Wales

Wales Easter

As per usual, we went to Wales for Easter, looking forward to some hiking, sun, NT places and loads of ôen bachs. The weather was not great but not too terrible either, so we managed to do a few cool things:

Penrhyn Castle

Originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In 1438, Ioan ap Gruffudd was granted a licence to crenellate and he founded the stone castle and added a tower house. Samuel Wyatt reconstructed the property in the 1780s.

Penrhyn Castle

We checked out all the fancy rooms and staircases, plus the Victorian kitchen in which they were baking nice Easter cookies.

Victorian kitchen

Truth!

Glyder Fawr
On Saturday the weather was ok, so we decided to go up our fave Glyder, which we guessed would not be too overcrowded on the heavy-traffic Easter weekend. We even managed to find parking (just about), but the Snowdon path from Pen-y-Pas was a tourist highway for sure, like if all the people on it would just reach out they could hold hands in a full chain from the road all the way to the top. Blergh.
Glyder, on the other hand, was only reasonably populated, had great views over to Tryfan, and my fave bleak rocky outcrops on the top. Success.

Bleak

Burial sites
Two of them. Not sure their names or history, Iest will fill this in.

Iest: Here I am, filling this in. I’m currently reading a very interesting book called ‘The story of Wales’ by Jon Gower, and although I’ve only just started it, I’ve found out that there were two very fascinating places just a stones throw away from where I grew up. The first is Bachwen, a burial chamber that’s located over in Clynnog Fawr – dating back to the Neolithic / Stone Age era. Beautifully located just by the sea, and with Yr Eifl just behind it.

The second, was just over on Anglesey – Bryn Celli Ddu, another Neolithic site but this time, a stone chambered tombs buried under a mound, which made for a rather impressive site! So great to learn about these two places, and I’m looking forward to what else I can learn from the book!

Bachwen

Bryn Celli Ddu

Llandwyn
My fave beach is awesome even in heavy clouds. Tho this time it was also a bit like a crab carnage site, with so many dead crabs everywhere. Probably a crab flu season or something.

Llandwyn

Tre’r Ceiri

A hillfort dating back to the Iron Age. The settlement is located 450 metres (1,480 ft) above sea level on the slopes of Yr Eifl, a mountain on the north coast of the Llŷn peninsula. Evidence suggests the settlement was first built around 200 BC, though most of the archaeological finds date from AD 150–400, showing the site continued as a settlement during the Roman occupation. Tre’r Ceiri is one of the most spectacular ancient monuments in Wales. The settlement is surrounded by stone walls that are largely intact, and which reach up to 4 metres in some places. Within the walls are ruins of about 150 stone houses, it may have housed up to 400 people.

Tre’r Ceiri

Tre’r Ceiri summit

Chirk castle
Finally, on our way home we managed to stop by at Wrexham’s finest, Chirk castle.

The castle was built in 1295 by Roger Mortimer de Chirk, uncle of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March as part of King Edward I’s chain of fortresses across the north of Wales. It guards the entrance to the Ceiriog Valley. The castle was bought by Sir Thomas Myddelton in 1593 for £5,000. Following the Restoration, his son became Sir Thomas Myddelton, 1st Baronet of Chirke. During the 1930s the Castle was home to Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, a prominent patron of the arts and champion of Welsh culture. The Myddelton family resided at Chirk Castle until 2004.

Chirk Castle

Entrance Hall

The State Dining Room

Main living room

Banquet hall

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02
Jan 17

Yuletide & 2017!

We had a great Yuletide season this year. Kicked off by purchasing our biggest tree yet and decorating it beautifully with lights and ornaments at the beginning of December already, and followed by visiting friends and markets in Freiburg, we were ready for the main events. This year I made fewer kinds of cookies, but no less delicious, and complemented by awesome German lebkuchen, we were not left wanting for sweets.

Tree

Solstice/my b-day celebrations started with a lavish breakfast of blueberry pancakes and a huge pile of presents (I wouldn’t want it any other way!). I got some beautiful stuff, including books and a Welsh print for the wall, and to top it all off a trip to Amsterdam in the spring! It’s gonna be awesome and I can’t wait. Since I already took the day off at work, I just lounged for the day, reading my books and enjoying myself. In the evening I went around town a bit to look at the lights and decorations set up everywhere for my benefit and celebration, and finally met Iest for dinner at Busaba Eathai.

