15-17 July: Penybontfawr

Where was Bertie? Monday 15 July: car park at A5 Services in Oswestry. Tuesday/Wednesday: two nights at Parc Farm campsite in Penybontfawr at a cost of £30 per night.

Weather: Monday was WET! It finally dried up around 8am on Tuesday morning with just one shower later in the day. Wednesday was sunny and warm.

I’d checked out trains to get to the location of my backpacking trip this week, but the journey duration was too long (something like 5 hours each way, versus less than 2 hours by car) and the tickets too expensive. That gave me two options: to go by myself in Erica, using her as my accommodation for one night before abandoning her in a car park the next night; or for Mick to come along with me and we would go in Bertie. Mick opted to come along, but as he had work to do and wanted his big screen to do it, he needed electric hook up.

A Certified campsite was found in a convenient location, but after a few days of trying they weren’t answering their phone or replying to voicemails. There only seemed to be two other campsites nearby, one of which was £30 and in a slightly less convenient location and the other £33 in a slightly better location. We went for the former.

Wales was under a weather warning for heavy rain on the Monday and the rain did, indeed, come down. It was still coming down when we finally left home after an early tea, with no firm plan as to where we were going to stay, although I had a couple of ideas.

The first place I thought worth checking out was the A5 Services (a small scale motorway services sort of place, but not on a motorway). The motorhome parking area was far from the most attractive place we’ve ever spent the night, and was rather rubbish strewn (I think it’s used by lorries and vans far more than by motorhomes) but we chose to stay anyway. It looked exactly the same as everywhere else we’ve ever stayed once the blinds were drawn.

A quiet night was spent (except for the rain drumming down), but it got noisy early the next morning. We subsequently passed a layby that would have served our purposes well, on the B-road not far before Llansilin. The car park in Llansilin would also have worked, but being opposite houses, we would have felt inappropriately conspicuous in Bertie.

Mick dropped me in Llansilin, before continuing on to the campsite by himself and he spent the first night there on his lonesome whilst I was up in the hills.

Mick's overnight spot

My overnight spot

I joined him the following afternoon, and agreed that the campsite was a nice place, with Bertie parked on the edge of the small river that runs through it. It was quiet too, with just one other van there. Had the price been lower, we would happily go back. As it went, £60 for a patch of grass, with us using a pretty small amount of electricity, and only having one mediocre shower apiece, wasn’t good value for us. I nearly availed myself of the shower again before we left, but Mick pointed out that having a shower immediately before trotting up another hill on a warm morning was a bit pointless.

My hill was quickly bagged on the way home, then we were on the lookout for somewhere to pull over for lunch (our parking spot for my hill not being suited for the purpose). We were rapidly approaching Shrewsbury when I saw a sign for a picnic area and as we left the A5 we wondered whether there would be a height barrier (as there so often are at picnic areas). No, access was fine, and it turned out there were not just picnic tables and toilets, but a little café too. I was going to cook some lunch, but we thought we’d just check out the café menu first. A few minutes later we were sitting at one of their outside tables…

…and a few minutes after that our food arrived.

It was such good value that when we returned out plates we gave them some more money (one might call this a ‘tip’ but it was nothing to do with the service, but entirely to do with their low prices for big portions of good food).

And then we went home.