Moving on to Somewhere New...South Wales

We had had a very pleasant time staying Diane but it was now time for us to move on to our next destination. Originally we had planned to head down to the south coast but that got changed when other arrangements fell through. We decided to go to Wales...albeit only for four nights...to make up for dropping it out of our 2011 trip. So after saying farewell to Diane, we headed west from Oxford along the A40.

The first major own the A40 brought us to was Cheltenham. As we had left quite late it was lunchtime so we stopped here for something to eat and to have a look around. Cheltenham is a spa town like Bath but there the similarity ends. While Cheltenham still has some of its period buildings, it also has more modern buildings that detract from its heritage feel...although interesting enough to visit, it doesn't come anywhere near Bath in terms of being a tourist destination.

Some of the nicer scenes of Cheltenham

While we were in Cheltenham, I decided to cash some Travellers Cheques. These were some I had left over from 2011. They hadn't been great to use back then and now were even worse. I don't think the girl behind the counter had even seen Travellers Cheques before so it took forever as she had to keep asking what to do next...definitely no longer the way to take money overseas.

After Cheltenham, we got back on the road and, bypassing Gloucester, we found our way to Ross-on-Wye. This was an interesting old market town where we stopped for an ice cream and a brief walk around. As time was now slipping away, it was back on the A40, over the border into Wales and on to Brecon and our "farm stay" B&B a few miles beyond. 

Wandering around Ross-on-Wye

Blaencar...our farm stay B&B