Lost in Wales

Sites, scenes, and surf of the UK and London.

2,000 miles of driving throughout the UK had us on some unique roads. An example of the road we describe in the story is seen in the beginning of this video.

Here are a few fun memories of a recent trip to the UK and a couple of surf sessions we just happened to stumble into:

We were meeting up with our friend Davey Grace in Wales that went quite a bit longer than planned. After leaving the restaurant we decided to take a drive around and see a bit of Wales since we had crossed the border late the night before and hadn’t seen hardly anything there yet. We cruised around a while and checked things out, but then… 

Driving around exploring a new foreign place can be a lot of fun but also have the downside of getting lost, which we ended up doing. We continued driving trying to figure where we were, but then ended up in a big traffic jam. We worked our way out of the traffic but now had no idea where we were. We tried heading away from the city and after some random turns we ended up in a farming area where we ended up turning onto a small dirt road that became pretty isolated. We were starting to get further out into Nowheresville so we took a turn off into a campground we spotted. 

We asked some people milling about the campground thinking maybe they could give us some directions. Instead we just got a bunch of blank stares and kept hearing: “Nicht sprechen sie Englisch.” It was a bunch of German campers, we could only laugh: “Here we are in an English-speaking country for once and when we are lost…we can’t even find anyone who speaks a word of English to help us," I told Mercedes.

We started driving again; we saw some cars racing down a road a bit up the horizon and figured, let’s follow them and see where it takes us. 

We followed the cars the best we could on those crazy, little, narrow, hedgerow-lined, medieval cart paths, that pass for roads.  They feel so precarious because you can't see a thing coming . It’s especially difficult when you’re driving on the left side. “These guys think they are race-car drivers going so fast like this on these little paths,"I said. These things would be considered a narrow bike lane elsewhere. "I think they’ve watched too many European race car shows."

The stress of feeling like I was about to go head-on around the next blind corner of one of these narrow hedgerows was building up: "Half the time I keep forgetting what side of the road I’m supposed to be driving on; well, actually there are no sides of the road,” I commented.  I finally took a turn into what looked like a park, hoping to just get out of the car and take a breather after being lost in traffic earlier and now lost in a giant maze which felt like it was made for a giant rat in search of cheese. 

We pulled into the car park and it turned out to be a beachside parking lot (most of Wales in this area is situated along the coast) in what seemed like quite the popular destination. There were people walking around and I noticed quite a few surfboards on top of the cars, so we got out to have a look at what might be happening in the water. 

“Hey, this is a point break and it is actually breaking,” I told Mercedes. “But this part of Wales is in a huge bay near the border with England, so swells have a hard time getting into the coast here at all. Wow, this is amazing!” It was quite the find to just stumble upon a swell working its way into this area that doesn’t break all that often, especially after being so lost. We probably would have never found it if we had been actually trying as the roads are pretty unnavigable in this area. 

The amount of cars in the parking lot with boards testified to the fact that the rare surf for this area had come up and many were out to grab it while it was here. I hadn’t even given a thought to surfing in this part of Wales because of the difficulty that swells have of making it all the way up the coastline into the big bay we were in. 

Somehow we had stumbled into being at the right place at the right time. After catching my breath from the stress of driving in such extreme conditions, I thought: Hey, we're here and I've got the equipment needed, so why not? I got ready to head out as the rain started to come down a bit. “If it is raining again we must be in the UK,” I quipped. “But what does that matter? You’re wet anyways when you surf. Why do surfers always want that sunny weather anyways? You’re still wet in the end.” 

Well, that infamous weather, along with the lack of a large swell window, keeps this part of the world from being on most traveling surfers’ radar as a destination—most surf trips here would probably have you spending a lot of time sitting around drinking "cream teas" and watching the “telly” waiting for something to finally happen. 

I got the wetsuit on and paddled out. After getting a good wave straight off, I couldn’t help but give thanks to the One who created it all and caused us to stumble into something so rare like this. 

It was amazing to be surfing good waves in this part of Wales of all places, and just the therapy needed after being lost and getting stiff in my shoulders and back from driving way too much the past few days. 

It turned into a super fun surf session there on the Welsh coastline. The waves were 4 to 5 feet plus, with plenty of room to maneuver. Such a blessing to just come upon it so spontaneously after being lost. A cool end to an even cooler day, all such amazing grace! 

Well the beat went on: A similar thing happened again a little later in the trip when we were on the East Coast of England, an area that faces continental Europe and is basically a big channel and rarely gets much swell either. A Polish friend invited us out to go fishing in the North Sea one day. When we got down to the coast, however, a powerful storm had closed all the ports and fishing was definitely out. “You have a board, why you don’t go surfing?” the big polish guy said with an even bigger slap on my back. “Ok, you convinced me,” I replied. Any pounding I took in the water would be less than the one I was getting from his big palm on my back. 

I found a spot going off with 4-to 6-foot waves and offshore winds, with only four other guys out—had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, as conditions like that quickly draw surfers by the thousands out into the water in California. I came in a few times between some great waves there to make sure everyone was not getting bored while hanging around on the beach.  I got some more slaps on the back from our Polish friend who said, “Get back out there and get those waves while they are actually there to be got, these places don’t have waves like this too often at all.” With a few more slaps on the back I was back out in the waves, hardly believing I was getting this type of surf in the North Sea channel and with only 4 other guys out! 

This, after all, was on the East Coast of England, which needs a strong localized storm to bring in any waves, exactly what we got just at the right time. More therapy! Just the kind I like! Too many planes, trains, and automobiles and a busy schedule makes the ‘ole body sore and a bit too stiff; unexpected great waves along the UK coast with some sunny weather thrown in quite a few times was more than what we actually expected or might have even prayed for—wow what do you say but "Thanks God!!" 

Scenes, sounds, surf and music of Scotland.