Ep 71 – A personal recommendation, terrible traffic, Little England beyond Wales & MORE!

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.

[Music] hello and welcome back to our circum navigation of the English and Welsh Coastline by motorcycle if you haven’t already guessed we’re nearly finished we’ve just got all of the Welsh side of the 7s and a bit of the English side left to do you join us in the southwest corner of Wales in pemrick Shire if you’ve been following the series you’ll know that on the whole the weather has been very kind to us but today and yesterday it’s been very overcast believe it or not it’s August and a lot warmer than it looks which accounts for how busy the popular places of interest are consequently some of our stops were fleeting to make up for this we will use footage from previous visits to show you just how lovely and interesting this area is we’re hoping to get to TMI in this episode where we might even see some red squirrs and we’re riding out to quite a popular destination aren’t we for people to come and visit St govern’s head because there’s a little chapel built into the Cliff face yes we’re making our way back across the castle Martin fire ing range to the coast this is a popular destination because of St govern’s Chapel which is located down 52 steps on the cliff side overlooking the sea there’s alleging that when counted the number of steps differs between going down and going back up the majority of the present building was built in the 13th century although the presence of STG dates back to the 6th century when a monk lived in a cave located here he almost definitely existed but like many ancient stories a lot of myth and legends surround St governs including run-ins with Irish Pirates and being one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table one Legend suggests that St gin is buried underneath the Chapel’s altar in 1966 a huge cave system was discovered under the chapel containing a cathedral likee structure accessible only by absalan down the cliff it’s right there isn’t it yeah out there that’s this is the car park and the walk is out there we could walk to the top of the [Music] steps and if you like a sort of outdoory holiday exploring the sort of places nothing too uous In fairness though this is an absolutely wonderful place to come yeah anything for a few days to a couple of weeks yeah you know there is so much to discover throughout this series we’ve tried to highlight some of the best sites to see along the way the fact is our wonderful country is full of lovely and interesting places of course it depends on what you like to see and do but if you enjoy a varied war with superb scenery picturesque places nature and historical interest then look no further than here it can be done in one day or you can stay over at any number of places depending on your pocket and preference there are several walking routes that can either be separated or combined into one day long walk along the way you’ll see two of the UK’s best beaches broad Haven and barafundle there’s miles of stunning clifftop Coast path with sea stacks arches Headlands and caves there’s a quaint keyside with great wild [Applause] swimming you’ll stumble across the remains of a once Grand court and discover why it was abandoned and demolished by the Koda family in 1963 and the stone left left in The estate’s Lakes see what’s left of the estate including the delightful old Garden explore the 100 acres of lakes now known as The Lily ponds from the lovely paths walkways and bridges to top it off wander back through the Junes and along the beach we’ve done it several times and never Tire of the experience so we’re going to take you now to Broad Haven sometimes called broad Haven s because there’s two broad Havens yeah you’ve seen one already the uh the one we’ve seen already today was it yesterday yesterday and it has a big rock in the bay called Church Rock which gives it a very interesting feature and if you walk the length of the beach it then links around to the foot paths around the Lily ponds got everything really it’s definitely my favorite Beach it’s an amazing effect or or experience especially if you weren’t expecting it to be walking around the Lily ponds which are in themselves stunning but then emerge at the beach yeah yeah it’s a fantastic Beach you can’t you can’t drive down onto the the beach you we’ll show you the car park in a minute you have to park your car and then walk down a path which brings you to the top of the Sands and then you have to walk down the sand as well so if you’re not that mobile and not so great at Hills it’s perhaps not the best beach for you but even if you just come to visit and go to the car park there’s awesome views at the top looking across the beach for sure so it’s an all round winner and possibly yeah you going to say I was just going to say it’s amazing to camp at the top the top of the beach is trell and farm which is a very relaxed campsite can’t remember the name of the people that run it but they live here yeah in this Farm Very hospitable and a campsite just in here which literally is behind the beach car park so there’s your camping get rid of that car there we go quite August yeah it goes beyond there as well doesn’t it little little pockets yeah little pockets private little tuck away pockets and stuff like that so this is the car park at the top of the beach oh it’s busy yeah all the shack ground’s [Music] here bit of a Hubb going on here is there yeah so we’ll just pull over and take a view I think yeah we will do we kind place to P over M turn around here if I can I think some people are strugling find a space so it is busy these are day Trippers AR yeah so we could perhaps go alongside this [Music] vanan so there’s only one road down to tralon farm in uh broad Haven South and it’s car park Chalker people are still coming out out to the car park to have a go parking up but while we’ve been there several people have been in turn around and coming out again so all this lot unless people are leaving the car park now they’re going to be doing this journey again in the next 5 minutes in the opposite direction I think that car he’s got plenty of room he just just don’t it’s yes he’s got the idea there we go come down here we bring a caravan da yes we bring a few moments later suppose so come on more moments later [Music] yeah most of the times when we’ve come and stayed here well