England V Wales | Wales gets off to a good start but can they sustain it?

Is there life after Liverpool? Is there anything to do in Wirral? Why does Wales have so many Castles? What happened to Pontins? Probably not life’s most important questions but we have an answer to them all.

Hello and welcome to the Great British Biking Adventures Coast Series. In this series we are travelling around the coast on our motorcycle, a Honda VFR1200X Crosstourer.

A lot of our viewers are bike enthusiasts but this series will appeal to a wider audience. Why? Because there’s so much more to the Coast series than motorcycles. There’s the challenges, the journey, geography, history and people. You get to travel the entire coast of England and Wales with us, see how we did it, share our ups and downs, experience English culture, the history and hear about the people that made Britain ‘Great’!

What’s also good about the coast series is it doesn’t matter when you start watching, it’s like one of those open top bus tours – you can get on at any point and just keep going until you arrive back where you started.

Who are we? We’re a husband & wife living in an unremarkable coastal town in England. We’ve been married 35 years and were brought together by motorcycles. One day, Esther’s Honda Melody broke down and she brought it to Jarrod’s motorcycle shop – the rest (as they say) is history.

One cold February day, we started riding along the seafront and just kept going. We wanted to record the experience to have something to watch in the future – the YouTube channel was an afterthought. Take a look at those first few episodes to see just how novice we were, cobbling together what little phone footage we had to try to make a story. To make up for our amateur recording and shyness we added information in the editing. This set the tone and style of our videos, we hope you like it. We like to think we’ve improved and hopefully you’ll agree, take a look, compare our earlier videos with the later ones and let us know in the comments.

There’s also the filming and production journey. When we started we knew nothing about filming, video and audio production, editing, YouTube and the like. We’ve learnt loads and spent loads in time and money along the way but it’s been almost as enjoyable as the journey itself. You’ll hopefully appreciate how far we’ve come.

But what’s with all those bible verses we hear you say. We know some of you don’t appreciate this aspect, one or two have told us in the comments. That’s fine – it really is. All are equally welcome here, believers and unbelievers. It would be a pity if you enjoyed everything else but just stopped watching because of the Christian references but we completely accept you’re free to do as you please.

Our faith has prompted us to include a bible verse in our videos and sometimes a Christian perspective on the things we talk about. The channel is not about Christianity but our faith cannot be separated from it. We hope and pray that it will make you think, inquire and even bring you into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Well we’re in the middle of Liverpool and Who would thought think it Massi Ferguson driving along the sea front I absolutely love it you’re not carrying bales of hail hay though he’s carrying a flat loader if that’s what it’s called Low loader low loader flat bed or low loader

I think it’s a flat bed rather than there we go it is lovely I like Liverpool What atic payment by card only oh there’s a man there yeah here hopefully he’ll wave us through one eternity later wrong laye here we did oh he’s taking card payment yeah there something wrong with the machine so he’s having to yeah and now he’s on his

Blower a few moments later go on get a move on Van see if they’ll let us through thank you if you through again use the outside Lan yeah sorry about that thank you for that oh that was kind yeah nice friendly face the WHL sticks out like a sore thumb

Separating Liverpool from North Wales the roughly rectangular Peninsula is about 15 Mi long and 7 Mi wide and is bounded by the D EST to the West the Mery estri to the East and Liverpool Bay to the north historically part of chesher over the years most of it has

Gradually been taken over by Liverpool’s ever expanding greater metropolitan area the name WHL literally means Myrtle corer in Old English it is supposed the land with was once overgrown with bog Myrtle a plant no longer found in the area but plentiful around forby nearby the WHL is a mix of docks industry

Nature reserves Countryside residential Coast eseries farming and seaside Resorts so this is New Brighton prominade prominade just get back on ourselves a little bit to take it all in look back at where we’ve come from over over there where all the cranes are which will be Liverpool

Docks well that’s what you call a tower block yeah cutting out all the views of the properties behind yeah look at that who would have gave that planning permission but you know what I mean know look at all the lovely houses next to it and then you get that they should have put

It on the top of the hill more so so it doesn’t block anybody out they got great views though well yeah they’ll have phenomenal views yeah imagine that wow oh why yes it’s good Fun [Applause] [Applause] Oh At this point we’ve just left England and entered Wales the official border is just before the river there are three Road Crossings Downstream of Chester which is a bit of a Pity because Chester is a very pretty historic City but we have a rule that says we must always use the crossing

Nearest the coast so we’re taking a relatively new and rather curious Road Bridge it’s been dubbed the bridge to nowhere because it doesn’t really integrate well with the existing Network or add anything to it the bridge was opened in 1998 at a cost of50 5 million

And links flint and con’s key to the WHL Peninsula it’s the largest asymmetric cable Stay Bridge in Britain and as you can see is very pleasing to the eye great R of engineering years Power Station yeah yeah another what’s your wife brought down well some amazing Terraces with

Brilliant back alleys it’s a castle oh yes I remember this we have just entered Wales and already enced our first castle Wales has the most castles per square mile than any other European country it has 427 recognized castles or castle ruins but there were once many more best

Estimates put the number of Anglo Norman castles alone at about the 600 Mark Wales has been highly contested throughout history particularly in the medieval period as those who ruled England sought to subjugate the land some castles were built by the wels to defend their land and some were built by

