Ep 70 – The end of civilisation?

We get political but don’t worry it doesn’t last long before we discover more of our lovely coast and history.

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.

hello and welcome back to Great British biking adventures in this series we’re traveling around the English and Welsh Coastline on our Honda VFR 1200 X cross it’s a bigger undertaking than you might think we would have traveled less distance riding to Dubai don’t believe us then check out episode 40 where we explain how the coastline Paradox makes it such a long journey and why we decided not to do the Scottish Coastline yet who are we and why are we doing it take a look at the description to this and all our videos to find out as far as the YouTube thing is concerned we genuinely had no idea what we were getting ourselves into at the beginning if we did we possibly wouldn’t have done it but we’re very glad that we have it’s been a privilege to share this adventure of ours with you and we hope you’re enjoying the journey too one of the biggest motivations is hearing your thoughts and Reflections so if you like what you see don’t be shy let us know in the comments down below and of course feel free to hit that like button ring the bell so you don’t miss out on future episodes and subscribe despite how it sounds it costs nothing and you can simply unsubscribe if you change your mind in the last episode we traveled around the large Inlet and natural Harbor of Milford Haven and explored the fascinating history of this small isolated pocket of Britain including conquests the birthplace of a king Civil Wars and how isard Kingdom Brunell made this a gateway to the rest of the world you join us on the southern side of Milford Haven we’ve still got a bit of the Haven to explore but we’re now in South pemr Shire with its stunning scenery jump on the back enjoy the ride and discover more of our lovely coastline Milford Haven is dominated by the oil and gas industry crude oil and gas is imported refined and distributed from here each of the four big terminals were once oil refineries built from the 1950s through to the early ’70s at one time or another they have been operated by the likes of Amo merco eelf total Texico Chevron ESO Exxon Mobile and golf today only one of the plants is an oil refinery and it’s the one we’re approaching it’s operated by Valero and is one of the biggest in the United Kingdom just before it is Pembrook power station that was opened in 2012 and is the largest gas fired power station in Europe generating enough power to supply 3.5 million homes hidden in between the two is St Mary’s Church which is All That Remains of the village that was here before the heavy industry moved in so I’m not sure if it’s a power station or a Refinery Valero it’s called look to it all right look at that sat in the countryside with the cows in the for grain in the beach or the sea in the distance yeah see the flares obviously is flammable gas going up a chimney and they whatever reason it needs to be burnt it’s fire station fire engines yeah pretty close to it as well areen we yeah feel we’re about to ride through it look at that this is the village of Roose krather pretty much all that is left is St Dean’s Church like the other Village this Village was also taken over and demolished by the oil Giants that was security okay so we just want to cck up and down I think it’s all we can [Music] do [Music] old real CAU in Junction in force high cour in Junction in force oh did it say high so restricted area passholders only entering into this area without authorizing is a breach of security May render your liable prosecution o I don’t think we want that no so we’ll turn it around time to turn around we all right oh not paying attention yes I was too busy looking at the sign what does it say about high court injunction in P can you see what he says no I haven’t got my glasses [Music] on if you’ve been following us you’ll know this adventure is driven by a desire to see as much of the coastline from the saddle of a motorcycle as possible in our pursuit of of the closest roads to the coast we’ve been caught out by steep hills tricky tracks and restricted access with signs threatening prosecution high court injunctions and security patrols this area feels quite unwelcoming but for good reason the industry here is a target for those who oppose carbon fuels recently the energy companies have had to secure High coure injunctions against just stop oil Extinction Rebellion insulate Britain and youth climate swarm oil is the primary resource that has supplied the much needed energy to build and prosper the modern world and has provided ordinary people with the independent means to self-determination According to some oil has to be negated regardless of any opposing view or cost they’re driven by a conviction that the continuous use of carbon fuels will bring an end to civilization but what if they’re wrong they argue that everyone or at least every ordinary person has to stop using carbon fuels what exactly are the Alternatives what if the Alternatives come with ethical and environmental issues of their own what are the unintended or intended consequences why does the opposition to oil manifest itself in a cult-like fashion where no criticism can be tolerated what exactly is the motivation and agenda behind it all why are so many people complying with an initiative that appears to be threatening their freedoms and cost hundreds if not thousands of billions of pounds could we perhaps be in the middle of an extraordinary popular delusion and experiencing The Madness of crowds why does even raising questions feel like I’m doing something wrong a heart speed to the city streets we begin to feel the fire We rise like tall buildings as a k C it take us higher the night’s young and it’s just beer and she puts her hand in M we want to chase the night want to dance to the light pull St from the sky just two hearts running wild never sleep never stop as we sh from the top with we’re going to we’re going to be two hearts running [Music] wild now morning there the afternoon we lay awake in [Music] day laugh so loud