Wednesday 2nd May –Tan-y-Bryn Farm, Bryn Pydew, Landudno Junction

The BBC forecast for today said no rain at all and it was certainly dry and much warmer when we woke. So, it was back to yesterday's plan – Great Orme and the copper mine.

We took the van and found lots of on-street parking on wide roads on the western side of Llandudno close to the western promenade. We walked along the promenade and joined a footpath beside the castellated Victorian toll house, now converted to a private house and for sale, if you are interested. This footpath rises quickly up the side of Great Orme providing lovely views over the bay to mountains of Snowdonia. The view was hazy and we could only just make out the shoreline of Anglesey to the west, however not only wasn't it raining but there was virtually no breeze and the sun was shining making it quite warm. What a contrast to yesterday!

We joined the road above Gogarth, a village of large, individually designed and, no doubt, very expensive houses. Just outside Gogarth we looked down on the Coast Artillery School used in World War II to train soldiers in the use of searchlights, artillery and radar. Then up again until we reached the 'Rest and be Thankful' café and, tucked into the cliff below it, the Victorian lighthouse now converted to a B&B.

A road leading to the car park took us up to the moorland on the top of Great Orme. We followed the northern boundary wall of the farm past the Roman well spotting many interesting birds on the way, especially wheatears. We reached the summit next to the cable car station and were suddenly surrounded by other tourists who had taken one of the easier options to reach the viewpoint. We had a snack in the café before descending to the Great Orme Copper Mine via the Visitors Centre and tramway station.

It was known that copper had been mined at Great Orme since Roman times but a chance discovery established that copper was very important long before the Romans. In 1987 landscaping work was being done on Great Orme when they came across evidence of surface copper mining. Below this they found shafts filled with mining waste that were heading into the hill. Clearing thousands of tonnes of waste they cleared the area and started to clear the tunnels. In the tunnels they found bone tools used to excavate the green malachite copper ore in the Bronze Age, 4,000 years ago! The archaeologists have already excavated 8 kilometres (5 miles) of Bronze Age tunnels and believe that this is only half of the mine. They estimate that the Bronze Age workings would have produced at least 1,700 tonnes of pure copper – enough to make 10 million axes. The softer veins of malachite ran through the hard limestone enabling it to be won with the crude tools available in the Bronze Age. Surface mining would have been relatively easy but tunnelling would have been very difficult – cramped, dark, dirty, lacking in oxygen and decidedly dangerous. The veins varied hugely in size from the truly massive to those so small that they could only have been worked by very young children. The copper is thought to have been traded all over Europe and probably combined with Cornish tin to produce bronze. It is certainly the largest known Bronze Age copper mine in Europe and probably in the world. This must have been a 'must have' on the Roman's shopping list when they invaded Britain!

The walk down into Llandudno took us past a cromlech (prehistoric burial chamber) and to the Llandudno Town Museum where we learnt more about the history of Great Orme, its copper mines (old and ancient) and Victorian Llandudno. There was an interesting section about GOES (www.goes.org.uk), an organisation of volunteers who explore the copper mines. I must check them out on the web when we next have Internet access.

The route back took us up a 1 in 4 hill on a narrow road – this was a mistake. We were unlucky to meet two vehicles on this normally very quiet road. The first was a Range Rover and we managed to get past it but we met a white van on a corner at the steepest part of the hill. Henrietta has only got a 2 litre engine and a small clutch and we had to stop on the hill. Getting started on the hill and negotiating past the van were both very difficult but we managed to do it safely although we did have a rather overheated clutch and must have lost a few millimetres of tread of the front tyres!

Photos: The Great Orme Tour Coach – we weren't sure which was older, the coach or the passengers; The Great Orme Tram approaches the top station; An overview of the copper mine showing the surface excavations and the entrances to the mine at the bottom of the steps; A huge cavern within the mine, which is thought to be the largest man-made prehistoric excavation in the world and was once completely filled with malachite.

Tuesday 1st May –Tan-y-Bryn Farm, Bryn Pydew, Landudno Junction

We had consulted the BBC 24hr forecast that told us that it would be dry in North Wales until mid afternoon when the rain would arrive. We therefore planned to walk around Great Orme in the morning and then visit the copper mine in the afternoon. However, it was already raining when we woke up and it showed no sign of improving. The forecast for the next few days looks better so we decided to spend the day on the site.