The main celebration on the 25th was lovely as well, with lavish pressies (especially for me again), and fancy three-course meal including baked camembert with honey, figs and nuts as a starter, parmesan breaded garlic mushroom pizzas (made from scratch including Iest’s signature dough), and dark chocolate chilli mousse (made by me). I got (among many others) a membership of the UK National Trust for 2017, so that’s our weekend trips sorted – 581 places to choose from! We were extremely full and didn’t want to spoil the rest of the day anyway, so we left the packing for the next day morning and just enjoyed our day lounging and playing with pressies. Also played a full game of dice, in which I ruled like the dice queen I am.

Dinner

On the 26th we packed everything (like, literally – I can’t believe we ever made it to Wales by train), and loaded our trusty Terrell, and drove up to the beautiful Snowdonia. Where we got even more presents, including a boat trip over to the Skerries sometime next year!

Tuesday 27 December
Weather reasonable (there is no snow though this year), so we went up Moel Siabod for a stroll. It’s like a little hillock up from Capel Curig, no biggie. It was quite foggy and windy up top, and the streams were nicely frozen over. We countered it with nice tea from our thermos and a serving of yule cookies. Overall, we defo consumed more energy than we gave up on the walk, but after the week of only eating, the fresh air and some movement did us real good.

Moel Siabod

Wednesday 28 December
Amazing sunny day, no other possibility than lugging our holiday weight up a nice range – we selected the Carneddau for the honour. Starting up from LLyn Ogwen, we took the National Trust route straight up (I allowed Iest on it, even though he’s not a member), and basking in the winter sun we made it to the first peak. From there on it was a nice ridge walk, sprinkled with tea and yule cookies. It was still quite windy up top, and water was frozen solid, but the sun was unwavering until the evening. We went down through an uncharted territory to make sure we’d get to the car before dark, which these days comes way too early. Lovely walk!

Carneddau

Pen yr Ole Wen

Crisp evening

Carneddau

Thursday 29 December
Weather so so, and clouds lying low on the mountains. Perfect day for another National Trust treasure visit – this time the whistling sands beach of Porthor on the LLŷn peninsula. A beautiful place, not so much whistly this time around, but still a pretty piece of coast. Had a cuppa in the small café, and swung also by another great NT place – Porth y Swnt in Aberdaron – on the way. This is a nice exhibition about the culture and environment of the peninsula, and includes a puffin hole!

Pan chwery chwa oddi uchod â’r môr
Mae hen angenfilod
Y dwfn I’w wyneb yn dod
I’w haileni’n wylanod

Evening watch of long-anticipated Charlie Brooker 2016 Wipe – what a year this was! He still covered it in only an hour, and did well as always.

Whistling sands

Friday 30 December
And since we were so into NT places now, we decided to visit the great Plas Newydd and gardens on the Menai straits. This elegant house was redesigned by James Wyatt in the 18th century, and has lots to see both inside and out. Because of the season not all of the interiors were accessible (so we’ll have to visit again), but the ones that were were nicely decorated with trees and presents and fireplaces and board games and seasonal music, so it was all very nice. The gardens likewise, plus beautiful views across the straits. Good choice. To top the day up, we went by Rhosneigr for a little stroll, and finally had a nice dinner with friends at Dylan’s in Criccieth.

Plas Newydd

Saturday 31 December
Last day of the year! Which actually does not mean much to us – we do not partake in forced celebrations and parties on the night. But we thought we could go camping in the wild again, like we have done several times before. Alas, the forecast was for heavy rains to come for the night, so there was really no point (the point is to wake up in raging sunshine in the new year, perhaps even dip into the sea on the occasion). During the day we decided to make one more small walk in the hills, and selected my fave Yr Aran for the occasion. The peak was submerged in cloud, but overall it was a very fine final walk for the year.
We made a nice batch of chickpea curry for the evening, and went to bed way before midnight.

Yr Aran

We did however, drag Gina out of the warmth and down to Dinas Dinlle, where we made our text-book year number (2017!) in lights, together with some heart light-graffiti in the cold, wet rain.

2017 Lights!

Heart Lights!

Sunday 1 January
Packed everything, it does not seem we have less stuff even though we offloaded all the kids’ pressies that were taking up the trunk, weird. Made our way down to our London home via Snowdonia, which had now been blessed with a sprinkling of snow on its highest peaks (just as it was pissing down through the night in the valleys), so we could make an impromptu photoshoot of Iestyn’s beard and slippers in the wild.
At home sweet home we watched new Sherlock (kinda so so, better than the last one, but long lost are the splendours of season 1&2), with some pizza and wine (for Gina) before going to bed.

