Owen has had a busy end to his summer holidays – a visit to the Malverns Classic MTB festival, a trip to Skegness with his mum and grandparents, and then a trip to Wales with me. The main reason for the trip was that our friends Nicki and Mat were over from Australia to compete in the Dragon’s Back race from Conwy Castle to Cardiff Castle, running the whole length of Wales, via many mountains! They were visiting us in Coventry, so rather than letting them get the train to Conwy, I drove them up in the van and Owen came along for the ride! We dropped Nicki and Mat off in Conwy – it looked like a lovely little town, and I would have liked to stay there for dinner, but had already promised Owen a “traditional British seaside” experience, so we set off across the estuary to Llandudno. Conwy has jumped to the top of my places for a weekend away with Jen though, as I know she would love the castle and town walls in the historic town. I’d also like to drive the MR2 around the Great Orme.

Our first stop in Llandudno was fish and chips. Owen wanted to go to a sit down restaurant, so we did that, even though the takeaways looked better. Owen did get an ice cream to eat at the beach. After the beach we went to the arcades – Owen’s favourite part of a seaside visit. He was especially excited to find the Luigi’s Mansion arcade game – he loves all things Super Mario. After the arcade we got some doughnuts to eat as we walked along the pier, where we got a nice view of the sunset.

We stayed overnight at the Premier Inn, and set off early for Coed-y-Brenin, after a McDonald’s breakfast. The weather forecast had been for rain over North Wales, but despite some overnight rain, the sun was out and there was barely a cloud in the sky. It was a great drive over, although would have been better in my MR2. The last time I rode at Coed-y-Brenin was eventful to say the least – whilst warming up on the blue graded Minotaur trails, my friend Partho overcooked a small jump and broke his jaw, requiring an ambulance, a North Wales hospital tour and his jaw being wired shut for six weeks. Since Owen learned to ride a bike there has been banter about who would complete the Minotaur trail first. Partho and I had been planning a return trip in April 2020, but we all know how that panned out. So it was Owen that had the first shot.

Owen smashed it! Including a stop for photos on “Partho’s jump”. Owen rode all of the descents really well, although he still needs to work on climbing, as he would rather get off and push the bike than change down a gear to make it easier to pedal. Since my last visit a fourth loop has been added to the trail, mostly on fireroads, with a waterfall viewpoint, so we thought it would be worth investigating. Other than a few climbs on the fireroad it was easy riding, and it was good to see the waterfalls. Towards the end of the extra loop there was a fun bonus singletrack section. The climb back up the hill to the visitor centre was a bit of a slog, especially for Owen, but we got there in the end and treated ourselves to hotdogs on the visitor centre balcony. The ride was exactly fifteen kilometres, one of Owen’s longer rides, so it was no wonder that he was absolutely shattered afterwards.

Owen is interested in Spitfires, and enjoyed a visit to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford last year, so on the way home from Coed-y-Brenin we stopped at the RAF Museum at RAF Cosford, near Wolverhampton. It was only a brief visit, as we arrived just over an hour before it closed. The first exhibition we visited was the Cold War hangar – I liked how some of the aircraft were suspended at various inclines, especially the English Electric Lightning pointing vertically upwards, as if performing its vertical climb party piece. However, the Avro Vulcan was my favourite plane on display – I remember seeing them flying when still in service with the RAF, so it was great to be able to get up close to one. We had a quick tour of Hangar 1, which had a varied selection of planes, including James May’s life size Spitfire Airfix model – I think Owen would enjoy watching that programme. What Owen wanted to see though were real Spitfires, so we cut though the Test Flight hangar, and went to the War in the Air exhibition, which had two Spitfires, a Hurricane and a Messerschmitt BF109. This was Owen’s favourite part of the museum. Even with traffic on the M6, it only took us an hour to get home from the museum, so I am sure that we will visit again, and make a full day of it, so that we can see all the exhibits properly.