Pretty damn fine weekend spent in Oswestry and mid-Wales. Rocked up to the Royal Hill campsite on Friday, found a perfect little spot and wound down with a chilled Shropshire Gold.

Up at the crack of sparrows Saturday morning gave us ample time to take a cruisey ride in a six bike convoy over to Rhayader where we all had a play off-road. This place is one of Wales’ adventure playgrounds for motorcyclists ;o) With a mixed range of off-roading abilities in our group, we refuelled over lunch and made a well-timed decision to scoot across to the Elan Valley Reservoir where we could all get stuck in on the spectacular trails around this breathtaking setting. Man alive, we all pushed ourselves; tried our luck on more than one occasion and whizzed around on the loose stoney tracks, sloshed over a flowing river and got the revs up to an adrenaline high! Looking down on the views of the dam while stood up on the foot pegs under a warm blue sky definitely gave us something to write home about.

I was chuffed that I held my own ‘keeping up with the boys’ and didn’t drop my bike once…get in!

This morning, we squeezed the last of our energy levels out over the mountain pass leading to Lake Vyrnwy after saying our farewells to the cheeky chaps Ian and Glen homeward bound for Portsmouth.

Got back this evening totally and utterly spent. This fraggle is frazzled but we had so much fun, can’t wait to do it all again. Roll on the west coast of Scotland…!