Monday 2 January
Thank gods for this day off, so we could do all the laundry, clean up, and purge our little flat of any sign of the preceding festivities – took down the tree and all decorations, and that was that. Back to normal and to 2017!

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29
Aug 16

Looks like we went for a nice weekend trip to Wales at the end of August, but who knows – only very few people update this blog regularly, and now many months later this is just a faint memory. Looks like a nice scramble who knows where, also up Cnicht, some beach, and I was doing so well with my macro lens.

Scramble somewhere

Scramble

Hike too

Beach

from Cnicht

Macro spider

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03
Jul 16

Cardiff

Nice summer Saturday, Tafwyl 2016 in full swing, us being proper Welsh we decided to head out to the ‘diff to partake.

Cardiff

Weather couldn’t have been better, and the Cardiff castle was buzzing with welshness. We pottered around all kind of stuff in the market, I got me a pretty canvas shopping bag ‘Barod am antur’, and we got ourselves on a tour of the insides too (‘flamboyant fantasy world’ as our guidebook would call it).

Tafwyl 2016

Arab room ceiling

Animal wall

Afterwards we made our way down to the Bay (through some dodgy ‘hoods tho), which was buzzing with summer life, welsh cakes, music and gentrification; all very lovely. We checked out the Senedd, the Pierhead and the new beautiful Millennium centre.

Pierhead & Senedd

Millennium Centre

Overall a great welsh day!
(Plus, got Jon Jovi’s greatest hits in hmv for the trip back! (and many other future trips indeed))

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30
May 16

Cymru/Wales

So we had a long weekend on our hands, and the first weekend in a long time that i didn’t have to work, so a great opportunity to head up to Wales and have some fun. In addition, we had just acquired Terrell, our new bff, so everything was set up beautifully. The only problem was that the forecast was stubbornly showing downpours for the whole three days, but that as well got sorted shortly before the weekend, and we were ready to go.
On Friday night of course the whole of London town had the same idea to get out and we got stuck in traffic for hours, eventually arriving at our destination super late, after what would probably have been a nice drive through Snowdonia, had it still been light when we were doing it.

But on Saturday, we woke up into glorious sunshine and were happy to be there. We decided to once again go up Snowdon, which we don’t do very often as it is kind of a tourist highway, and especially on the top there is too many people due to the train. But, it is still a nice walk via many of the routes, and from time to time should be done. We decided on the Ranger’s path up and down to Rhyd Ddu, a trail we last did several years ago in lots of snow and frost (&sun). This time, the sun was with us as well, and already arriving to the trail we had some doubts about our choice as all the parking spots were gone, a clear sign that the combo of long weekend and sun brought all the boys to the yard to play. We decided not to be discouraged, found an alternate parking spot and took a hike up from there through a nice farmer’s land to meet up with our ranger’s path. From there, we saw quite a few people, but it was not too terrible, and the walk was very nice overall.

Shortly before summit we got immersed into a thick fog/cloud that wrapped the top of Snowdon, and upon arriving at the top we met the real crowds who had gotten there by the cog train. With no views and the crowds of twerps there was no reason for us to spend much time, and we quickly retreated down to Rhyd Ddu path, which was mercifully sparsely populated, and descended into the sun again. The rest of the walk was lovely and uneventful. Later we bought all the stuff for a four-bean chilli and fell asleep quickly, all sunned out for the day.

Wyddfa

Down to Rhyd Ddu

On Sunday, with great weather continuing, we wanted to finally take out our sea kayaks. But for that we needed to run a number of errands, from picking up Iest’s kayak from the bodyshop in Anglesey, to buying and installing roof racks for Terrell, to getting a number of missing items like life vests and stuff. So by the time we were ready to go, it was mid afternoon. We didn’t mind very much though, as the days are long and it was warm and sunny, so we took them down to Aberdesach and set out for some paddling around. There was a bit of wind, so we had some nice mild chops to play with, and I was awesome and Iest will need to get better if he wants to keep up with me. But at least i had some time to take nice macro beach pics while waiting for him to catch up. Beautiful day overall.

