Waiting for us on the street nearby were a number of buggies and their owners, but strangely not all the ones we had in-avertedly left behind in Clevedon. We had appeared to have lost 3 buggies but gained 2 new ones !
Having a good chat with the guys over a cup of tea (what else) it would appear that after we had got split in Clevedon, Snoopy had gotten everyone to the M5 at which point Mick (Chinabull) had headed for home Bristol – remember we saw his arse pass by as we left Clifton. Snoopy and Hazel, having no hoods, had also headed straight north towards home and avoided both the heavy rain and the Severn Bridge crossing with its large £7 toll. Wise move guys and one I would have taken myself had I not got a challenge to finish.
Carl had taken the mantle of the auxiliary convoy lead, as Dyliss is a native of South Wales, so he basically sort of knew the way. Unfortunately somewhere after they had crossed the bridge and passed through a tunnel Dave Dream blew something on his distributor (points maybe? – help me out Dave) and they had to make a fast repair on the side of the road.
When Carl, Dyliss, Dave and Hugh reached Penarth some 30 minutes before we did, they were greeted by Dai and Donna in their light blue and cream Sidewinder and Wilf Box in his bonkers Lime Green and Black Check modified GP Super with semi hard top. Dai is an IBW veteran and great mate of Flags and had been waiting for us at the M4 services. As we were running late he had decided to meet us at the pier instead. Wilf had travelled over from Swansea to do the last two piers with us and I had only chatted with him on Facebook, so it was nice to finally meet up in person.
George and myself wasted no time in bumping up the high kerb using the zebra crossing, for our customary pier number picture whilst the others went off to move their buggies from a raft of parking spots in the nearby vicinity. Some did face the wrath of a local shop owner for driving the wrong way up the one way street, but as it was now nearing 5:30pm on a Sunday evening there was no one else about. The lady from the pier reception did come out and told us we couldn’t park there on the pavement, but once we explained what we were doing and how long we would be stopping for, she gave us a big smile, said no worries and, as you may have guessed, got her camera out.
Penarth was the only pier we actually took our number shot whilst stood under an umbrella as the rain was now pretty heavy. Good old Wales. We spent a little time chatting, getting some nice group shots, drinking tea, visiting the visitor centre, taking more pictures, going to the loo, drinking tea and after a chance look at my engine whilst chatting, fixing my exhaust. Just when we thought we would make it unscathed to the end, one of the welds on the bracket holding my silencer steady, had simple sheered away. This now meant my silencer was only being held on by a single spring as was wobbling around freely. I have had this exhaust on for over 20,000 miles so why should it happen now? Who knows.
Luckily, I remembered that Dave DnD had given me some stainless steel cable ties a couple of days before saying ‘you never know when you might need these’. Thankfully he did, as not being one who wantons on the side of chromosexuality, it would not be something I would normally carry in my bag of spares. A couple of minutes of cable tie origami and the exhaust was suitably bodged enough to get us over the finish line.
I really like Penarth Pier and the ambience around it, and both Ruth and myself agreed it was a place we would re-visit for a better look around in the future.
And then it hit us. We had just one pier left to visit, brilliantly named The Mumbles, situated south of Swansea on the Gower Peninsula. The Mumbles was 48 miles away, it was getting on for 6:00pm, it was a Sunday afternoon and it was properly peeing down. So with smiles on our faces, the 7 buggies headed off in a rainbow of colours for another 75 minute drive eastwards across Wales.
Unfortunately most of the trip involved using dual carriageways and the M4 but it was the only viable route between the two major cities, especially if 1. We wanted to get there today in the light and 2. I did want to run the risk of losing anyone else again today.
