companion or turn out to have personal hygiene issues and/or be an axe-murderer; and if they are deemed
by the instantaneous evaluation to be worth helping, is there somewhere to stop safely without a 38-tonne
truck intervening unhelpfully?
I ticked none of the right boxes for the drivers during a 20-minute wait at an increasingly annoying
roundabout. But then Mr Mercedes (he can be known only by that name for employment-contract reasons)
pulled up.
Mr M had been expecting me to be there, because a quarter-hour earlier he had driven past in the opposite
direction and evidently was unimpressed by my technique. As he raced through the Brecon Beacons
(caravanners are evidently not early starters), we talked of his cheeky and astonishingly successful self-
upgrade on a Virgin Atlantic flight – another good reason to remain anonymous.
At Brecon I had rather too long to muse that, by now, the passengers on the 7.21 were meandering through
Shropshire at about 60mph. I was doing precisely 0mph, until John and Sally stopped in their Jaguar (yes!).
They traded a lift through achingly beautiful landscapes for a rapid-fire series of answers to their travel
questions.
Ideal location for a family meet with four people from Sydney and four from London? Vancouver. Best
airline to Australia from Gatwick? Qatar Airways assuming an Airbus A350 is on offer, otherwise Emirates’
all-A380 schedule. Optimum stretch of the Camino de Santiago? The one-day hike across the Pyrenees
from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France to Roncesvalles in Spain.
From where Sally and John deposited me in Dolgellau, Graham and Chris picked up the hitcher, and the
theme. Chris doesn’t enjoy flying, and they have set a 2h30m maximum on flights. Faro in Portugal suits
them just fine. Anywhere else? Stretch it to three-and-a-bit hours, and Corfu and Malta come into play.
Chatting about Mediterranean islands while watching the sun and showers jostle amidst the mountains felt
surreal. We brushed against the sea, at around the same time as the rail passengers were sweeping at 90mph
around Colwyn Bay – the best coastal stretch of the Cardiff-to-Holyhead train.
Caravan club: the 1980 Viking Fibreline is a
classic (Simon Calder)After Porthmadog, where Kyle and Emily took over the northward task, I felt downright uncomfortable. But
that was understandable. They are visiting from the Australian state of Victoria, and had crammed a
month’s worth of excess baggage into the smallest rental car in Christendom. I was squeezed into the back
seat, which I shared with a case the size of a small caravan, and then they somehow compressed my luggage
to fit the remaining space between my lap and the roof.
Emily is a nurse. Kyle is a youth worker. They drive distances that would terrify you and I. This morning