On Monday we needed to make our way down to Llundain again, but since we have Terrell we were much more flexible and decided to first go to Beaumaris for a trip to Puffin island. I wanted to go on kayaks but Iest was a scaredy cat and so we went on a little boat with other people. It was nice though as well, as the skipper knew a lot about all the birds and animals and showed us everything. We saw:
– Shags: check
– Puffins: check
– Guillemots: check
– Razorbills: check
– Cormorants: check
– Loads of seagulls: check
…and of course seals, who were very cute as always, just chilling on the rocks in the sun.
Afterwards, we started to make our way down home, stopping over to give Terrell a proper shower, which he needed after the weekend. Surprisingly enough, we didn’t get stuck anywhere in traffic on the way, and had quite a pleasant trip.

Going to ynys Puffin

Shags

Seals

Cormorant

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30
Mar 16

Wales Easter

As usual, we headed up to Wales for Easter. Hurricane Katy was also heading up, so we had to give up kayaking plans, but otherwise we were totes on the top of our game – hiking, sea, sunsets, birds, oen bachs and family time, all check! Plus, awesome time with my macro lens.

We did a nice little hike up the Roman steps to Rhinog Fawr, down by Harlech. Saw a Red Grouse on the way too.

Up Rhinog Fawr

Down Rhinog Fawr

Red Grouse

Sunset before the storm, from Dinas Dinlle.

Sunset

Also a nice hike our fave Yr Aran, the Vatican way this time, with some nice views on the snowy Snowdon ridge.

Gina and Yr Wyddfa

Cwm Llan a Yr Wyddfa

Up Aran

Up on Aran

Down Aran

Spectacularly windy trip around Morfa Nefyn, sort of sunny though. No seals!

Morfa Nefyn

Macro throughout. Getting really good at it, should be selling them for postcards!

Oen bachs everywhere!

Oen bach

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06
Apr 15

Easter Wales

Thursday, April 2

We hadn’t been to Wales since new year’s, so we were all excited about going for Easter long weekend, even though the weather forecast was nothing special. Booked the tickets online as usual, and on Thursday after work we met up at Euston. Euston was jam-packed as obviously everyone was going away for the weekend but we didn’t worry as we had reservations and it was a direct train. But the train was so full with even the aisles crowded that there was no air and we were also sitting backwards, so overall the trip was quite harrowing. Sometimes I do miss Germany, and these times often coincide with any UK train trips. Nevertheless, we finally got to Bangor, about half hour later than scheduled (yes, half an hour delay on a three-hour direct train), got picked up by Iestyn’s dad, and crashed in bed soon after.

Friday, April 3

We woke up to a morning of incessant rain, but we didn’t mind and decided to go explore a new (for me) Welsh tower Dolwyddelan (or what Iest calls ‘Welsh castle’ but it’s one of those castles that are only like a tower, not like the one in Caernarfon, so it really is just a tower. OK, you might argue that wiki calls it a castle too, but then it shows a picture of a tower, so your call really. It’s a tower. Well built though, proper.). Wiki also adds that “It is thought to have been built in the early 13th century by Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd and North Wales. Though the castle was then only one tower with two floors, a second tower was built in the late 13th century and a third floor was added to the first during the late 15th century repairs.” (*tower*, see?)

Tower Dolwyddelan

Up on the tower

Anyway, the place was really nice, and thanks to bad weather we were there alone. We decided to do some sketching inside, which went great, and we had an awesome soundtrack of the rain and howling wind – very Welsh! It was also by a farm, which had a batch of beautiful new oen bachs, which is the great thing about Easter in Wales too.

Oen bach

Afterwards the weather actually started improving, and we had some great time exploring pretty Welsh places, including the little bit they cut out of the national park, which I wanted to see and it’s actually not as bad as it sounds. We had late lunch in a super old cottage cafe in Aberdaron, and even went to the beach for a bit. By then the sun was already almost blasting. Iest did’t tell me it was on the peninsula though.

Saturday, April 4

On Saturday morning the weather was already great, so we decided to get back on track with our hiking. We decided to do the Moel Hebog ridge, not from Beddgelert but from Cwm Pennant. It was a good choice because Cwm Pennant is very pretty and we also got to pet a cute little day-old one bach, courtesy of a local farm boy. Afterwards we were all ready and ran up via an old quarry to the first peak of the ridge, Moel Lefn (638m). By then the sun was blasting on full force and we had awesome views toward our fav Yr Aran and Snowdon.

