'Hamster' Richard Hammond makes surprise visit to Pembrey Country Park


Top Gear’s master of wheels Richard (the Hamster) Hammond has been a surprise visitor to Pembrey Country Park.
The mission was for a possible scientific project he is working on, but the Top Gear presenter could not resist reverting to type and buzzing about for the first time on one of the park’s new attractions, a Segway PT.
“I want one and my daughters will too,” he trilled as he slowly found his balance and wheeled about the Sidan café, whose owner Stephanie Thomas invited him to ride Segway.
Owner of 28 motor cycles and14 cars, presenter, journalist and actor Mr Hammond was a little tentative until he acclimatised to using one of the innovative two-wheel balance machines that have become a huge hit with park visitors.
The Segway PT is a two-wheeled, self-balancing, battery-powered electric personal transporter vehicle.
Computers and motors in the base of the device keep the Segway PT upright when powered on with balancing enabled.
A user commands the Segway to go forward by shifting their weight forward on the platform, and backward by shifting their weight backward.
The Segway detects, as it balances, the change in its center of mass, and first establishes and then maintains a corresponding speed, forward or backward. To turn, the user presses the handlebar to the left or the right.
As the programme producers tried to bring to an end the impromptu ride, The Hampster exhibited his Top Gear panache threatening to zoom off along Cefn Sidan Sands before sadly sighing “time does not allow.”
After securing a take away coffee and a photo call with some stunned park visitors, he took off to Cefn Sidan to study the out tide before exploring the forestry.
After spending the day at Pembrey Richard said: “I cannot believe how beautiful this park and beach is. It has a remarkable history too. It is stunning and I have the advantage of studying it from the air.”
Stephanie has invited Richard to return with his Top Gear co-presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May for a Segway Challenge.
The trio know Pembrey - they were once chased up Cefn Sidan by a fully armed Lynx helicopter out of RAF Pembrey’s Bombing Range.
Richard arrived in another of his machines - a Robinson44 helicopter landing at Pembrey Airport from his mock castle home in Ross on Wye.

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