What a superb day!
It started off gray and spitting rain and before the engine was even warm, I was on a twisty B-road out of Rhayader. By luck rather than judgement, my satnav kindly sent me on a corker of a road; twisting and, best of all, empty. I'm not quite sure where everybody was but I wasn't complaining and the first 20 miles were lovely:
My satnav was really on it today, determined to find me the smallest lanes and I spent a bit of time crawling along at 15mph in the middle of nowhere, which was actually quite fun. Unlike the drought-hit SE, this bit of Wales seemed pretty moist, even flooded in parts:
I use TomTom for my routes because it allows more than 10 way points, it works with AndroidAuto and the maps are stored on my phone, so I don't need a data signal when out in the sticks but the latest update seems to have screwed it up a bit - it just can't seem to re-route if I go off the planned route. I may have to go back to CoPilot which is a bit simpler but always used to reroute really well.
As it was, I alternated between hectic B-roads and tiny, single lanes all the way up to Lake Unpronounceable (Vrnwy?) where I was shocked to find my usual cafe had shutdown. There was a new cafe 200 metres walk but I don't do walking on a road trip unless there's a chippy at the end of it, so I had to do without my mid-morning coffee. I did find a coffee van further round the lake but it coincided with a heavy burst of rain - the Welsh God's really didn't want me to drink coffee today.
After some more miniscule lanes, I meandered up to Llangollen where I considered going up the Horseshoe Pass to the cafe for lunch but, by now, the sun had come out and I could see lots of bikes heading that way, which meant probably lots of rozzers and a big queue at the cafe, so I stuck on the A5 (a fabulously beautiful road but always busy) until the little hamlet of Corwen, which had a great cafe. They weren't helping the nations (or mine) obesity crisis by serving the advertised turkey and cranberry sandwich with sausage and bacon. I could have taken them out but that would be rude to my hosts...
I managed to stagger back to my car for a great run down to Bala on yet another B-road (although one my satnav wasn't going to take for some reason) and then a rare blast on an A-road to Lake Unpronounceable II (Tryweryn?):
This A-road was amazing - smooth and flowing with hardly anyone on it but I'm always a little wary of them because they are prime candidates for the rozzers and their cameras. I didn't see any but I prefer the anonymity of lesser roads, which I tried to find but they seemed lacking in this area.
I did find yet more pokey footpath-style lanes, although the scenery was other-worldly:
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