in fact all of them have been not in school holidays and it’s not been like actually I’m going to be able to sprad through all of this a lot quicker than she so I think if I didn’t ride a motorbike it wouldn’t really click with me to be honest just think of it as another piece of traffic on the road but now I sit on a bike I realize that actually sensible thing is to get them in front of you and all she has to do the one point where she slap those down like this for somebody else is just to take her hand out the window and say overtake me she can’t be looking in her mirror can she because she should be does she even know you’re there yeah she no don’t do it mate you ain’t got anym you haven’t got any [Music] more fair play you’re doing it don’t do it anymore you can get through there just not doing it don’t don’t you go [Music] anymore just then don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t go anymore she can just turn in towards us surely she can she can come in yeah just come just come around come around around come around turn around youve got this much You’ got this much you got got this come on you can do it and now you go forward cuz she can’t get past you that’s it okay it get you get you get out the way Jo yeah done [Music] I nearly cut these bits out in the editing but thought you should see the reality of how bad the traffic can be and have a chuckle as I did when I watched it again at my slightly impatient observations earlier we mentioned how kind the weather had been to US during this Coast Adventure even in February March and April we had the best of both worlds then because as many of you noticed the roads were virtually empty now it’s August and as well as the crowded hot spots there’s the holiday traffic to contend with as well the narrow Lanes literally clog up as the opposing drivers struggled to pass each other you may have sensed my frustration with the car in front not letting me pass when they had the opportunity perhaps I should be more patient but in this situation With a Little Help from drivers a motorcycle can make unhindered progress thanks to the YouTube’s algorithm them most of you are probably motorcyclists and will understand what I’m saying here even if you’re not the type to shall we say like to make progress as far as bikers are concerned there are three types of car drivers one those that actively look out for motorcycles understand the differences and make life easy for us you know who you are and I would like to say thank you very much for your consideration two those that treat motorcycles as they would another car and carry on oblivious of the differences and sometimes our presence this type mean us no harm but we need to be wary in particular When approaching from behind are in their blind spot three those that don’t like motorcycles and deliberately drive to obstruct Riders sometimes even dangerously they too know who they are but won’t be watching us anyway thankfully they are few and far between and no point saying what I think of them because I think you can guess so another walk to the beach down there hopefully we’ll get a glimpse of it as we go up the hill so we’re coming down the road which we’ve just had a sign saying unsuitable for Motor Vehicles we basically had two choices we had one sign that said prohibited to Motor Vehicles except for Access which is just a sign to stop people going through a little village probably and then we had this one and it’s just said unsuitable for Motor Vehicles so far so good yeah we’re getting near the end now might just be trying to put people off to stop the holiday jams yes yeah cuz it would get jammed along here wouldn’t it yeah I think they overdone it deliberately for a bit of a effect to just to put people off yeah it’s uh certainly not UNS you got fourway flashes on fella so I really really don’t know what’s going on with you yeah unsuitable for Motor Vehicles it says on that end as well oh gone weird I’ll turn it off and turn it on again yeah it’s doing it it’s funny shaking [Music] business what is this machine you’re right straight on it the crossroads or did you say right uh it’s I uh right right goes back on ourselves just a minute just a minute wait wait I can’t we’ve lost us something go [Music] to know right yeah right down to manab beer so this is manaia Beach [Music] up until now Wales has been shall we say very Welsh some areas may be more so than others but there was no mistaking we were in Wales reminders particularly the Welsh flag were everywhere as we have progressed into pmri Shire the Welsh influence has noticeably waned there’s a reason for this the lanar line it’s a notional but but well- defined line dividing this area of Wales from the rest of Wales south of the line is often referred to as little England Beyond Wales there’s no precise reason for why the laline exists a series of historical events have led to the wider population here simply being less Welsh in origin and culture I’m trying to choose my words very carefully because I know they still regard themselves as Welsh the line of castles particularly the great fortresses of pemr haford West maner kuu and TBI played a significant part in The Divide but it’s not as simple as that various events throughout history have just resulted in this area being more like England even though it’s not close to the Border it is nowadays Above All Else a linguistic line and there is definitely less emphasis on the Welsh language here it may not be an official boundary or appear on any Maps but it certainly features in the mental maps of the local people who know more or less where it is and who themselves always identify either with the welshy or the englishy man of be a castle up to our left which I believe is privately owned and still lived in yeah might be wrong but I seem to have a vague recollection remember you T it you can t it can you but um it’s still their house yeah he got like a house within the walls I think it’s got something like that it’s a really nice Castle to visit we we’ve been there haven’t we years and years ago very NI at the start of this episode I said we were going to get you to TBI and despite the traffic we have unfortunately we have run out of time to tell you about this charming Little Big Town and the red squirrels that can be found not too far from here so be sure to join us next time to hear all about it and why TBI should be on your touring itinery [Music]