After a chill Monday full of packing bags and sorting out the apartment for a week away and farewell drinks for Geoff at a cute rooftop bar in Wimbledon, we got up nice and early to finish the last few minutes of the Masterchef finale before we left. After setting up plant watering situations and tidying up, we jumped on the DLR at 9:20 to head to Enterprise Car Hire in Bow. We had no dramas hiring the car, which was great, particularly as it was my first time hiring a car! I’m the boss for the car trip because Peter’s never driven on the left side of the road and doesn’t have a manual license, so this’ll be a new experience. Then it was straight onto the road at about 10:15 - the car hire location made it super easy to just jump on the freeway to make our way out to the M25 and do the ring road around London without dealing with any city traffic. The car is a gutsy little manual Ford Fiesta which drives really nicely and has sat nav and USB chargers and everything - much better than I was expecting! At around 12:30 we stopped for a coffee and toilet break at Membury Services, in the North Wessex Downs Area, but then it was straight back in the car and on the road. 

After a wiggly last few kilometres, we made it to Tintern at around 1 and stopped at the Anchor Inn right next to Tintern Abbey for lunch. What a view! We shared a delicious fish and chips and Peter had a stout, which I’m pretty sure is the same one that dad had when we were there. After a little wander around the area (the abbey was closed, just like last time!) we headed up the road to a little brewery on the north side of Tintern. They didn’t have tastings going on for obvious reasons, but we had a chat to the brewer and grabbed a couple of beers for the evening to make do. Then we made the mistake of letting the sat nav direct us the ‘scenic’ route through the hills rather than the marginally longer route down to the main road. Cue an increasingly tiny and windy road becoming tinier and tinier and more grown over with trees until we were driving down a single lane ‘road’, almost scraping the sides of the car with the mossy walls on either side, bordering a dark (although quite beautiful, to be fair) forest on both sides of the car. It was quite terrifying in a hire car and we were both definitely holding our breath for most of the time. We wiggled our way through what definitely seemed like people’s driveways until finally popping out (and breathing again!) on a main road. From there it was relatively easy to find our way to Devauden and follow a combination of the Sat Nav and the airbnb owner’s directions to the little field where we parked our car. From there we walked down the hill to our gorgeous little shepherd’s hut for the night!

After dropping our gear in the hut and doing a little audit of what we had and needed, we headed back to the car and went for another drive up to Monmouth. What a cute little town! After a wander over the bridge and up to the ruins of the castle, we stopped in at Waitrose for some dinner supplies and then drove back to the hut. 

We’re planning lots of reading and maybe some board games for the evening and probably an early night, because we’ve got a busy day heading to Brecon Beacons amongst lots of activities tomorrow!