A Sunday Road Trip - Gavin & Stacey style!

On Sunday my Dad competed in the Monmouth Raft Race which surprisingly was in Monmouth! For those of you, like me, who have no idea on geography, this is on the Welsh border, just the other side of the Severn Bridge. 

As a bit of a Gavin & Stacey fan I've often thought about doing the same journey that Smithy & Gavin take to Barry so when Dad told us about it, I thought it'd be a great idea for myself, my sister & her fiancée to make the journey & surprise my Dad at the race. 
In theory this was great & as Designated Driver I was only too happy to put on my finest Essex accent (not difficult!) and step into Smithys shoes for the day. 

We set off from Essex at 7.30am, in my head this journey only took a couple of hours, I was so wrong. Four hours is a long time when you're sat in the car with miles of motorway ahead of you. Despite our best attempts at keeping our spirits up, it looks so much more fun on the programme than reality. 

I have to say stopping at Chieveley services was a bit of a highlight as I remember that featuring in the programme, Smithy:

"Chieveley’s the best; it’s insane"

Crossing the Severn bridge was also a bit special, although paying £6.20 for the privilege was not as great, notice to the Welsh Tourist Board - it's good but not that good!








After we'd spent 40 minutes driving through the Welsh valleys, definitely a trip none of us want to repeat any time soon, we arrived at the start of the race. There was around 70 rafts competing, with 5 from my dad's company DHL. 
Dad's raft 'Luscious Lucy' looked relatively sturdy compared to some of the other more delicate looking rafts competing. 

Dad was really surprised to see we'd all made the trip & appreciated us all cheering them on. For the finish we all waited at a farmers fields 6 miles away from the start. Around 1000 people turned out to cheer them all to the finish which made for a really great atmosphere. 
Dad's raft finished at a really impressive 14th with them coming first out of the DHL teams. Having done no training at all, they were very proud of themselves too. We were all so pleased we could be there to support him. 

Unfortunately we then had the 4 hour trip back home to make but thankfully I had EJ & Ash to keep me entertained with plenty of cheesy songs on the radio. 

What a day and definitely a road trip I'd think twice about in future. Although I wouldn't rule out the trip back to Wales, just maybe for the weekend next time. 
How on earth did Gavin & Smithy do that on a weekly basis?