“You can’t beat the absolute joy of driving a great car on a great road“
Welcome to the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales. Established in 1957, and covering 520 square miles, it is one of 3 national parks in Wales. The Brecon Beacons are famous for two reasons. One of which is a road called the Black Mountain Pass Road. This road was made famous by Jeremy Clarkson as a number of Top Gear episodes were filmed on this exact road. Jeremy says “You can’t beat the absolute joy of driving a great car on a great road”. The Welsh government has since installed average speed cameras along this stretch. So if you are recreating a scene from Top Gear, be sure to pull over part way and wait out the camera to get your average speed down.And while I’m sure Jeremy is right about driving a million dollar sports car up this road, our Nissan rental car may not be up to the task of speeding around the corners up the mountain.If the speed cameras aren’t incentive to slow down, perhaps a herd of wild horses will convince you to stop and soak in the scenery. The Welsh weather may convince you otherwise.The Brecons are also popular with people going for hikes. The tallest “peak” here is a solid 889m above sea level, which is still less than the elevation of my house in Canada. Having reached the high point, you know what that means! Traditional Summit Selfie. We had also read that the Brecon Beacons are used by the UK military as training grounds due to the unpredictable weather. File that under foreshadowing.I was not expecting to see snow in Wales. Conditions did indeed deteriorate. Fortunately, I’ve been training for this situation my entire life so we made it on to the next location with no issues at all!
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