A quiet Sunday drive

[Paul_G]

Well after spending far too long cleaning and polishing yesterday I thought the car deserved a good run today. Decided to head over to the Brecon Beacons to try and find some fun deserted roads - as luck would have it the weather was pretty reasonable and the roads nice and empty. Totted up about 170 miles - round trip from Bristol - in just over 4 hours. Was great fun and good to find some challenging roads, albeit with just a few too many blind corners on crests, and long steep drops off the side!

Needless to say took the camera to get a few snaps of the scenery and motor - here are a selection, more on my Flickr page.

What d'ya reckon.

Cheers

Paul

 

[extremeinferno]

great pics, like the 2nd one best. wot camera you using?

 

[gaz_5103]

nice pics.

 

[Paul_G]

Cheers

Canon EOS 40D...photos taken with the following lenses

1, 2 & 3 - Sigma 30mm f1.4
4 & 6 - Sigma 10-20mm
5 - Sigma 17-70mm

 

[Ian]

Absolutely stunning photos Paul, the scenery looks so perfect. Wish I'd seen these earlier, would've inspired me to go for a drive.

 

[Fletcher]

Nice pics, the cars not to shabby either.

 

[Beef-Mc]

Good pics.

Doubt it was all that quiet though! lol

 

[Paul_G]

Cheers Ian / Fletcher,

It's pretty bad really, the Brecon Beacons are only about 60miles away yet I can probably count on two hands the number of times I have been during my 3 and a bit years in Bristol!

Must go more often - plenty of fantastic scenery - plus the roads aren't bad either/

 

[Paul_G]

Ok ok, I wasn't the only car on the road but it was pretty quiet and on my first run along the A4059 I only overtook a couple of cars, the rest was clear.

 

[Cheeky_Chappie]

Absolutly gorgous car and scenery and pics mate.. you've got the car that I'm after and in the colour that im after too... soo jealous.... hopefully i'll get mine later in the year.

Did you have a 172/182 before this? how do you find the change? is the Z4 better?

Whats your flickr page? Starting in photogrpahy soon, picked up my 450D before crimbo but yet to use it properly so would be interesting to see what pics you took.

Cheers mate.

 

[Cheeky_Chappie]

Oh.. what wheels are those? neever seen those before but they are well nice.. might have to get some on mine.

 

[Paul_G]

Cheers.

Bought a 182 back in 2004 (to date the only brand new car I've had) for a couple of years, which was great fun, and ultimately how I ended up here! I still miss it every now and again.

After the 182 I had a 330i Sport Touring (E46) for 18 months...wanted something practical with 6 cylinders! That was pretty fast (231bhp) and good fun, although maybe a little too practical. Since then the other half picked up a Ford Focus, which gave me the opportunity to get rid of my practical estate! So picked up the Z4 back in February last year.

As for the Z4 I really do love it looks fantastic (IMHO), the engine is a peach (265bhp), very torquey but it likes to rev too, and it sounds fantastic to boot. The power gives you over-taking opportunities that were never there before - through the gears midrange it's quick. Balance this power against the economy and it's pretty impressive, I can regularly get 27-30mpg on long drives, and over the summer when we took it to the French alps and Germany it averaged 29.1mpg.

Overall it's a great drive, although quite different to the Clio since you sit much lower and almost over the rear axle so it doesn't feel anywhere near as chuckable - in one respect it does feel as though you're part of it rather than just sitting in it.

Generally it does more things better than the Clio, although they are quite different cars, with quite different price tags - although notably the Clio punches well above its weight....and as I said above, I still do miss it from time to time!

My Flickr account, along with everyone elses is in this thread... http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?t=366064

 

[Dafthead]

Cracking pics Paul!

 

[Cheeky_Chappie]

Cracking pics on your Flickr mate... Youve inspired me to move my a$$ and get out and start practicing on my SLR. and also save my money for the Z4 cos i want it NOW!!!! LOL

 

[mace¬]

Can we get a route of the map?? Doesn't look like the usual brecon roads!!

Excellent photos by the way.

 

[Addz]

very nice pics and love the Z4 coup's

 

[Paul_G]

Here's a map of the route I took. Most of the photos were taken on the A4059.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&s...470135&sspn=0.049415,0.154495&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=9

Can't get the google embed thing to work.....