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I must have been drunk.

Why else would I agree to sleep in a tent in the Welsh mountains, on flood alert, in February? But apparently I had, a ticket had been bought for me, and I was going whether I liked it or not.

After secretly hoping that the ‘mysterious location’ the Dragon Rally was held at would really be a five star hotel somewhere hot and foreign, it soon became abundantly clear that it was not. North Wales had been on flood alert for the last week and sure it was going to be cold and windy, but being a mixture of hardy Welsh and Scottish stock, convinced myself I could handle the elements and promptly put on most of the clothes I owned. As we set off headed West, I waved goodbye to the clear skies of the Midlands and gritted my teeth for what lay beyond.

After renouncing my status of ‘girl on the back’ eighteen months ago and officially becoming a biker bird with the acquisition of a Honda CM125, I retreated to the depths of pilliandom and the back seat of Phill, my boyfriends KZ900 for the journey. Accompanied by some BMW-loving friends we set off on the Z, an R90 and an R65 somewhat later in the day than anticipated and were set to arrive at the caravan of fortune (which was to give us the exact location of the rally) by late afternoon. Wales, being Wales, it began to rain as soon as we hit the border and by the time we had reached Betwys-y-Coed and the mystical caravan, the sky was black, I had no feeling in my extremities and I began to wish I’d stayed at home.

The sign on the caravan announced that due to extreme flooding of the site (!), ‘goodie bags’ could be collected from the caravan. After being given a Dragon Rally sticker and a small luminous orange sticker to put on the headlamp (the secret code sticker), we travelled the final five miles to our final destination. ‘At last’ I thought, ‘a bit of dry land, stretch my legs, walk round the site, meet some other bikers, pop back to Betwys for some beers, tea on the camping stove and a cosy night in the tent.’ Wrong. We arrived at the site to be greeted by a bog, some very muddy bikers and yes, once again it had started to rain. After being abandoned at the entrance, I watched Phill and friends make the treacherous trip across the mud and bog, wheels sliding, mud spraying, finally coming to rest at a spot which should, in theory have been next to a quiet babbling brook, but was in reality next to a torrential white-water rapid.





The wind was like nothing I had ever felt before and our attempt at tent erecting took several people, one of which had to lie on the ground sheets, while they were being pegged, to prevent it from taking off.

With no chance of uprooting the bikes from the mud, there was no going back to the village so we flocked like moths to the bright lights of the burger van and the small beer tent and there we were stuck with Strongbow at £2 a tin and hailstones the size of golf balls preventing our escape.





After a while, we decided to brave the great outdoors once more and set off for the giant fire that had been built in order to keep the campers happy. Said fire, fuelled by the incredible wind was now blowing meters high, showering a bright rain of sparks over the couple of hundred tents present. The only thing that perhaps prevented a full scale disaster was the fact that the tents were already soaking wet from the lashing they’d received throughout the day.





Wet, cold and a bit fed up we decided to head back to the tent for tea, only to discover that it would take a bottle of meths and half a gallon of petrol from the Z to get the camp stove going. Disenchanted we said goodnight and headed to the warmth of our tents. Despite sleeping on a sleeping bag, in a sleeping bag, with a wool blanket and all our leathers on top of us, it was still cold; and we managed to be woken repeatedly throughout the night by the sound of the wind gathering at the top of the mountain, then hurtling its way down the valley, only to flatten our dome tent on top of us, resulting in temporary suffocation before moving on its way. Convinced that our tent was going to be carried off somewhere into the Irish sea by the raging torrent that was the river next to us, I didn’t get a lot of sleep that night!

In the morning as we emerged from our cocoons, tired and cold, we found that most of the other bikers had legged it at first light and so none of the usual inspecting of other bikes ensued.





We did manage to find a pair of very interesting outfits that had made it from Switzerland, though. It was while talking to the owners of said sidecars that we discovered that not only did most of the bikers turn up the previous morning (not at dusk like we did) but the ‘goodie bags’ were actually more than an orange sticker and were supposed to involve whisky and chocolate!!

Thoroughly deflated by the events of the last eighteen hours, we embarked on a more scenic route home than the A5 we took to arrive (following a suggestion from Richard) and so plotted a route through mid Wales, down to Hereford.





As beautiful as the Welsh countryside is, we were in no fit state to enjoy it and so unfortunately my best memory of the ride home was stopping for a gorgeous fish dinner at a friendly pub in mid-Wales. About nine hours later we arrived home absolutely knackered with frozen feet and hands and chapped faces from the wind.

‘Next’ time, Phill has promised to make me a heated suit and to arrive early enough to get a whisky and chocolate goodie bag. ‘Next’ time, I think I’ll stay at home.

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