Rowing in Cardiff

Next on the agenda was a short stop in London to catch up with a good friend. If the truth should be known I was there to meet up with my mates little sister who had been working overseas for 7 months, spy on her, gather any intelligence I could to take back to Australia for dissemination. I hired a car and decided to drive my way around since Amelia and I had previously planned to take a drive up to Cardiff. We met in London and departed for Cardiff the next day.

I was surprised that getting around by car in the UK wasn't that hard except for the normal hardships of heavy traffic. The land of roundabouts had all it's major freeways marked really well so getting to your destination was relatively painless. After a short detour off the M4 due to the fact I had lost all my UK contacts information and had to find a internet cafe. I was strangely amused to have visited the above location. See if you can work it out?

Arriving in Cardiff on a Monday night I really couldn't imagine there being to much happening. But luckily Amelia has a nose for such activities and we stumbled upon student night. The night club that every student in Cardiff was trying to get into had a lineup equivelant to that of a David Hasselhof concert in Berlin. Our night looked grim. But in true Amelia style she assured me that she would improvise as we joined the 5 minute queue in the VIP line. We got to the front and Amelia in her best English accent (South African with a mix of Polish) explained that we were with the Cardiff rowing team. It worked, we were allowed straight through and had a great night.

The next day a old colleague of mine generously offered to take us around and show us a bit of South Wales. We visited some old castles and contemplated sunning ourselves on the pristine Welsh beaches (see above). Then decided not to. We took part in a tour of one of the old coal mines which is free and really interesting. I was totally oblivious to the fact that the minning industry was such a huge thing for this country for so many years. It solved my questioning on where all the trees had gone? Answer: Holding up all the mine shafts.

All up a nice little detour but I still feel sorry for the young Welsh kids who in school have to get their heads around what must be one of the stranger languages ive seen. When making words it looks as though they took the whole alphabet extracted all the vowels, put the rest in a sack, shook them about and threw them on the table.

Much thanks to John, Paul and their families.