Ep 79 – Is the bike still there after last night? Will we ever get to the end of this adventure?

Great biking weather and 3 South Wales beaches that you didn’t know existed.

It’s slow 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] in the last episode we struggled to find somewhere to stay the night but eventually got a cancellation at the weather spoons in the center of Bridgend when we went to bed the T was still partying hard and we wondered if the bike would still be as we left it we were promised by a group of drunken jenes that they would take care of it how reassuring so we slept well in our room with no view still there somehow the bike had escaped unscathed thankfully if by chance is your first time here we’re traveling around the English and Welsh Coastline on our Honda VFR 1200 X Cross Tour 5 1/ 12,000 M and 79 episodes later we’re nearly finished let’s see how far we get in this episode [Music] yeah we were very worried weren’t we really uh but it was the only accommodation was available we wouldn’t have chosen it probably because of that and we didn’t even ask about it we just saw it and then realized it was in the middle of a pedestrian area and we could um we just parked the bike outside and um this morning there was some local just passed us by didn’t he say you’re lucky is still there [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] and this remember this place this is a place we came to we got the guy’s card cuz you can bring your Caravan here [Music] Nash point this is Nash point if you’re looking for a basic coastal clifftop location to pitch up for a few hours or even a few days then look no further than here don’t expect too much in the way of amenities there’s a car park and a Simple Cafe that’s it on the other hand the scenery and nature are spectacular the lighthouses and fhorn station date from the 1830s they were built in response to the tragic shipwreck of the Frolic paddle steamer while it was on its way from Bristol to haford West in March 1831 with the loss of over 50 Souls the ligh houses were constructed so that when they were lined up they would guide shipping away from the Nash sandbank the smaller Leading Light had to be removed in the 1920s because the sandbank shifted from its [Music] location the Fulk horn is blown by a pair of huge air compressors at certain times of the year the building are open to the public yeah I think youve just got a toilet very basic toilet there toilet facilities I’m not sure there’s a shower facility but yeah we got the picnic [Music] table Yeah I think that there’s the path that goes down to it there there yeah it’s lovely very nice that car not moving one inch is he he got his eye got his eye on a mouse yeah he’s like I got you yeah there’s a maaz in [Music] there he’s going left we’re going right [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah we’re on a very minor Road aren’t we the closest road to the coast and we’re discovering some lovely Villages you might not be able to see the coast but we’re actually discovering in some lovely places along the way very tucked away this is a little bit of um a Hidden Gem this um part of the South Wales Coastline I haven’t got us going down there for some reason I trust my planning cuz it’s not really commercialized there’s no real Resort where there aren’t any resorts The Last Resort in the direction we come from is probably Port Co you got places like ogmore but then after ogmore there’s nothing uh until you get to Barry uh which is where we’re heading this is in this set of directions here ending up in Barry which is just the other side of or just this side of Cardiff west of Cardiff but this whole section of coast uh I think is mainly farmland yeah I was going to attempt to pronounce it but I know I’m going to butcher it PL plant whant major or something yeah now which one do we think it is I reckon it’s that one up there I think that’s just the yeah but it’s just I think it’s this one and I think this is like a triangle anyway we’re popping down to a coast thing something obviously I’ve seen on the map when I planned the route many months [Music] ago we did actually do this at one stage when we were early on in our Coast Adventure um we came out didn’t we M clockwise yeah uh we thought oh we go clockwise and then we said H that’s just going to confuse the whole thing if we sort of put a clockwise section into it yeah so we kept to the anticlockwise but we came doing it again yeah so everything we’ve done since yesterday we have um we we’ve previously done we’ got to well pretty much Bridge end didn’t we yeah yeah poor yeah P cool places like this will fill up today won’t they yeah for sure camping thing there yeah they can’t VI it clant wh to four clant wh major yeah it might be [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] bit rough very nice yeah and yet dominated on our left I think it may be a cold fired power station but like most of these or all of these power stations that are located on the coast I’m pretty sure they’re there because of the need for lots and lots of water to cool their [Music] boilers there’s a little walk around there didn’t notice that last time we were here well I think we’ll get off again yeah it’s okay yeah definitely [Applause] the power station you can see here at limur Bay stopped operating on the 31st of March 2020 it opened in 1971 and was known as abor B because it superseded abor a that was built in 1960 at the time it was built abathor a was the most advanced power station in the world it was demolished shortly after it closed in 1995 until 1995 the two power stations operated alongside each other both used coal but abathor B mixed it with biomass in an attempt to improve efficiency in emissions the vast majority of the coal came from the mines in The Valleys just north from here predominantly Tower Cy Tower cery was the oldest continuously working deep coal mine in the United Kingdom and possibly in the world until its closure in 2008 and was the last mine of its kind to remain in the South Wales valleys Welsh coal is renowned for its exceptional quality it was constantly supplied by rail to the power station that burned approximately 5 to 6,000 tons of it a day over the years abathor tried new Technologies to make the process cleaner But ultimately could not overcome regulation and opposition to burning coal today there is currently just one active Coal Fired power station operating in the United Kingdom at Ratcliff on soring notum Shure it generates a relatively low 1.5 gaw and even that will disappear as the plant is being decommissioned on the other hand despite assurances to reduce their Cal fired power stations China continues to build them at a phenomenal rate in 2023 they announced proposals to increase Coal Power capacity by 70 GW their existing capacity is already in excess of 2,000 gaw ironically we support China’s use of coal both politically and economically by trade deals and imports of products produced using Cal derived energy various plans have been suggested for the site here abor including a nuclear power station or tidal energy the Cardiff capital region has recently bought the site for £8 million and announced it had earmarked 30 million to under work needed to demolish the station and begin redeveloping the site as a clean energy [Music] Hub we saw this track leading off from the car park and our curiosity got the better of us we ventured down as much as we dared and came across this little Shrine the helmet suggests it’s in memory of a motorcyclist if you know anything about it let us know in the comments [Music] it’s been a while since we thanked you our viewers thank you very much for watching we really appreciate it hopefully you’re enjoying the content as they call it we love hearing from you so let us know in the comments what you like and even what you dislike about the videos well that’s all we’ve got time for this week join us next time when we will endeavor to make more progress [Music]