Oh boy, did the rain come down again. Not quite in the biblical proportions we had endured the day before, but still heavy none the less. As much as the rain was a pain in the backside, the spray 7 buggies can make whilst travelling at around 45mph is a fantastic sight. Well it is if your wipers work and you can see it. Unfortunately in Wilf’s case he managed to lose all his electrics expect, thankfully, his ignition so he travelled most of the way with no lights or wipers – scary and either brave or bonkers, you decide. Carl & Dyliss, Dave Dream and Dai & Donna, only having hard tops on their buggies with no side doors, also felt the full force of the rain, getting a little bit more than damp on route.
Unbelievably the rain actually stopped just a couple of miles outside of The Mumbles, as we passed Swansea to the south. Eventually there we were, driving along the coastline on Mumbles Road with the promise of our challenge goal at the end of it. Finally, after driving along the narrow one way road along the bottom of the cliffs, the pier comes into view and all I can think of is, “we have made it, thank goodness”. It was 7.05pm, just a mere 35 minutes later than scheduled, not bad after 10 days of travelling.
Pier 57 – Mumbles Pier had only very recently re-opened after an extensive refurbishment by the current owners. It no has a nice smart Victorian Tea Rooms, café and amusements at the shore end, with a restored pier with full functioning life Boat station at the end. It sits right beneath a relatively high cliff and juts out from the peninsula, towards Mumbles lighthouse.
Waiting for us on the car park were locals, Will and his wife in their blue Kango alike (but not a Kango) buggy. In fact I didn’t know the model and it stumped me. One for Manxdave to consider.
Will’s buggy was number 59, making him remarkably the 57th other vehicle to join us on our pressure challenge to visit 57 piers. You couldn’t write it (although I just did, but you know what I mean).
Talking with the others after we all admitted to feeling strangely odd. A mix of elation, reflief, disbelief but at the same time a little flat and anti climatic. Perhaps we knew that we had fulfilled our purpose and being 7:30pm on a damp Sunday in Wales, the only people really sharing the experience with us were our buggy brothers and sisters. I suppose I never expected a grand ceremony, but I think we were just glad it was over in the end. Looking back I am pretty sure it was the battle with the weather over the last 3 days that had done its best to dampen our spirits and in some way it had probably at least wetted the edges a little.
But done it we had, we had achieved our goal of 3 ½ people in two home built cars made from old VW’s and a couple of fibreglass bath tubs driving around the outside of Britain, visiting 57 piers in just 10 days. We had completed our challenge. Woooooooo Hoooooooo. Not forgetting the real reason for doing so, raising money and awareness of three dear cancer charities close to our hearts.
Surprisingly the car par was quite full although there seemed to be very few people actually about, so we backed into a couple of spaces, got the double banners out and had our proof of visit photo taken for the last time. The rest of the guys made do with a bit or reckless abandonment of their vehicles as we all stood around chatting about who was the wettest, the coldest etc.
Ruth and Alex went off in search of tea, had a rummage along the pier and returned with tea and surprisingly Ice Cream.
Alex had wanted to treat us so used some of his own pocket money to get the ice creams. Unfortunately in a full re-inactment of a classic Eddie Murphy stand up routine, Alex managed to drop his bubble-gum flavoured ice cream and broke down in tear, more through complete tiredness that ice cream loss, we could tell. Others returned with Fish and Chips and we spent quite a while just taking it all in at the pier.
Although there was no real fanfare, we did still manage to talk with visitors and locals alike and manged to get a few more coppers in the ever bulging rattle collection cans. Then a young Jack the Lad pulls up in his BMW, lowers the window and asks what its all about. As soon as we mention the charities, he empties his dashboard stash of pound coins into one of the tins, then proceeds to pull out a wad of notes from his wallet and forces them into another. Simply saying it was something close to him and drives off. We were stunned but very thankful.
At this point I feel the need to make special mention of my young lad Alex. I know he can sometimes be firey (red hair) but during the whole trip he had been brilliant. He had got on with it, got ready when asked to, travelled quietly in the cars, had no tempers and only asked for his Nintendo DS once all trip, when we were sat in the traffic for four hours on Day 6. He had achieved something I doubt any other 9 year old had previously, in visiting all the remaining piers in Britain. We did have reservations about taking home but thankfully he proved us wrong and we were and still are very proud of him.
