Corwen. A beautiful, peaceful town surrounded on all sides by some of Wales' most striking scenery.

Nine miles and six furlongs due-west of Llangollen, home of the Doctor Who exhibition, an armada of shiny little craft the likes of which even the Doctor himself has never seen began to converge on Corwen on an otherwise uneventful Sunday morning as many of the locals still slept...

As 10:00 drew near, Dafydd Williams, Exulted High Lord of all Twingo, gathered his intergalactic fleet at the Rhug Café and Farm complex west of Corwen town. OK, that's enough: let's leave the local science-fiction connection right where it is.

However, with our enlarged fleet of some 17 Twingos which included are old German friends and (for the first time) one from the French motherland, plus a half-dozen or so of those less fortunate, we can certainly claim this to be an international event!

And they're off! With Leïla reprising her rôle as the Twingo Club GB/Space Car Club Deutschland official 'camera car', the group drift away...

...and fiendish as ever, Mr. Williams plunges everybody straight into a very true sense of insecurity with a route that takes us straight into the narrow, winding country lanes, and some challenging hill-climbs that saw first and second gears given a real test-of-strength that usually they can only have nightmares about!

And before you can say 'Michael Caine', we are once again charging through the mountainous terrain at great speed (Highway Code and common sense permitting, of course) through some of the most spectacular landscapes you'll ever encounter, and in the words of Waylon Jennings (here goes any credibility I might have had!!):

"Straight'nin' the curves,
Flatt'nin' the hills,
Someday the mountain might get 'em
But the law never will..."

Following a hair-raising blast through roads used in international rallying during the 60s and 70s, our complex and demanding itinerary invites us to pause (below) and "enjoy the sound of silence".

Or, to put it in the context of the day, the sound of silence accompanied by the sound what would appear to be steel-reinforced raindrops beating furiously against the roof of the car!

"As I was going to St. Ives (the long way!)
I met a man with seven Jags.
Each Jag had seven MGs..."

You get the picture. As polite as Twingo-drivers always are, we wait patiently as what seems like the whole of Britain's motoring heritage from the thirties to the seventies passes the single-track road in the opposite direction...

The final enormous Daimler having passed on its way, we then meet a motorcaravan lumbering towards us over the horizon, pushing us further onto the grass verge and giving Leïla a good splash of authentic Welsh mud to take home as a souvenir (below)!

Our patience is rewarded only minutes later, with perhaps the best view of the day (below right) over Llyn Clywedog.

A little further round, and we reach the Llyn Clywedog viewing area where the whole tribe meets up again for our lunch break.

Next year, we really must have a chat with Sian Lloyd before the Run, to see if we can't pre-book a little sunshine!

Ah, that's why Annette enjoys the Twingo Run so much - one of her regular travelling companions is that famous yet rarely-seen character of Welsh folklore - a little dragon!

Wales at its most glorious (right): hundreds of miles of countryside untouched by the 'horrors' of civilisation...

...and here we are (below left) going in several different directions and (below right) solving the clues to the route.

For the benefit of the curious, the lady on the T-shirt is not my mother, as was suggested! She is Lara Fabian, performer and co-writer of the song from where Leïla gets her name. The song Leïla is all about the desire to be free to live one's life however one chooses - and if that's not the spirit of Twingo, I don't know what is!

Back to the open road for the longest single stretch of the day...

"Hey, mum, what are those strange metal things flying by? Can I 'ave one, Mum, can I?"

"Don't be silly, Hwyel, you're just an Enthusiastic Welsh Lamb!"

This is the Elan Dam, an absolutely stunning piece of architecture commanding spectacular views over the the valley.

There is no point trying to describe this any further, even with more of our photographs, you simply have to be there to appreciate it fully...

...unfortunately, we were so taken aback that about a half dozen of our fleet paused here together, and we did cause a bit of a log-jam on the narrow road running by the viewing point.

On behalf of all of us, our apologies go to the holidaymakers in the motorcaravan trying to pass us, the coach trip travelling in the opposite direction, and several others. You've got to admit, though, it is a great spot!

How can I say what happened to the RSCC/TCGB team next...? We, err, well we sort of... umm... We got lost! We knew where we were, but which direction we were facing and which was the right turn evaded us completely.

We decided to give up on the last couple of clues and look for the finishing point, but by the most amazing fluke since Percy Shaw saw a cat's eyes reflected in his headlights and became immensely rich, we were back on the right track inside two minutes of admitting defeat!

We might have been last, but we got there in the end! Everybody gathered at Maesmawr Hall, Newport, to wind down and to do slightly better at the quiz than we did last year!

All agreed that it had been a great day, and hopefully we'll all be back for more!

Whether you took part, or just wish to share the fun from your own desktop, why not download one of the Twingo Run 2003 screensavers from our Downloads page?