August | 2017 | Steve Blackstock

We made it to a MotoGP after many years of watching on TV. It was the British GP and a great event to be able to attend.

It was an early start to get to Silverstone, up at 7, breakfast then about 16 mile drive. We were at the track by 8:30 enjoying a reasonable coffee. The first race was at 12:40 so plenty of time to find our seats in the Village grandstand. Around 10:00 they started the warmup laps. I managed to get some photos of the bikes while they ran their circuits.

When the racing started the stands had filled up and it wasn’t possible to take photos so I just enjoyed the racing.

The racing was exciting as they have been recently. Leaving the track was a lot longer then arriving. We made it to the car and sat in it for 40 minutes before we could move an inch. Finally we were able to move and took us 20 minutes to drive about a mile back to a main road. Even the main road was busy but we made it to the M1 but it to was busy so we took a side road to find a pub for dinner but as is mostly the case dinner is not served Sundays as the generally serve roast lunch. It was back to the hotel and dinner there.

Follow the link for more photos MotoGP

Well we made it to the UK after a great time on tour. Now we have a chance to set our own pace and what better place to do that than Wales. We had a week in Pantglas Hall near Llanfynydd, Carmarthen SA32 7BY, UK. I’m not going to pronounce the place or any other around it just to say it’s Welsh and they are proud of it. It was a little drizzly to start the week but it got better day by day. Our accommodation was a log cabin that could sleep 8 so we invited our friends from Wiltshire to join us. Colin and Caroline made the start of the week fun but Colin had to be back at work on Thursday. We managed to see some castles and museums with and made it to Aberystwyth.Thursday and Friday we ventured out on our own armed with the in car satellite global positioning device, I think this lady has a fetish with goat tracks. We had set her a few destinations but every time she would take us off an A road and find a Welsh Motorway which consisted of a single lane road with 10 foot high hedgerows either side and a strip of grass growing up the middle. It get quite exciting when you round a bend and face with a Land Rover approaching from the other way at what seems like he’s doing Mach 2 or a tractor doing Mach 1. You soon learn how to reverse to the nearest gateway.Friday we became mountain goats to see the ruins of Carreg Cennen Castle it was a great view of the Welsh countryside and a little agricultural as you avoided stepping in the freshly fertilised grass from the local bovine population. We have had a bit of a problem finding good coffee and when we stopped in Llandeio we spied an Ice cream shop that had patrons sitting at tables consuming hot beverages. On enquiring I was assured that they served espresso, we ordered 2 lattes, when they came they were in commemorative cups of Royal events.The contents of the cup appeared to have a white froth on top of a brown liquid nothing else resembled coffee.We left and walked on a little further and found a cafe that did a a reasonably good coffee along with a decent share plate. Suitable refreshed we set the GPS for a Red Kite Feeding Centre and again we found the goat track very demanding. I love driving down little roads to see where they go but this little GPS lady is starting to wear me down. I think she looks at the unlimited speed limit on these roads and works out that is the fastest route, little does she know that you can only travel down them at only 20 MPH with an concern for your safety.We made it to he feeding centre which is a hide setup overlooking a mown grass field.Each day they spread some food on the ground and you wait to see what flys in. First came magpies and ravens then eventually Red Kites started circling around but not coming in. There were quite a few people in the hide and a few didn’t understand the importance of remaining quiet,also part of the hide didn’t have a roof which allowed photographers to get some aerial photographs. After about an hour most of the casual observers had left the kite started to came diving down grab some food and fly off the a tree to eat. The kites are totally wild. The display was spectacular.Check out some of the photos I managed to get Wales Photos Tonight we are in Rugby as tomorrow we have tickets for the British MotoGP