Q: What’s better than meeting friends on a road trip?

A: Nothing :), well, unless it’s a care package from NZ including Tantrix and Chocolate ;) hehehehe

After Wales it was to the Pembrook coastline for us. We had a lovely day biking to Llanelli via Swansea (pronounced Clan-eth-li). Well, lovely, except for the puncture we got. It would have been fine, but the bicycle levers I had were old, and they broke off while trying to lever the tyre off the rim. Fortunately, a passer by took us to their place, gave us the tools to fix the bike and we were on our way again. Lesson learned – make sure you have extras (and new extras) of things like bike-levers that do tend to perish over time.Llanelli was a nice seaside town. The AirBnB was the best we’d been to anywhere, the view was stunning and the breakfast delicious.

The next day it was on to Laugharne, which is where the poet Dylan Thomas lived. He certainly had a nice view from which to compose his poetry, the boat house & writing shed were amazing.

We met up with our friends Rachel & Justin from Christchurch for a day. She was over visiting family and came and collected us from Laugharne and off we went to see around Tenby (where we bought a delicious pork pie) and then to the area of the coast around St. Govan’s Head. There’s a 13th Century chapel there built into the cliffside, and some quite nice beaches and wetlands. A nice place to explore for a day.

Also, Rachel had brought over a care-package from our friends Michelle & Steve in ChCh. She’d packed in lots of yum chocolate, and a replacement set of Tantrix to replace the one we’d brought travelling and then swapped for Quirkle. Maaike promptly beat me at it again. My winning streak is definitely over :(

Then for the last couple of days from Laugharne to Fishguard, my old college friend Declan and his partner Heather met up with us and we biked from just before Tenby over to Fishguard together, staying the night at Broad Haven (and a very beautiful sunset).

They certainly threw themselves in the deep-end, as it was probably the hardest bit of biking we’d done – certainly the hilliest. Still, with enough brakes and decent weather and the prospect of a pint and a decent meal at the end – well, the miles just flew by.

All too soon we arrived at Fishguard and time to get the boat to Ireland. Not far left to go now – just 110km up the coast to Dublin.