My experience at Strata Florida green laning (contest entry too)

Back in summer me and my dad with the local Land Rover club went to Strata Florida.
We left very early in the morning to meet up with everyone at the usual meeting spot, Llandovery, West End Cafe.
About half of a dozen of use went to this day out. The people that came this time are the usual fun people who turn up with their modified freelander 1's or their stock defenders.

(^^This is my photo for the contest^^)

The day was full of events such as getting water into the footwell, meeting the fascinating guy and much more!
So we start fashionable 'on time' when we all got together at the meeting point, then we made our way to Llyn Brianne, after driving past the lovely views of Llyn Brianne, the convoy starts to hit some un-paved roads, this is where the cars come into their own element compared to the passing cars.

We immediately have to stop because it is a single lane and there was a group off off-roaders in their Suzuki Samurai's, as they where all lifted they all just drove on the side of the hill. After that small incident we pushed on but with a random person by them self following on, this un-common because it is unsafe, but ignoring that like I said we pushed on and met our first small challenge, a ford! Before we went into the ford we waited on the hill for everyone to catch up and have a small talkative break, shortly after the small break we hit our first water obstacle, it barley gets half way up the wheel.

After the small ford we start to incline into the hills, the road becomes more treacherous with large random drops full of water, then the road had water coming down it, the next part consisted of large streams of death water, we all stop and assessed the situation and like anyone else thought the best way to get through all the water was to go flat out, we all managed to get through with water reaching over the bonnet and into the footwell. We had lunch on the side of the road where some treas fell over so we had a place to sit. We watched the passing cars and dirt-bikes passing by with some interesting cars and a group lovely series 2's.

After our nice lunch we powered on and the hill still increased but less so with water everywhere, finally we start to decline with small random drops, scarily we had a issue where the gear box would kick out the low range so we sometime randomly started to largely increase in speed and we couldn't slam on the breaks or we would loose traction. This is constant until we level out a bit and then proceed our adventure on the rocky road. Until we got to to the stopping point Strata Florida Abbey.

At the end of the trip we found a large ambulance like land rover defender by it self, it allows the convoy to past then starts to follow us, we get to a Y junction and we turn left, but the lonely defender stopped and didn't take any of the turnings, we proceeded but then found out we went the wrong way so we had to return, this time we had the mysterious Land Rover leading us. This hill we have been continuing to decent since the stop at the Strata Florida Abbey starts and continues to become steeper and deadly, this time I was holding in the arrogant low/high range gear leaver in low range because I didn't want it to slip out at anytime. We successfully made it down the hill to a small church with a large car park with one car and family going to it.

We all got down the hill alive and the mysterious Land Rover owner stop and gets out. The whole club comes over and starts talking about how impressive his Land Rover is, it wasn't a ambulance convention but was a custom made caravan kit full of all the necessary essentials to travel the world in. Without surprise the man who was middle aged did! He was talking about his next journey, he was telling us that he was going to India, in his Land Rover with a TV built in to the side of the Landy so he could teach kids who don't have the privilege to go to school. After the very fascinating stories from the man he drove away into the sunset to not be see again. And that was my day out at Strata Florida with the club.

(