheel spin). I attempt to make the first river crossing of the day but the 110 dies as it exits the river. It is half in and half out, David jumps out and attempts to dry out the electrics. It takes some time but eventually the 110 splutters in to life and we get it up the track. Phil’s Disco goes thru’ no problem. This is repeated over and over again at each crossing. …..

. We eventually get to a wide river crossing and I forget to avoid the point of intersection where another river flows in. The 110 goes in so deep, water pours up thru’ floor and in thru’ windscreen vents. The engine dies and I have to pull the car out of the river using the starter motor. This time the car will not restart so we attach a rope and Richard, Jamie, David and Mark pull the car out of way so that Phil can complete his crossing. He gets through easily even tho’ the water goes over the bonnet. He goes off with Julian to explore further up the track while I wait for the 110 to dry out. It takes around half an hour before the 110 can be restarted. By now I’m getting pretty disheartened and time is marching on. I follow Phil now. The next deep crossing I decide to charge the crossing and rely on momentum to carry me thru’. It almost works but yet again the car dies as I try to exit the ford. At this point I am at a very low ebb. At the next crossing the water is deep and fast flowing and we have no way of knowing how many more crossings there are. It’s still raining and with each crossing the 110 gets worse, so reluctantly I decide to call it a day. The GPS is not working properly but we eventually find our way out (more by luck than judgement). On the way back we drive through Llanwrtyd Wells and pick up the old Roman road Cefn-Llydlo that cuts through the forest just south of Cynghordy. We decide on Chinese take away for dinner so I and Genea go and get the food whilst the rest relax round the TV. By the time the meals over and the washing up is done I’m exhausted so I go straight to bed.

Sunday 1st July 2007
We decide it would be a good idea to get Disco recovered in the morning then go off-road afterwards. We call AA from the farm but they cannot locate where Disco is because we can’t give them a post code or a street name. It seems they can’t work with something as imprecise as a OS map reference. We arrange to meet the AA guy in llandovery by the petrol station. We meet up with the AA in llandovery about 10:00 then drive all the way to the lake Llyn Bryne reservoir, which takes at least half an hour. The Disco is declared “kaput” but its too big for him to tow so he arranges a relay recovery truck. This means we have to go back to the farm and await a call. Back at the farm they couldn’t be more helpful and they allow us to re-occupy the farm house. While we are waiting we cook lunch with all the remaining food. Eventually we get a call from the AA and we re-load all the luggage and return to LLandovery, eventually meeting AA recovery truck in LLandovery at around 12:30. The idea is to load Disco with luggage and allow that to be recovered back to London while we go laning for the afternoon. Back to reservoir, where I manage to slip over and drop my digital camera in a foot of water, some days nothing goes right. We are told that recovery is only done in stages and the car will be left unlocked and unattended in a motorway service area until the next recovery truck arrives for the next leg of journey. By now time is nearly 2 o’clock so we decide the best plan is to split up. Phil will take Julian and Genea directly home Sittingborne and Brighton, while the rest of us follow the recovery truck. It makes about 50mph on the good parts of the road. We eventually arrive at Leigh Delamere services on the M4 at around 4 O’ clock. We are told there will be a connection within 45 minutes the driver of the first truck unloads the Discovery into the car park before taking her lunch break. She leaves around 5pm. Despite repeated assurances from the AA controller by 8:45 pm there is still no sign of the 2nd truck. As Richard has to pick up his car in Enfield then drive back to Hastings he and I decide to leave in the 110, leaving David, Mark, Jamie and Jasmin behind with the broken down Discovery, to await the arrival of the next recovery truck. Before leaving, we loaded all the luggage into the 110 and give them some cash for extra refreshments. The journey home was relatively uneventful except the exhaust note got progressively louder as the manifold gasket disintegrated. Richard picked his car up and followed me down to the junction with the A10. As we left the housing estate where he had parked we saw Phil arrive back in his Disco having dropped off Genea in Brighton and Julian in Sittingbourne. After seeing Richard off it was back to Barnet with the 110 to unload some of the luggage, transfer the remainder into my other Discovery and await arrival of the 3 door Discovery with the others. They eventually arrived around Midnight, tired but still in good spirits. All that is left is for me to drive home and unload my own luggage and the recovery tackle. I fall into bed around 2 a.m. thoroughly exhausted.

Llanerchindda Farm

The contact details for Llanerchindda farm are:
Lynn & Martin Hadley with Sons Mark and Andrew
Llanerchindda Farm
Cynghordy, Llandovery
Carmarthenshire
SA20 0NB
Tel: 01550 750274 Fax: 01550 750300
Email: Info@cambrianway.com
Website: http://www.cambrianway.com