Entirely new to the Three Castles Rally, the test at Golden Grove was bedevilled by a slippery surface that upset several attempts to stop astride the finishing line.
With better weather forecast, it was another early start for the very full programme of day three with some familiar locations and one new to the rally. Eight regularities and ten tests were ahead of the competitors. Battle commenced with three tests in quick succession on the Great Orme. The pace was brisk and the tests complex with the road flanked on one side by steep cliffs and on the other stone walls. Competing on them is a tradition the Three Castles is happy to maintain despite it requiring the popular tourist destination be closed to other vehicles.
After dropping down the far side of the Orme, it was on towards Deganwy, Llandudno Junction and across the A55 onto the B road leading towards Betws-yn-Rhos. The day’s first regularity began about halfway there but on a minor road offering commanding views for those in something tall enough to see over the hedges…though many of the sports cars in the field were not among this contingent. Competitors who had become used to the scale of the lanes in Wales were not alarmed as the smooth tarmac narrowed and the regularity presented them with some fine scenery to enjoy before they rejoined the B road they had left some fifteen minutes earlier.
From Betws-yn-Rhos a link section took cars through Moelfre following the line of another Roman road, which they deserted to turn north towards Bodelwyydan, re-cross the A55 and continue around Rhuddlan, looping south and east to test 3.4 at Bodrhyddan, which had been originally planned for Day 1 but had to be rescheduled to accommodate the venue. A ’simpler’ test than those on the Orme, cars used the tree lined drive, turned right round a cone before reaching the house into a slalom leading to the finish.
After the test it was back to the A5151 heading east until turning onto minor roads through farmland that would take cars to the fifth test of the day at Golden Grove, a Grade 1 listed Elizabethan manor house set in formal gardens and surrounded by a large estate. It was first mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 but construction of the present house began in 1578 before extensively renovations in the early eighteenth century when it acquired the stepped gables it still has.
Trip meters zeroed, the exit from the test at Golden Grove led directly into the second of the day’s regularities, turning south at Llanasa and looping west then east to Axton, turning south briefly, then east again. Wales is rich in castles but in this one short regularity, the rally passed five ancient sites that predated all of them. One of them, the Maen Achwfan Cross, was carved from a single piece of stone almost three and half metres tall at some time in the tenth century. But it was the future occupying crews rather than history, their focus on the road, maps and clocks. When the five and half mile regularity section ended at the Rural Rabbit Retreat in Tre Mostyn, it was fair to say some of the happiest bunnies were those looking forward to the tests at Mostyn Hall, split by a break for morning coffee.