And suddenly there is was, the pier visiting was over and it was time to leave. Carl, Dyliss, Dave, Wilf and Will all headed their separate ways off home, whilst Hugh had booked in the same travel lodge with us for the night and intended to make the trip back home with us tomorrow.
The way out of the pier car park was straight up the side of the mountain (or so it felt like), up a steep single lane track at about 1 in 7. To be fair it did sound good as the buggies roared up the hill, leaving the pier behind over our shoulder. Aware we needed to eat and time was pushing past 8:00pm, Ruth and myself decided we would pull in to the first decent place we saw. Thankfully all of 300 yards along the cliff road we spotted a great looking Italian restaurant, Castellamare, overlooking the bay and Mumbles lighthouse in the distance. Choice made.
URL=http://s148.photobucket.com/user/chaddoon/media/Pier%20Pressure/Pier%20Pressure%2010/1054.1.jpg.html]
[/URL]
It turned out the restaurant was great, just what we needed, nice properly fresh cooked pasta and they even gave us a seat next to the panoramic windows over-looking the lighthouse to watch the sun set. Well at least to watch it go dark, as no sun was shining through the dark grey clouds.
Highly recommended if you ever find yourself at The Mumbles. The waiter who served us even made a nice donation to the collection pot after he found out what we had been doing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t celebrate with a beer as we still had 10 miles left to drive to our stop for the night at the Travelodge on the M4 at Swansea.
We finally left the restaurant around 9:45pm and it was now very dark and very wet once again.
I don’t remember much of the 30 minute journey up to the Travelodge as I was just blindly following the Sat-Nav. I really just wanted to be done for the day and find my bed. This actually turned out to be a little more difficult they we perhaps intended it to be. The Travelodge at the M4 services at Swansea is very easy to spot as it’s a great big hotel stuck to the side of the service station. What we had trouble finding was the actual entrance and reception as the website said is was to the rear of the services. After two or three trips around the car park we finally saw the ill placed sign which said the reception was indeed at the rear of the services, but what it meant was the services next to the food halls and WH Smiths. Doh !!
Before long we were unpacked and our rooms were allocated. The only slight issue we had was that the Automatic Number Plate Recognition software for Travelodge, needed to stop us getting a hefty parking fine on the services, failed to pick up both Hugh’s and my buggy’s black and silver plates. George having normal black on white had no problem. Some manual manipulation by the receptionist and she hoped it was all sorted. Being as I have not had a fine from Swansea Services I presume whatever she did worked.
As was now customary on the trip, we all piled into the Chadwick’s room for our end of day cuppa, but being our last night we also celebrated with a chaser of a warm can of larger each – living the dream. For some reason at that point we decided to empty the four collection cans and count up how much donation we had collected on the way around the piers. This led to one of my funniest memories of the trip, as already looking a little socially uncomfortable sat in our bedroom drinking warm larger, Hugh was now witness to a stash of money being spread across one of the beds and being counted. Hugh admitted to feeling like part of a bank robbery gang, counting the loot after a heist.
Beers drunk and money counted, (over £1000 in collections on route), George and Hugh headed for their respective rooms and the promise of a good night’s sleep. We had even decided to have a bit of a lie in and not set off until around 9:30 in the morning for the final leg home to close the circle. Even though I felt utterly knackered sleep didn’t come easy. I read my book for a while and then reflected on the past 10 days and the unbelievable memories we had shared with so many brilliant friends and family who had gone out of their way to support us and join us on our journey.
We had done it, we had completed the challenge set to us to visit all the piers in Britain in 10 days. We had made some new friends, had great times with old friends and most importantly had made a bundle of cash for our chosen charities to enable them to continue their invaluable work.
Finally I slept..
Topic: Pier Pressure THE STORY - Day 10 Sunday 21st August (Read 4662 times)