There was a gap in the weather at 11:30 allowing us to take a short walk. We went east along the road passed the permanent caravan park (weirdly with the same name 'Tan-y-Bryn' but no connection with our site) and looked for the car park and bird reserve marked on the OS map. The car park was no more than a lay-by and the bird reserve turned out to be an area of woodland with no signs or information boards. Still, it was a pleasant walk, gave us some fresh air and we managed to complete it in the dry. The rest of the day was spent reading, watching the World Championship Snooker and watching the many showers coming in.

Photos: The Tan-y-Bryn Farm site.

Monday 30th April – Tan-y-Bryn Farm, Bryn Pydew, Landudno Junction

At half past seven it was 6°C, as warm as it had got all day yesterday. We had been told that the camping field dried quickly and so it turned out. Despite the horrendous volume of rain yesterday the ground was reasonably firm, probably helped by the lack of rain and the strong winds during the night. We paid our bill (£13 per night) and said a big 'thank you' to our hosts. We would thoroughly recommend Elsich Barn Farm with its very friendly and helpful owners, its lovely views and scrumptious home-made cakes.

There were flooded rivers in the area and we passed a number of flood warning signs but we experienced no problems on the journey on the A49 and A5. We took a short diversion off the A5 just after Glan Conwy to visit the burial chamber known as 'Fairy Glen' sited just south of Capel Gamon. It was quite difficult to find a place to park the 6.4 metres of the motorhome but we managed and walked the short distance across farm track and fields to the impressive chambered tomb (2,500 – 1900 B.C.) positioned close to a spring (was this significant?). Although the tomb wasn't on the top of a hill, it did have views across to the mountain range of Snowdonia flecked with patches of snow, probably deposited yesterday.

Continuing north we rejoined the A5 and soon stopped in a lay-by for a late lunch.

Our OS map showed a Roman fort on the opposite side of the River Conwy and we decided to try to visit it. This involved crossing the river at Llanrwst over what turned out to be an old, picturesque and very narrow bridge. The bridge rises steeply to the middle and down the other side, which means that it is impossible to see vehicles that are crossing from the other side. As the car in front of us approached the top, a car appeared from over the brow forcing us into a delicate reversing manoeuvre onto the A5. Once over the other side of the river we followed the B road parallel to it until we got to the point where we should have been able to turn to the fort. However, there was no sign to the site and the road (or track?) must have been very narrow as we couldn't spot it. We turned right at Ty'n-y-groes to cross back over the river to the A5. The road was narrow and on a downhill stretch I had to brake quite suddenly to allow room for a car to pass. There was a noise of something falling inside the van and Jane looked back to see that the kettle had fallen over. This has happened a number of times before and should have been a problem but Jane realised that it had been half full of water. As soon as I could, I pulled over to inspect the damage. The hob was full of water and we attempted to mop it up with tea cloths. It had also gone though into the cutlery draw below. We carried on through Landudno Junction to the hamlet of Bryn Pydew and the Camping & Caravan Certified Site of Tan-y-Bryn Farm. It was deserted, so we chose the pitch with the best view and a great view it was – we could see over to the hills of Little Orme, down on the town of Penrhyn Bay and out to sea with the marine wind farm and in the distance a large gas production rig. As well as the best view, the pitch is also on the steepest slope so that, even with levelling blocks, we have to walk up hill in the van. Still, we decided that the view was worth it.

David Jones welcomed us and chatted about the history of the site. His parents farmed here from 1947 and opened the camping field in the following year. David took over from his parents, providing 64 years of camping on the site.

We were a little concerned about the effect of the water spill. The fact that the water got through to the cutlery drawer suggested that it went through the hob burners. I turned on one of the burners, which resulted in a noise that sounded like the death gurgles of a drowning man. Even though there are drain holes in the burners, it doesn't drain all of the water. There was no way that I could open up the burners, so I spent a long time with a hair dryer heating up the burners from below and trying to force water out from the top. Eventually, I was able to light one burner although the gurgling continued and the flames were quite exciting – large, yellow and only on one side. We had the windows open and a pan of water over the burner to keep the flames under control. The bottom of the pan was covered in soot by the time that burner started burning correctly. The process was repeated with the second burner but the third burner refused to light consistently. Still, two burners were enough to cook the dinner, so we didn't have to starve.

Photos: The Fairy Glen Burial Chamber with the mountains of Snowdonia in the background; Jane is mauled by a vicious lamb; Calmer lambs at Capel Gamon.

Sunday 29th April – Seifton, Shropshire

It was under 3°C when we woke up and it had already been raining for hours. Henrietta was being buffeted by the wind and had been all night.

