At the end of February, me @willlamerton, @alexlewington, and @olisqr_ decided to go on a mini road trip to Wales and back. We thought we would go from Devon, to Cheddar Gorge, and then up to South Wales, stay overnight and gradually come back down home, hitting up several photo points along the way. There were loads of locations we visited, and it was my first time going to Wales for photo purposes so it was a chance to see the scenery too.
As you can see from his Instagram, Alex has a red Mazda MX-5 from 1991. It’s a little rocket besides its weird sounds and slight rattling from somewhere in the car - mildly terrifying to be in on the M5. It’s kind of the perfect car for me though, considering it’s so low down to the ground and I’m a very small person. Anyway, it really stood out against the scenery due to its colour, and made for some great photos with me in too.
Our first stop along the way to Wales was Cheddar Gorge, where we drove along the road in between the huge cliffs, making for some really dramatic looking photos of both me and the car. We spent much longer than we thought we would here, mainly just because we managed to get so many good photos from different viewpoints and parts of the road. It’s funny how small the car and people look compared to the huge cliffs of Cheddar - we almost looked like train model figurines.
After briefly having some lunch in Cheddar, we started making our way up to South Wales, stopping at the bottom of the Brecon Beacons on a hairpin road to get some great shots of the Mazda (who Alex has named Megan) winding along the road whilst Will and Oli stood on various cliff sides to get the perfect viewpoint. Whilst stationary, we got some pictures of me and Alex posing with the car. I changed my top up several times to get a variety of photos and settings.
Following a stay in the Brecon Beacons for the night and eating a well-earned curry, we headed to the Elan Valley on Oli’s recommendation, where Will and Oli had a go in the Mazda, and we got some more pictures on a curvy road in front of a huge lake . Alex wanted some pictures of me pretending to drive the car too so we got those done (I would not trust myself driving Alex’s car whatsoever). It actually takes a while to get photos done on a road due to whenever Will got in the right position to take the photos, a car would start driving the other way so we would have to wait for it to move until we could start driving again.
We decided to head back home after that and on the way Oli found a little bridge that looked quite cool on google. We didn’t know however, until Will had started going over the bridge in his car, that the weight limit was only 5 tonnes, that the bridge wiggled when you went over it, and that there was a huge rushing river beneath. Hence Will and Oli went over first in their car, and we followed after, but another large, fairly heavy, Range Rover decided to follow us right behind and so that made getting over the bridge a tad worrying for both me and Alex. However Will managed to get a great photo of the Mazda going over the bridge before we headed back home.
On the way back we stopped at several service stations for coffee and hot chocolate (I don’t drink coffee) breaks on the way and to fuel up the cars. Because of how loud the exhaust was on the Mazda, me and Alex tried to have a conversation but couldn’t hear each other overly well, so it resulted in a lot of ‘What?’s and ‘Pardon?’s. Overall, besides the potential for the cars to break, us to get lost, or other problems, it was a great trip and I think we all enjoyed it. We got some great photos anyway!