Ants and I decided to start the new year as we intend to continue it, with a weekend exploring somewhere new. The Welsh border is just 2 hours from Oxford, so on Friday night we packed a hire car and trundled down the M4, past Bristol and over the massive Severn Bridge which, at 3 miles long (5.1km) puts Melbourne's humble Westgate to shame, and serves as a metaphorical, as well as literal, gateway to Wales.
I've learned a great deal about the English side of my heritage since I've been here, and been panned by some of my English chums for always siding with the Scots and the Irish. So please don't take this as yet another anti-English rant.
But there is no better word to describe southeastern Wales than 'denuded'. Mined heavily for coal and metals, barren misshapen hills rise above the motorway, bare of trees or even buildings, the soil exhausted, spent, infertile. Massive processing plants dot the coastline between (or even right beside) brightly lit towns: Cardiff, Swansea, Port Talbot.
We stayed in Cardiff (Caerdyff), which, since the re-convening of the Welsh Assembly, bills itself as "Europe's newest Capital". It certainly feels like a city in a hurry to go somewhere - extensive construction zones litter the inner city. There's a juxtaposition of old-beside-new that reminds me of a lot of Australian cities - although while we have grandstands to rival Millennium Stadium, which rises beside the river Taff, we've nothing to match their gorgeous castle.
I've learned a great deal about the English side of my heritage since I've been here, and been panned by some of my English chums for always siding with the Scots and the Irish. So please don't take this as yet another anti-English rant.
But there is no better word to describe southeastern Wales than 'denuded'. Mined heavily for coal and metals, barren misshapen hills rise above the motorway, bare of trees or even buildings, the soil exhausted, spent, infertile. Massive processing plants dot the coastline between (or even right beside) brightly lit towns: Cardiff, Swansea, Port Talbot.
We stayed in Cardiff (Caerdyff), which, since the re-convening of the Welsh Assembly, bills itself as "Europe's newest Capital". It certainly feels like a city in a hurry to go somewhere - extensive construction zones litter the inner city. There's a juxtaposition of old-beside-new that reminds me of a lot of Australian cities - although while we have grandstands to rival Millennium Stadium, which rises beside the river Taff, we've nothing to match their gorgeous castle.
Found some lovely foodie spots and some cosy Victorian-ish pubs that were just lovely, but our real adventures took place out of town....
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