Written by Anthony Osborne

​A small, but dedicated, group of Enthusiasts gathered not far from Chepstow, over the weekend of 3rd to 6th July for a tour of the River Wye Valley and Brecon Beacons (now known as Bannau Brycheiniog and pronounced ‘ban-aye bruch-ein-iog’. if you can get your tongue round it!). 
The campers and caravaners (including Gar with his ‘Flying Shower Curtain’), I understand, enjoyed an evening round a camp fire and have no doubt that there was a little alcohol involved too.  The camp was in the field attached to the local village hall and only a few yards up a hill from the village green.

We were very grateful to Liam and his family who put a lot of work in to organising the weekend for us.
Having driven down on Friday evening to a nearby pub Pat and I drove to the campsite first thing on Saturday morning, joining the others who were present shortly before 8:00 am.  The rest continued to arrive until we had a full complement of eight cars.
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Liam and his friend James were driving identical fully functioning, Ex-Metropolitan Police Rover P6 V8 cars although their blue flashing lights were covered up.  Gar was driving his Trans Mondeo, Betty (used to be Barry), Phil and Lorraine were in Big Rov their Rover P5B, Gus had taken Henry, his JC Midge, Pat and I were in Bill, Pat’s MGB GT, Lincoln was behind the wheel of his early Austin Metro and Mike, a local villager, was in his bright yellow and hot Seat Cupra.  Also to be seen over the weekend was Liam’s recent acquisition, a diesel Mk1 Ford Transit.

​We set off on the first section of our run, to Tintern Abbey, for a photoshoot, a short run of about twenty minutes, which passed uneventfully.  Uneventful sections of a run are good!

Photographs having been taken the next section of our run was quite short, in fact just 0.9 miles long to The Old Station, Tintern, for another photoshoot.  Isolated from the national rail network there are two railway carriages which are appropriately painted in the cream and brown colours of the Great Western Railway which served the West Country and South Wales prior to nationalisation after the second World War, although the carriages are very much newer than that!  We all lined up in front of the carriages and, again, photographs were taken. ​The station had long been retired but the facilities are being preserved and the signal box was surrounded in scaffolding.  The loos were popular as well!  Liam’s original plan had been to have breakfast here but the café did not open for an hour or so and breakfast had previously been rescheduled for our next stop.

On our way again and we were driving up the splendid valley of the River Wye to Monmouth.  Unfortunately, there was a certain amount of chaos at the traffic lights onto the A40 and we lost three of the cars.  Not only that, we missed them whilst waiting for them to rejoin us.  They headed for Symonds Yat Rock but did not go far enough to find the car park and we met them coming back against us on our drive up to Symonds Yat Rock.  The single track lane up to the car parks was traumatic with heavy traffic in both directions and less than inches to spare between the cars travelling in either direction, between walls and rock faces and expensive paint work!  In some cases, it looked as if the cars would never get through the gaps (I was glad that I had chosen the MGB GT for the run and not our XJ6!). 

Drivers going downhill must have wondered why our MGB GT had a police escort, front and rear, between the two Rover P6 cars.  However, the presence of the police cars didn’t encourage them to get out of the way! We eventually arrived safely at the car parks and a wooden shed housing a kitchen that served tea, coffee and breakfast baps which were eaten in their outdoor seating area.  It was here that the others all caught up with us.  Certainly, my breakfast went down well. The able bodied members of the group walked over the footbridge across the road we had battled up to view the gorge and the views were, I am advised, spectacular.

​Leaving Symonds Yat in the rear view mirrors we were behind schedule so headed straight to Apple County Cider as we had a time slot for our demonstration and tasting.  We parked up and were led into a garden area where we were suitably entertained by our host educating us about the manufacture of cider and giving us tasters of their products.  Our host’s mother also produces apple juice and we were given samples of that as well.  It all tasted very nice and most of us bought a bottle or two of the products of the farm

​​Whilst we were sat listening to the presentation there was a cracking noise from a wooden bench seat.  Lorraine stood up and very quickly moved away leaving Phil and me sat there.  It felt relatively safe but suddenly there was another ‘crack’ and the seat base collapsed altogether with our bums in mid air!  Fortunately we were all right although I don’t know if the seat will be repaired, the odd job man said that he would have a go at it but that was before he had seen the remains! 

​Moving on after sampling the cider we retraced our steps to Skenfrith Castle hoping for a look at the ruins and even paddle in the local river.  Unfortunately, there was a wedding which took all the Castle parking spaces and those of the pub across the road.  With nowhere to park or to look at we moved on and headed for Abergavenny and then to Furnace Sidings Station on the  Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway.  The station was a useful watering hole providing cake and tea/coffee and loos.  After a refreshing break we headed on again returning over the Brecon Beacons (or whatever they call them now, which in unpronounceable to an Englishman like me).

​After refreshments we headed towards Abergavenny over the Beacons and stopped at a view point where the two Police cars went topless and briefly exposed their blue lights which were soon covered up again before we proceeded down the road.

T​he views from the top of the Beacons were magnificent which ever direction one looked in.  Once the blue lights were covered up we progressed down hill to Abergavenny where some of us replenished stocks of high quality Shell E5 Petrol from the Waitrose Petrol Station before heading off again through Usk to the camp site.

Before the village entertainment started Finley, Liam’s son, insisted on demonstrating his skills on his push bike.  I don’t know how but somehow Gus had been persuaded to lie down on the field and he did with his eyes closed.  Helen, Finley’s mother, seemed much concerned about the proceedings. However, Finley achieved his objective and not one Gus was hurt making this photograph!  (Apologies for the quality of the photograph, but it is an action shot!).
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I believe that the village entertainment went on into the night and a good time was had by all whilst Pat and I drove on to Cricklade for a drive round the Cotswolds with the Gloucestershire MG Owners Club on their Cotswolds Caper charity run the following day.
A great day was had by all and a big thank you to Liam for organising it.