Monday, 6 April 2015

Rhayder Hiking/Camping Weekend

We decided on a night out in the countryside of Wales, I have a good OS map of The Llandrindod Valley so this is where we started.


We trekked around 5 miles following the river Afon Arban which feeds from the valley into the river which flows from the dam at the reservoir into the Moel Prysgau Wood not far from Strata Florida Abbey, camped and then trekked back following the treeline and across the ridge up to Pen Maen-wern and down a small gulley back to the car finishing off with a cooling walk across the river.


You can see the Car and Camp. 002 is the end of the tree line and 003 is the highest point Pen Maen-wern.
The dam at Caban-coch Reservoir near the Elan Valley Visitor centre
Clive looking at the terrain ahead

The water was Crystal Clear

Once we had trekked across very wet marsh even though the sun was shining, we then found the trail we were heading towards had moved, thanks ordnance survey for keeping up to date. Beautiful view though. We then had a trek down into the woods

Stopping for lunch
At this stage we had freshwater from home, so was easy to find somewhere to get a fire on and cook some grub.

Where I slept for the night
Coffee always tastes better when you put the effort in to build a fire
Cooking porridge in the morning


We then faced a trek back around 5 miles back to the car, the scenic route. The terrain was unforgiving and my new boots ruined my feet. The grass was uber dry, which made for perfect tinder in the very wet woods.


We had filtered water from a stream nearby and boiled to purify, no way we were going to risk it.

View from Pen Maen-wern
We then headed straight ahead and down a very steep slope to hit a river and waterfall where we found much needed water.

The view of the dam from the bottom of the valley
Only half a mile from the car at this point!!
The gulley we walked back down, looking back from the road opposite
We walked a total of 9.99 miles. Weather was perfect the whole two days!

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Added a heated seat to the bike :-)

I have been thinking of doing this for a while, but wanted to find the neatest and cheapest way to do it, so the plan was...

Buy a simple car retrofit kit off ebay:


I took the seat off the bike, and pulled out all the staples to get the cover off and then stuck the heat pads to the foam. Took abit of time to line up all the cables through the foam to do a neat job.


I then wired it up with the relay that was included with the kit and installed my own waterproof connector under the seat, so the seat was still removable.


Then I installed the switch next to the foglights switch on the dash which looks nice and neat.


Overall took about 2 hours to fit. Took my time making sure the seat cover was stapled back in place tight and as neat as I could, this took most of the time. Used about 100 staples!! Can't even see there is a heating element underneath as well.

Took the bike for a spin for 40 miles or so in 3 degrees C weather and it was so hot on high that it was nearly burns!! Beautiful. The other half loved it too.