The English who used them to establish and maintain control from the Norman invasion in the late 11th century up until Owen glinda’s Uprising against England between 1400 and 1415 the Welsh and English were at it for 3 and 1 half centuries the geography of Wales lends itself to castle building with easily

Defensible mountains and valleys which can be resupplied by river and sea probably most famous of all are the 10 castles in Edward I’s ring of iron of which Flint was the first to be built started in 1277 and largely completed by 1284 the castle is dominated by the

Great tower like any decent Castle it’s surrounded by a moat and accessed VI a drawbridge and built with exceptionally thick walls everything required to withstand a Siege Wales and England finally put their differences aside and following the acts of Union between 1536 and 1543 became one country and have

Lived in peace and Harmony ever since some castles were dismantled some repurposed as Law Courts and prisons some developed into Grand Homes but many were just left and eventually became what is possibly wales’s biggest and most successful man-made tourist attraction today oh cool BRS very nice Careful of the Boy racist oh fantastic it’s cute isn’t it yeah he went out there didn’t he oh yeah he did you okay with us yeah it’s a car park wow welcome to gronant gronant Sands so this is the lovely Sandy Beach of pretin with lots of windmills out

There wellow yeah there’s hundreds of windmills Press that saying club and PR tapping is a popular holiday destination so we got a lot of oh it’s pontins there we go there’s your Chalet pontins and it looks like it’s still going yeah which is nice and indeed it was still open earlier in June 2023 when we rode through by

November pontins announced their prostatin Camp was closing with immediate effect although the news was sudden it wasn’t entirely unexpected by locals and loyal holiday makers who had seen the resorts decline in recent years much of the Park’s entertainment and attractions had been scaled down and there was little more than the Chalet

Left a shadow of what it was in its ha day it reflects the decline of pontins itself that in 2022 was rated the worst British Holiday Park chain in a survey by consumer Association which just this week it was announced that pontins at Southport that we rode by just two

Episodes ago was also closing with immediate effect founded in 1946 by Fred pontin it was always regarded as butlin’s main competitor but the camps were smaller and less expensive pontins had coats to entertain their guests as opposed to butlin’s Red Coats at its height pontins had 30 camps which they like to call

Parks the first was on a former US Army base at Breen Sands not far from where we live it is one of the three remaining pontins although it’s currently used to house construction workers from the Hinkley Point nuclear site the other two are Sand Bay which is literally walking

Distance from our house and pakefield in suffk which is adults only Bill in 1971 pretin pontins was a bit of a latecomer but was very successful and holds many happy memories for thousands of holiday makers that used to visit each year it is probably best known as the location

For the shooting of the 1973 film holiday on the buses what Nova leure Center wow that’s got pride of place I wonder if we’ve got an outdoor pool that would be lovely wouldn’t it welcome to Re there’s a lot of sand well all the usual attractions yeah places to hang out crazy golf some kind of Tower or ride it’s a ride isn’t it it yeah ride yeah it’s in a amongst other Fair grain style rides I think it’s one of these you go

Round and round like you did in the old with the baskets that fly out you know oh gosh yeah I I don’t think it’s a r well no I think it is I think you know like there ones that hang out on a rope and they go out

And I think you then go up oh I might be wrong I think it’s been decommissioned yeah I mean maybe I think it’s just an thing just a Mas yeah okay fair enough the tower started life is a temporary structure at the 1988 Glasgow garden festival where it was known as

The Clydesdale Bank Town real acquired it and operated it as an attraction until 2010 when it had to close because the council couldn’t afford the £400,000 worth of repairs required to keep the ride operational it stood fairly idle ever since but apparently is now some sort of Beacon which probably explains

Why our mobile reception was excellent along this stretch Grill was once an elegant Victorian Resort town but suffered rapid decline in the 1990s and 2000s today it seems to be a pleasant but fair to say unremarkable Place although we were only passing through so let us know what you think in the

Comments I don’t know what I’m capturing that’s having a bit of a girl yeah yeah that’s certainly holiday bille isn’t it yes yes very much so this section of North Wales will be either very familiar to you or not chances are if you grew up in Northwest England especially Liverpool this was

Your holiday destination of choice at some stage or another and possibly year after year wow that is quite a sweeping Bay or Beach I should say for most Southerners it will be unfamiliar Our advice is to make the effort and visit you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the stunning beaches and scenery and

Hopefully even gain an appreciation of the seaside towns that twinkle along this delightful 25 M of Coastline lovely yeah very lovely tempting to stop for a cup of tea but we’ve got a bit of a plan going haven’t we yeah get as much done as possible

Yeah we’re not very good at stopping are we we we like to get to the next destination but we’re on a roll at the moment so we know when we thinking that’s it I think we need to stop soon we get that feeling don’t we yeah we’re not quite

There yet no I don’t think so I think we’re all right quite happy to poodle along it’s a nice Pace it’s just slowly yeah the pace it’s the same producing these videos but you’ve got to know where to stop I was tempted to press on

And show you where we ended this day it was one of the highlights of the whole trip but I think I’ll wrap it up here join us next week and discover what we think is possibly Britain’s best Victorian seaside resort and Coast Road all in the same Place