Leave No Trace

You can almost pinpoint the exact moment the mood changed.

It had actually been a rather lovely little trip up to that point.

We had spent the previous night at a BritStop at Hazel Beach in Pembrokeshire. One of those quiet waterside spots where the evening consists mainly of looking at boats and remembering that I actually spent three years living on one on the Thames, which sounds wonderfully romantic until you recall winter condensation and carrying things awkward distances in the rain.

The plan had then been to spend a night in the public car park at Hay on Wye. We had not realised we had accidentally timed our arrival with the Hay Festival. I had vaguely assumed it was usually later in June somewhere, rather than already in full migration mode.

It probably did not help that it was a Bank Holiday rolling straight into half term either. The entire western side of Britain appeared to be on manoeuvres.

In the end we never even got into Hay itself. The coaches gathering on the outskirts were warning enough. What started decades ago as a slightly eccentric literary gathering now appears to have evolved into a temporary city state run by Radio 4.

Every road seemed to contain people wearing festival lanyards and discussing geopolitics over compostable coffee cups while carrying canvas bags full of books they will never quite finish. Somewhere nearby, no doubt, Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell were probably inside a heated marquee discussing the decline of Western democracy to an audience of retired headteachers nodding gravely into flat whites.

Hay has essentially become Glastonbury for people whose idea of rebellion is owning a particularly opinionated tote bag.

So we wisely retreated.

One of the pleasant surprises about Wales, incidentally, is how accommodating many councils still are towards motorhomes. England increasingly treats overnight parking as though you are attempting to establish an illegal micronation. Wales often just seems faintly pleased somebody has turned up.

So we headed instead towards Crickhowell for the night. While there, a local butcher told us about a back road beauty spot nearby that made a perfect overnight stop. And he was absolutely right.

Big skies, distant hills, sheep doing whatever it is sheep do all day that requires such concentration. The sort of place people drive hundreds of miles to experience because modern Britain increasingly sounds like somebody reversing a Transit van into a skip.

We had parked up with our motorhome, which carries a large "Leave No Trace" sticker across the bonnet. That has always rather been our philosophy. Arrive quietly. Enjoy the place. Leave it looking as though you had never been there at all.

We are not exactly anti-farming zealots either. We do, after all, live in the Cotswolds. We listen to Farming Today and The Archers practically every day, which in Britain effectively makes you honorary DEFRA consultants after a while. I now possess unexpectedly strong opinions on slurry management, upland stewardship and whether Eddie Grundy should ever be trusted near financial paperwork.

So this is not townie outrage about the existence of quads in the countryside.

And to begin with, the atmosphere was actually rather pleasant. It was clearly a stopping point for bikers as well. I took some lovely photographs, including a beautifully kept 1948 Triumph that looked entirely at home against the backdrop of the hills. There was also a magnificent Cobra replica and a gleaming Harley parked up overlooking the valley. The attraction was obvious enough. Long, winding roads through open countryside. If you like driving or riding, it is hard not to understand the appeal.

That is partly why the whole thing felt so contradictory. The bikes and cars somehow seemed to belong there. They moved through the landscape. Appreciated it. Paused to look at it.

And perhaps that is really the distinction underneath all this. The difference between participation and domination.

Then the scramblers arrived.

Three young lads roaring off from the beauty spot car park and into the hills like an agricultural version of Mad Max. Shortly afterwards came the quads. No licence plates. Obviously farm vehicles. Almost certainly local farmer's lads out enjoying themselves on a summer evening.

And this is where it becomes awkward, because they were not outsiders invading the countryside. In a sense, they are the countryside. Their families probably know every inch of those hills. Their grandfathers were likely crossing the same land long before the National Park designation existed.

But it can still be a nuisance.

That is the bit modern debates struggle with. We like our moral categories tidy. Noble rural custodians versus antisocial yobs from the city. Reality is messier than that.

Because if I turned up in the Brecons on an unregistered quad and disappeared into a National Park for recreational off-roading, there is a fair chance somebody would eventually introduce me to the legal system. Quite briskly too.

But if everybody knows whose boys they are, things become a little more flexible.

And to be fair, rural life has always operated partly on informal understandings. Farmers crossing roads between fields. Machinery being used pragmatically. Villages quietly sorting things out without needing three enforcement officers and a consultation document.

The problem is when the public experience becomes one of visible double standards.

National Parks are not private playgrounds. They belong to all of us. People go there for quiet. For space and wind and the strange luxury of hearing almost nothing mechanical at all for a while.

What they do not necessarily expect is the distant sound of internal combustion engines bouncing around entire valleys for half the evening.

And speaking of modern intrusions, there was also a pizza van parked at the beauty spot. Which, to be fair, is not remotely the pizza chap's fault. A man selling wood-fired pepperoni to tourists is not personally responsible for Britain's inability to carry empty packaging back to a bin.

But it did complete the atmosphere rather neatly.

Then came the final straw.

Somebody had left a car alarm armed while disappearing off into the Brecons for the day. Every few minutes the thing would erupt again across the valley like an electronically distressed goose. Eventually we gave up and moved further down the road.

Which rather summed the whole thing up in the end.

The National Park slowly starts feeling less like protected countryside and more like an outdoor event with sheep. Vans parked up everywhere. Disposable packaging blowing about. Engines coming and going. Somewhere nearby, inevitably, somebody playing music through a bluetooth speaker that sounds like a crisp packet full of wasps.

And then there was the rubbish.

Three bags of it.

That was the point the whole thing crystallised.

Because after the engines had faded away into the hills and everyone else had gone home, there we were filling bin liners beside a motorhome literally carrying the words "Leave No Trace" across its bonnet.

Which increasingly felt less like a philosophy and more like a plea.

And the awkward thing is that most people actually want to support farming communities. They like the idea that somebody is looking after these landscapes properly. But goodwill has a habit of evaporating once people start feeling there is one set of rules for locals and another for everyone else.

And eventually you find yourself standing in one of the most beautiful landscapes in Britain at sunset, stuffing pizza boxes and energy drink cans into a bin liner while the sound of quads fades off somewhere over the next ridge.