UK 2014, Chester to Pontyberem, Wales

Well, I thought I had the whole jet lag thing figured out. Slept 12 hours! Quick breakfast and on the road. I started off on the M56 (6 lane motorway, full of trucks, everything going very fast) and as soon as I could moved onto a dual carriageway (4 lanes with a grass median) and then onto 2 lane main roads and, through central and southern Wales, narrow little roads with no shoulder, high hedges and just room for a truck (sorry lorry) to come past in the other direction.

Grey day, rolling hills of central Wales

Sheep

I don't know what it is about sheep but I associate them with Wales (and I'm sure Scotland when I get there). We certainly have sheep in Ontario but here the hills are covered with them. Most had blue or red dye on their backs. I asked Chris about this and she said it was to identify ownership when they are loose on the moors and also when they are taken to market. Makes them look a lot less romantic, pastoral, almost like they have a bar code on.

The tops of the hills are not fenced but open moorland for the sheep to graze but where it
is too steep its covered with bracken. 

During the summer its big green ferns but now turning a lovely rusty brown.

My first telephone box, next to a post box, out in the middle of nowhere.

It took me 6 hours to do a 4 hour drive. There were a few reasons for that: I refused to do 60mph on the twisty turny narrow roads of central and southern Wales so would periodically pull over to let the impatient drivers behind me get by. I was finding my way by a combination of Chris' google directions and my road atlas so had to check every now and then to see what the next turn was that I had to look for. I had to pull over every now and then to take pictures and of course there were a few missed turns and doubling back. Most of the trip was spent with a mental litany of "stay left, stay left" and "turn left A438, quick right onto B3107" (or some such). Got to love google directions blithely stating things like "go through 3 roundabouts". Every roundabout was fraught with potential problems!
Got here, safe and sound and so nice to see Chris and Chris.