as he all was pass we’re going to do it all again we want to chase the thing want to dance to the light for USS from the sky just two hearts running wild never sleep never stop as we sh from the top we going to we going to be we going to we’re going to be two hearts running [Music] [Music] wild the moonlights summer scan it was a b we ever had and we stay on forever for never have we want to chase the night want to dance to the light pull the STS from the sky just two hearts running wild never saep never stop as we shout from the top we going to we’re going to be two hearts running while we’re going to we’re going to be we’re going to we’re going to be two hearts running [Music] wi Chapel Bay for Museum oh yeah Chapel Bay for closed doesn’t say why Admiral Lord Nelson described Milford Haven is one of the finest natural Harbors in the world no surprise then that in the 18th and 19th centuries it was used to build vessels for the Royal Navy consequently it needed to be well defended and numerous Forts blockhouses and gun batteries were built most of these still exist today some are in Ruins While others have been repurposed the one here at Chapel Bay has been saved from Decay and restored as a museum unfortunately it was closed when we visited and appears to be staying closed for the foreseeable future oh well oh we press on and that ws what have we got here so Bloom Hill Farm new potatoes dug by Fork eat by Fork few CET s some lovely flowers sea lavender can I buy some potatoes Jared yeah yeah I think we probably can can we have you got so pmri Shire is famous for its potatoes and when we’re in pem shirt and there’s new potatoes for sale you should buy them tell am look at that gorgeous Beach isn’t it yeah surface Beach freshwater West is it Oh I thought it was freshwater East freshwater West you’re right well let’s hope there’s not too much sound on the road oh yeah it’s a good point [Music] [Music] so far so good ah okay prefer risk just a drive through I think that’ll be a bit more calculated here just in case approach on that one yes sensible yes [Music] well this is a military firing range and as you can see up there that’s their observation tower but they’ve been very kind and provided a spectator area they um I guess are aware that some people actually would kind of like to watch the military in action practicing their Maneuvers and so you can park up here and along with the commanders or whoever they are that go up in the tower you can watch what’s going on unfortunately there’s nothing going on today by looks of it there’s something yellow moving over there yeah just the maintenance yeah yeah but we have been here haven’t we we camped here fairly recently when they had nighttime exercises and was like bombardment yeah and fireworks the Tracer fire we could see [Applause] not sure if there’s even anyone up in the tower today there was any cars in the car part oh yeah there’s one car in there is there somebody up there maybe they’ve always got someone on guard Duty maybe that’d be a dossy job wouldn’t it until the lights of us turn up trying to get down driveways that you’re not supposed to go down so I think this church is on the military ground isn’t it I think so and it’s open it certain times of the year something like that were you thinking of the one oh I might be thinking of another one it’s out there we could go to it but I can just see it there’s a was it back it it’s yeah it is yeah [Music] [Music] let’s look out for the tanks Crossing yeah there’s the church to our right yes I think there a lot of these military exercise areas that they took over large swayes of land and often within that there were some small villages they quite often have left the church alone haven’t they yeah uh quite often in relation to the Village buildings they ended up being used as target practice and things like that and um we’ve been to a few places is like that we bombed buildings yeah but it’s not unusual for them to have left the church alone I think the church is still staying here so we’ll have a quick look at the church first the church is owned and maintained by the ministry of Defense I think it’s occasionally open flon Chapel there it is St Martin 184 is a giveaway for some sort of military marker isn’t it yeah [Music] access restricted to safeguard the sanctuary of the chapel keys are obtained from the guard room main gate to Maran camp [Music] [Music] for many years after the second world war Germany were prevented from forming Armed Forces this restriction started to ease in the [Music] 1960s while our tank regiments were based and trained in Germany their fledgling pan of battalions were [Music] [Applause] here perhaps someone thought it was wise to keep an eye on [Music] them look at at comments made by those stationed here it seems they were very fond of pmri but hopefully not as much as they were Poland so this is the village of boson very pleasant Little Village great Pub and the they there is a car park that you can go to and there’s some fantastic walks around uh an estate not sure what the estate is called is it could be stackpole estate I don’t know can’t remember what they call the estate t- room s govern in lovely we know this area holiday here and Bon’s famous for its Lily ponds where last time we came we actually saw the otter playing in the ponds didn’t didn’t we did yeah Lakes really lovely lovely lies we might over them we might just add some footage of that right now so you can see cuz we did get some footage of it I think yeah we did last time we came of the otter as well do you mean I think we managed to get some filming of the otter yeah and the interesting thing is the warden was crossing the bridge at the same time wasn’t he and he said he’d been working there four years they’ve been so elusive he hadn’t seen [Music] them so so they’re still all part of the castle marting military exercise area so why it’s building on the left is abandoned we’ve just got to our favorite place in pmri and it’s the end of this episode join us next time to hear why it has to be on your bucket list thanks for watching we really appreciate it bye for now see you next time