Discoveries

The best thing about having Sadie is that we are able to travel to and explore parts of the UK that we have never visited before. After a weekend back at John's near Keighley, we headed South to the Shropshire Hills and to the Long Mynd to be precise. Now, I had never heard of the Long Mynd and what a great discovery it was ... wild, rolling moorland rising above the pretty market town of Church Stretton. Sadie is the white dot that you can see in the photo below - it was a great spot to park up but unfortunately the 'No Overnight Parking' signs by the cattlegrid at the bottom of the hill rapidly dispelled any notions that we may have had in that respect

Thanks to the landlady of the pub in All Stretton, we parked up in a wonderfully secluded spot just up the Batch Valley, just a 5 minute walk from the pub! From our parking spot, nestled in the little valley in this picture ....

...we headed up onto the Long Mynd, picking up paths and trails, resulting in a fantastic 12km run in warm sun. We rewarded ourselves with a meal and a couple of pints of beer in the pub in the evening.... it would have been rude not to!

The Long Mynd is not only a great playground for the fell runner but also for mountain bikers. It would have been great to explore the tracks and trails further, but the warm sun quickly disappeared and was replaced with rain and gusty winds so we headed West into Wales and then South along the coast to tonight's overnight spot, the car park at Newport Beach where we have been treated to the most amazing sunset out across the bay

From here, we may explore into the Preseli Hills which are behind us (again, an area I have never heard of!) before we head East to the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains where we know there are some fantastic mountain bike and fell-running circuits. At some point, we really should think about heading home. We have been away for 4 weeks now. But we have nothing that we have to head home for ... no pressing deadlines, no demands on our time... and to be quite honest, we are having such a good time exploring over here, there is no hurry :-)