| The Mini VI - WAR on Tour (continued) |
| WAR 501E was last seen departing East Anglia, shapely Mk. 1 nose pointed westerwards towards Wales. Well, we don't actually make it all the way to Wales in one day - the car still has only about 1,000 miles under its belt, and the engine is still being rather carefully run-in. Besides, we want to make an overnight stop in Cheshire at Chester. To make the 2-mile hike on the Chester's totally encircling red sandstone walls (the best preserved and most complete medieval city walls in Britain), on the warm summer's eve as the day's light endures and endures - that's unforgettable. We stayed right downtown at the 16th century Pied Bull Hotel (another ancient inn), with the city's guarded/locked overnight parking mall a five minutes' walk away (the Cooper's safe "lodgings" cost all of one pound). Then the next day was spent on more poodling in England, at Ironbridge Gorge near Telford in Shropshire. We stayed overnight at The Malt House, another classical pub/hotel (with a superb menu), minutes away from The Iron Bridge . Anyone with Toadish Tendencies who does not visit IBG while in the UK deserves to have their driving gloves torn from their hands, for use in slapping them about the ears. This area was the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Many of the historical sites at IBG and their associated museums remind one that, yes, for a time England was the one, undeniable, global, industrial superpower. Good examples of the machinery of that time are exhibited, and this PhD engineer was rather impressed. Incredible, giant, blast furnace complexes. Elegant, old-fashioned (only in retrospect) solutions to technological problems. The scale of it all is ovewhelming even now (e.g., the 20-ft diameter flywheel on the "David and Sampson" steam engine at Blist's Hill). When all this was in full 24/7 (if one may be anachronistic) operation, the Severn River Valley must indeed have seemed like the very hinges of Hell. Only when one spends a day at IBG does one appreciate where the very soul of the British automobile came from, and what the true social cost of it all was to those who really created the objective reality (e.g., the working-life exhibits at Coalport China). Wales But now Wales is unavoidable. The road WARrior is thrust into Snowdonia. Now this is different. The roads are wilder, the countryside more rugged. One minute we are on top of the world, the next deep in a valley. In a happy coincidence, the "S" engine has now gotten some miles on it, can be held longer in each gear, pushed a bit harder, then harder still. The roads are deserted. At times, though the curves are plentiful, the sight lines are long, and WAR can be given its head. Oh my, don't tell anyone - Wales is Cooper S heaven. We set up HQ in a B&B in the mountain village named Beddgelert. Nothing particularly special in the lodgings. The countryside is the story here: the vista at a pass above Beddgelert (374KB!). But since Toad's stomach is never far behind, in Beddgelert, dinner at the curiously named (and quaint looking) Royal Goat Hotel is not to be missed. For another high-country amusement, take the Snowdon Mountain Railroad from Llanberis to the very tippy top of Mount Snowdon (pray for good weather, and remember that on the railroad's inaugural run, the train fell off the tracks into a deep gorge, killing only a few passengers, what fun!). Along the lowlands of northern Wales is Edward I's Iron Ring, pronounced by Toad (who claims to have been everrywhere) to be the world's best multi-castle tour. In the 1280's, Edward decided that it was cheaper to build and maintain a ring of fortresses to pen in those pesky Welsh, rather than return to reconquer them every couple of years. Out of that major military-industrial project (Rummy eat your heart out), Conwy, Beaumaris, Caernarfon, and Harlech castles still stand, and Toad has never been one to miss a castle. Castle Harlech is perhaps the most compelling, standing up high on the wind-blasted headlands, a torturous road up to it (thank heavens the Cooper is not completely "authentic" and has the later fully-synchronized first gear - several of the hairpins required its use on the move!). What a hill-climb course this would make! Even King Edward would rolf into his helmet. One last castle of a different sort is worth a look-in: Penrhyn Castle (452KB!) near Bangor. This is much like some of those fake 1275 Cooper "S" built into a Mk. 4 shell (hey, not WAR!): a 19th century extravaganza based on a Norman shell, constructed by one of the slate robber-barons embarked upon a self-congratulatory orgy. Don't miss the exceedingly interesting audio-self-guided tour of the interior. Plus a marvelous Victorian Garden on the grounds, where Toad took refuge beneath the gynura. The tropics in Wales, indeed. Speaking of self-congratulatory orgies (our own this time - a real $$$$ splurge), the final stop in Wales was an overnight in The Village. The Village? Gentle reader, if that doesn't ring a bell, then you must not be of a certain age (No. 6, be seeing you, we want information, KAR 120C). Portmeirion, you idiot. The Village is another of those patented follies (but of the most brilliant sort), built on a private peninsula by another of those patented British eccentrics, Clough Williams-Ellis, between 1925-1975. This, of course, is where The Prisoner was filmed. During the day, The Village (which is much smaller than it appears on the boob-tube) is swarming with the hoi polloi bussed-in day-trippers. But when the day ends, and only the few overnight re$ident$ are left, the place becomes magical. In the quiet of a long summer's eve light, what seemed in the midst of the crowds to be randomly assembled kitsch architecture, takes on a consistent beauty of its own. But of course, Toad's Mr. Hyde becomes rather impatient with all the foregoing from Toad's Dr. Jekyll, and his high point becomes blasting (220KB!) through the narrow, deserted Village streets (264KB!) before the coppers come with the cuffs. It was a glorious, sun-filled two days in a truly bizarre corner of Wales. But of course what remains foremost in the road WARrior's memory is the marvelous hours spent blasting along the underpopulated byways of Wales, such a contrast with the Midlands only a few hours away. Through the windscreen (280KB!), not much more than the winding ribbon of narrow road (note: 1. Toad's camera in the mirror; 2. the "Keep Left" memory-aid; 3. the odometer reading; 4. the oil pressure at idle). Next, we push on, back over the Border into England. |
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| Back to England!! |
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