Last weekend, my friend Oliver and I headed off from Cambridge for a weekend in Anglesey (which is where I'm originally from) with my 1980 345DL. I thought I would upload a little story and some pictures of our journey.

We left my house in Cambridge about an hour later than planned (at about 9:40pm!), as once the car was loaded, we discovered that the battery was flat! Once we jump-started and warmed it up, the car was happy and it was time to go. Unfortunately, the first couple of hours of our journey didn't go very well. The car was very grumbly, and wasn't running quite right. The engine would shake when we slowed down, and it even cut out when we came to a dead stop at the Catthorpe interchange. We stopped for a breather at the services on the M6 toll, and the car was behaving so badly that neither of us thought it would actually make it all the way. However, after a little break (and we scoffed some muffins!) the car miraculously began to behave itself. It ran sweetly the whole rest of the way to Wrexham where we crashed at a Travelodge to break up our journey (it was by now nearly 2am).

The next day, we got caught up in some traffic going into the roadworks at St Asaph on the A55, and the car started to misbehave a litlle once more, although I had by now mastered keeping the revvs up when slowing down which kept the engine a little happier. We looked around a couple of breakers yards in Llandudno Junction before making the final push to Anglesey.

Saturday and Sunday were spent driving around the island, visiting relatives and friends, and stopping off at various places that I hold rather dear to have photographs taken.

So, here are some photos of the Menai Bridge: We stopped off at my local Volvo garage: Here are a couple of abandoned Volvos we spotted in Llannerchymedd: I will add more in another post as I have reached the maximum photos!

Our next stop was at Cemlyn bay: And I took several photos against the moody backdrop of Mynydd Bodafon: We parted with Anglesey on Sunday evening, and headed back home. The car was running beautifully, until a loud bang near junction 3 of the M6 signalled a blown rear tyre! I had always suspected that we had some of the original tyres still on the car, and the AA man who came to rescue us on the hard shoulder signalled that it was age which caused the burst. Oh well! We eventually arrived home, exhausted at about 2am, but having had a thoroughly brilliant time.

We were really impressed with what the car managed to do - the only problems were with consumable items (and I have since had four new tyres put on!), and a slighkt grumbly car for the first two hours. The car was fab to drive around the tiny country lanes of Anglesey, and we had a real blast, and lots of turned heads.

So there we are, our epic journey covering well over 600 miles in just over 2 days in a car older than both of us!

Looks like a really cool trip.

Great pics, I love Anglesey... I once stayed in Llanerchymedd in the converted windmill... did you see it? Great car too, makes me want to take my GLS for a run up there! Rhaullt hill is always an interesting one... in the S70 it's easy to blast past everyone in third gear The 343 I took on the same journey was a different matter, but I must say I was far more impressed with how that little 1.4 coped up it compared to my old 360 GLT's - that extra capacity of 0.6 litres should make more of a difference than it does in reality.

Please tell me that you've photoshopped that Volvo garage name

Thanks for sharing the pics, looks like a great minibreak and a tidy car.

magnumpi wrote:Please tell me that you've photoshopped that Volvo garage name

Non. See Video of frontage

Thanks for your comments guys.

Yes I know the windmill you mean in Llanerchymedd - is it a holiday cottage then?

Rhuallt hill was fine for me when we left, probably as I only have four gears so fourth is rather punchy. I think I did have to slow down to 50 going up though, as there was a motor home in front of me going like a snail.

And as you have seen, the Volvo garage is not photoshopped. That's where I got my S40 from, and the name is on the sticker in the rear window. My 440 previous to that was also from there.

On an unrelated note, I saw a beige 3-door, Y-registration 340 on Milton Road in Cambridge this morning. I was driving the S40 so didn't wave, but does anyone know who it is? It had a black bonnet for some reason, and a fairly young guy was driving it (20-30ish). I was very excited.

S10NPH wrote:Yes I know the windmill you mean in Llanerchymedd - is it a holiday cottage then?

It used to be atleast, not sure whether it is now - it was probably about 15yrs ago!!