The farmer's wife who runs the campsite popped in to see us in the middle of the morning. With the rain pouring down and the wind howling, we quickly invited her in. She came to check that we were OK and to ask if we wanted anything from the shops as her husband was about to go out. We really appreciated the offer and the fact that she had come out in the atrocious weather. We had quite a long chat about the farm and milking her cows and were able to compliment her on her gorgeous lemon drizzle cake. She said that, for the first time ever, water was forcing its way through the wall into the house. The driving rain was exploiting a weakness in the wall and they found it dripping through a downstairs ceiling. They have drilled some holes in the ceiling to drain the water and hung a tarpaulin over the wall to protect it. That gives some indication of how bad the weather is!

The first break from the rain came at 16:00, although light showers continued into the evening. We reckon that we had at least 15 hours of continuous rain! The water was running in rivers from the field above us and down the camping field a few metres behind the van. The field had been recently planted with potatoes and some of these were appearing on the surface, soon to be transported by the river and deposited in the camping field.

A geography lesson was played out beside Henrietta. I remember lessons that explained how river deltas formed and here we saw it in practice. The main river poured down towards the middle of the van but then a well-placed trench diverted it south until it found a weak point along the fence line where it poured over into the camping field. However, some of the large volume of silt carried by the river was deposited in the trench and this eventually raised the ground level at that point and blocked its southerly route. Soon the river breached the fence line and poured into the camping field underneath Henrietta. Like magic (it should have been accompanied by the Thunderbirds theme!), the farmer appeared with a fork and cleared the trench so that the water reverted to its previous line behind Henrietta. Our hosts are rapidly turning into heroes!

Photos: Rivers of mud descend from the potato field.

Saturday 28th April – Seifton, Shropshire

After last minute packing of the contents of the fridge and freezer we set off west for the M5. Heading north, we followed the M5 to junction 11A bypassing Gloucester before heading up the A417 towards Ledbury. Views of the Malvern Hills and pleasant countryside made the journey most enjoyable despite the overcast conditions and frequent showers.

Just north of Ludlow we took the B4365 passing literally through the Ludlow racecourse, large rolled up mats in position ready to be laid on the road when the the next race is held. We soon arrived at Elsich Barn Farm, a Camping & Caravan Club Certified Site set on a hillside with wonderful views over the hill of Wenlock Edge and green fields interspersed with flashes of bright yellow rape.

We parked at the entrance to the field and walked in to check the ground conditions, which were surprisingly good – the ground obviously drains well. Jane spotted a hare just a few metres away in the camping field – we haven't seen one so close for many years. She then shooed away the hens, duck and goose so that I could position the van next to the drinking water tap. Full of water we moved over rather slippery grass to the top side of the field, the best position to enjoy those views.

We had read on the ukcampsite.co.uk reviews that the CS owner made cakes but we discovered that they also had free-range eggs and produce their own bacon, sausages and burgers. We went to the farm house to say that we had arrived and returned with half a dozen eggs, a pound of sausages and a lemon drizzle cake. Unfortunately they had run out of bacon but the rest should keep us going for a while!

The rain held off in the evening and we were able to see the twinkling lights of Ludlow in the distance before we retired for the night.

Photos: View from the campsite.

Spring 2012 Sojourn to North Wales

All is set for our Spring 2012 sojourn to North Wales - Henrietta is packed, we just need it to stop raining! We know that we will be spending time on Anglesey, the Lleyn Peninsular and possibly in Snowdonia but that is how vague the plan is. This is what touring in a motorhome is all about - total flexibility. Looking at the 10 day weather forecast, we may need to find a few indoor sites to visit!
It has been nearly six months since we returned from our Autumn sojourn and we just can't wait to get on the road and the campsites.

Tuesday 1st November - Home

We heard this morning on BBC Radio 4 Long Wave that there had been a serious accident on the M25 and that they had closed a section of the motorway to resurface it. The queues were 27 miles long and it was on our route. The problem was confirmed by an announcement by the ferry captain who told us that the M25 clockwise was a “no-go area”. We set off on the M20 joining the M26 and eventually the M25 by which time local radio was saying that the queues had reduced although the delay was still two hours. We stopped briefly at the near-deserted services before leaving the M25 at junction 5.

Travelling on the pre-motorway route of the A25 made us appreciate how much time the M25 saves, when it is open. It was very slow but we eventually reached the M3 at Hook and the rest of the journey to Somerset was uneventful.

We joined out friends Ann & Nick and Les & Les for a meal at a local pub with real English beer. What a lovely way to end another great holiday.

Photos: None.