Jamie Best of Melin Consultants featured in the Evening Post

Jamie Best, of Melin Consultants, of The Beacon, Dafen Llanelli, was featured in the 'Holiday Heaven and Hell' feature in the South Wales Evening Post. Melin Consultants are experts in sustainable building solutions.

What was your best holiday?
Tough call, but I think my favourite was about 13 years ago in Eastern Australia. I handed in my notice to change jobs and was given a long spell of garden leave. Being free and single at the time, I grabbed a surfboard and was in Australia within 48 hours. I headed up the east coast from Sydney with a mate who was already out there taking in all the surf spots. He had a beaten-up old yellow transit camper and we didn’t meet another Brit in the whole five weeks We only seemed to travel on dirt tracks and missed all the tourist traps. I didn’t even get to see the Opera House! I lived like a tramp sleeping on the van floor, but loved every second of it.
Your worst?
A long time ago I went on a typical ‘lads’ holiday to Ayia Napa, the party capital of Cyprus, for sun, sea and you know what! Only problem was the mate who booked it got the wrong place and we ended up staying in Limassol, which was the equivalent of a retirement resort for a young lad. On top of this were a few additional drawbacks for me. 1) I have ginger hair and ‘transparent’ skin. 2) I realised that I didn’t like lying on the beach. 3) I couldn’t live on beer alone and mixed with sun-burn developed a symptom I still suffer from called ‘beer-rash’. Needless to say I returned home a week later sunburnt, lacking any action on the lady front and vowing never to go on a beach holiday again.
What was the most memorable holiday moment? Long before she was my wife, I went to South America with Mel. What I hadn’t told her, until it was all booked, was that we were meeting up with my recently ex-girlfriend’s best mate and her boyfriend. Needless to say, it was awkward planning our itinerary so we ended up going to different places for the first two weeks. Luckily for us, I suppose, we decided to climb a 6000m peak in the Ecuadorian Andes called Cotopaxi. We reached the summit on Christmas Day. Well, one of us did; Mel had been taken ill with altitude sickness and being a real gentlemen I had left her very ill in the refuge (little more than a dilapidated hut perched on the side of a glacier) and continued my summit push (the guide was being paid by the day and I didn’t fancy my chances without him!). Anyway the summit was extraordinary. I remember gazing out over what seemed like most of the Andes and feeling like I had just conquered Everest. Okay, so it’s not quite in the same league, but in comparison Snowdon is only 1085m, so I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.
Weblink -
http://www.melinconsultants.co.uk