Saturday, April 10: Of Heroes and Whovians

Started the morning off with a quick trip to see if we could find Batman’s cave from “The Dark Knight Rises,” and we did! My negative comments about Google maps yesterday? Forget them all. We Googled our way to the Batcave, and everywhere else today; never would’ve found most of it without that app.

So we hiked a short but steep distance down to the Batcave waterfall, otherwise known as Sgwd Henrhyd. The flawed hero emerges from the cave behind the waterfall like the bats that precede him. It is truly lovely, but CGI has made it into more of a cave than it looks in real life. There are other falls in the area, and we weren’t entirely certain that we’d really seen it until we were reunited with the internet tonight! Also, with the dry weather they’ve been having, the river and the waterfalls have much less water than usual. Still gorgeous. Driving through the hills, the scenery is calm and subtle, but when you move down to the river level, you find veins of vital green waterways hidden away from passersby.

Another big event is that Allison decided today would be a no-complaint day. She has developed a reputation for needing to tell us her ailments, and we overheard Natalie explaining to her yesterday that any sentence starting with “My” followed by a body part and ending in “hurts” is a complaint. She stuck to her guns and kept it all to herself.

And then it was time to get to Cardiff. In speaking with a Brit residing in Grand Rapids last week, we mentioned that part of our trip was going to Cardiff. He looked at us with surprise, clearly wondering what would prompt that decision. We explained that part of the draw to Wales was the Doctor Who Experience; “Doctor Who” is based in the large BBC studio here in Cardiff, and there is a tourist attraction devoted to the devotees. He continued to look surprised, but he hid his judgment of us quite well.

The drive south was a bit wearing, as all of the drives have been. I asked Brian if he gets any fun out of it, and the most he could say for it is that “it’s a challenge.” Parking alone would be beyond my abilities, as the parking spaces are so tight!

But it’s made moving around the UK much more affordable for a family of five. Rail passes would have cost about 5 times as much. Individual rail tickets might not have been as much as the car, but then we couldn’t go to things like the national park. All in all, it’s been the best solution. And Andrew does his best to alleviate the tension of cramming three growing bodies into a small backseat by alternately annoying his sisters and making them laugh hysterically at his jokes.

Google brought us all the way to the shipping docks of Cardiff, one portion of which BBC has claimed for “Doctor Who,” “Torchwood,” and other productions. We had purchased tickets to the DW Experience in advance, so we showed up just in time to enter the “museum.” Visitors are taken through several large rooms as part of an interactive storyline—we meet the current Doctor via video clips, and we enter the TARDIS (time machine for you newbies) to help save ourselves from evil aliens (basically the plot of every Doctor Who episode ever).  

It’s kind of the perfect combination of cheeseball and fandom to make it family friendly and still sort of appealing to older visitors. Obviously there aren’t too many non-fans making this pilgrimage, so most visitors are on board to participate willingly. Natalie was making good-natured but sarcastic cracks most of the way, but she did say that if she saw one of the weeping angels (see the infamous episode “Blink”) she would probably pee her pants—she said that it would be like her childhood fears coming to life. I’m happy to report that in spite of angel sightings, she retained full bladder control.

 Next is an exhibition hall filled with costumes and props, including the clothing for each of the Doctors and their companions, and even the full set of the David Tennant-era TARDIS. Natalie stopped for a picture of the last three retired doctor outfits, proclaiming her need for a photo of the Big Three. It feels like some sort of cross between the reverence people have for Big Ten football and the Trinity. 

The final portion of the Doctor Who visit was the walking tour of the Cardiff bay area, seeing different locales where scenes were shot. I’m only an occasional DW watcher, so I was afraid that this day would be a bit boring. But I enjoyed it more than I expected, partly because I got a better feel for Cardiff and partly because we got to see what creative thinking is involved in putting together this kind of show. They use pieces of all kinds of buildings around the area, and the inside of one café in Cardiff might be mashed up with the exterior of a building in London. Characters would have to look exactly the same for the two different shoots, weeks apart. The front doors of one building are used to look like a museum, but they have to digitally replace the rest of the building with something completely different. Looks like a fun job!

Brian says that going to the UK and visiting Cardiff is like going to the US and visiting Cleveland. No offense to Cleveland, but it’s among the more ordinary cities, part of the Rust Belt, as is Cardiff in a way. Cardiff is a lively place but also a bit run down. It was a strong commercial center during the coal mining years, and there are lots of big old buildings to testify to that history. We’d guess they had an enormous downturn when the coal industry went bust. Now it seems to be on the upswing, with some challenges still in their future. 

The Coal Exchange building is a good example. A beautiful old building (some rooms have been used as TV scene sets), it has been mostly empty and has fallen into disrepair over time. At this point, it would take about 60 million pounds to bring it back to life, according to our tour guide. It looks like some have accused preservation groups of exaggerating that number, but nonetheless it will take a lot to bring it back to use. At this point, they can’t find anyone who will cough up enough to get the campaign underway.

And I even got a small dose of literary tourism when we passed Roald Dahl Plaza. Our family enjoys his books very much, and it turns out we walked right past the church in which he was christened. The tour guide told me her favorite book of his was “George’s Marvelous Medicine,” which I’ve never heard of, so now I have a new book to dig up too.

You might think that this whole Doctor Who thing is a bit ridiculous. And it is. Yet, you have to give credit to a show that can hook generations of viewers with questionable special effects. Especially when you consider that the main enemy of the Doctor, the Dalek, was put together with a garbage can and two arms made from an egg beater and a plunger. Daleks haven’t changed too dramatically since 1963, yet viewers continue to tune into every episode. They are doing something right.

We eventually finished up our tour and went downtown to have proper afternoon tea at the Pettigrew Tea Rooms. I’m not sure how excited the male members of our party were about this, but they went along without complaint, and we had fabulous sandwiches, scones (with clotted cream, more importantly), and cake for dessert. The restaurant was busy, so we ended up in their outdoor seating, but that was just fine because the day was warm with a cool breeze and we were sitting in a gorgeous city park. Bute Park, to be exact, which adjoins the Cardiff Castle. 

Half of Cardiff, including Cardiff Castle and the outlying Castell Roch, has the name Bute attached to it, for John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3^rd Marquess of Bute, who had a lot of money to throw around thanks to his father’s unbelievable commercial success in exporting minerals from the area. He must have represented both the hero and the villain to his fellow Cardiffites—living in ultimate luxury but also providing them with civic luxuries as well, all bought with the lifeblood of the land and the people who mined it.

With full stomachs and spent energy, we returned to our little cottage in the hills, greeted the sheep, chickens and Shetland ponies one last time, and started the packing-up process for our return, via Bath and Stonehenge, to London tomorrow. Packing got a little easier tonight—our proprietor did our laundry for us free of charge in exchange for the fact that the light in our “wet room”—a short hallway renovated into a long shower—is on the blink and we are all showering in almost complete darkness. Even before the light went out, Natalie referred to it as the “creepy shower” but darkness brings that moniker to fruition. 

Today was a day of heroes and villains, light and darkness. We fight our need to complain in the midst of unbelievable bounty. We cave into the urge to annoy others as often as we rise to the challenge to lift them up. Perhaps we feel a need to come up with a Batman or a Doctor who will save us from the Jokers and the Daleks in our lives, but most of the time in reality the heroes and the villains are two sides of the same coin—mere human beings like the wealthy, philanthropic coal baron and the brave, every day miner. And maybe that’s why many of us find meaning and hope in something more than human, the real Big Three.