Cwm Pennant

Up Moel Lefn

Views from Moel Lefn

From Moel Lefn we followed the ridge over to Moel yr Ogof (655m) and Moel Hebog (782m). Later on Iest remembered that he should have some sunscreen on, so he slapped a bit of my usual sparkly one but too late anyway, and he acquired his first burn of the season. Up on Moel Hebog peak it was a bit windy, so we sat just under the top with our delicious lunch enjoying the views towards Porthmadog and the sea. Since we had plenty time we also did a bit of sketching from that spot before heading back to Cwm Pennant through path down below the ridge. Altogether a beautiful day.

Moel Ogof

Moel Ogof ridge

Moel Hebog peak

Moel Hebog sketching

Sunday, April 5
Another great day, Iest is burned but that did not stop us from selecting the Nantlle ridge for our day hike as we had not been on that one for years, literally, and it’s a pity because it’s one of the best. Early in the morning (early for us anyway), Iestyn’s dad gave us a lift to Nebo from which we started our trip. The clouds were laying low, sort of lazily snaking and rolling through the valley but we knew the sun was awaiting us just a little hike up the hill. We started our ascent from the lake Llyn Cwm Dulyn and by the time we made it up Mynydd Graig Goch (610m) we were down to the t-shirts. Happily merrily above the clouds we hopped over (yeah there was this almost vertical bit which we thoroughly enjoyed in the blasting sun) to Craig Cwm Silyn (734m).

Llyn Cwm Dulyn

Mynydd Graig Goch – Iest bottom left

Craig Cwm Silyn

From there it was already the usual deal – Mynydd Tal-y-Mignedd (653m) with the obelisk on top, and Trum y Ddysgl (709m), Mynydd Drws-y-Coed (695m) and Y Garn (633m). Then just down to Rhyd Ddu, where we were being picked up again, to make it to the Easter dinner. We were really quite tired from the day, may be not so much from the hike but more so from the day of sun, to which we are not used after the long and dark winter. It was all really nice though.

Looking toward the obelisk

Finishing up

Monday, April 6
On Monday we still had a good half day for some family visits and a short stop at Dinas Dinlle, before heading down to the train station. For this trip we did not have any reservations (we had open tickets), we expected the trains to be packed again, and we also knew that due to Euston being under construction, we had to take the long connection via Birmingham. The trip was truly awful, from B’ham onwards we were lucky to be sitting on a half-cheek in the corridor with no oxygen again. Many people in the later stations just plainly did not get on the train. It is really quite strange how the British people insist on the rail services being private in the face of absolutely massive market failures every single time one needs to make a train journey. It is quite obvious that even an incompetent, corrupted, lazy and drunk bureaucrat would central-plan the whole system better than it is run now. Nevertheless, we managed to get safely to Marleybone and then home, super tired but really happy with our Easter weekend.

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29
Dec 14

Yr Aran

An unscheduled trip to the dentist for Iestyn this morning meant that we couldn’t spend the whole day up in the mountains. We left Caernarfon (with Iestyn’s teeth feeling a bit better) at around 11:30am. Our plan was to tackle Moel Hebog circular walk, but as we didn’t have that much sunlight left, we decided to head up Yr Aran instead, as it’s a lovely walk – fantastic views, and relatively quiet mountain, once you get off the Rhyd-Ddu, Snowdon bound path.

We parked the van in Rhyd-Ddu’s car park, booted up, and headed up towards Yr Aran, along the gentle slope of the Rhyd-Ddu path. There wasn’t much people walking on it this afternoon, which was nice – the snowline started at around the 500m high mark – just as we got into the old quarry.

We stopped briefly stopped by the entrance to the lake by the quarry to strap on our gaiters, and another warm layer, as the wind had started to whistle down from the mountains. Gina lead the way, up following the wall and fence posts past Bwlch-Cwm Llan, around Y Geuallt and straight up the breezy summit of Yr Aran (747m).

Moel Hebog and Beddgelert

A very happy Gina

We stopped to enjoy the views, and had our lunch – pretty much exactly the same as yesterdays on the Glyderau – Cheese ‘n pickle sandwiches, Czech Xmas cookies, and a reindeer flask filled with mint tea. It was mighty cold on the summit, so we didn’t hang around too long. Just enough to enjoy the views, and admire Snowdon and Cwm Llan, as the rolling clouds came over.

Gina on the summit of Yr Aran

And with that, we headed down the same Rhyd-Ddu path, back down towards the van. The wee Welsh Highland Railway had just stopped in Rhyd-Ddu by the time we got there, so Gina went ahead and took a few pics as it chuffed away down the valley towards it’s home in Caernarfon. Another awesome day up in the Welsh mountains.

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28
Dec 14

Glyderau

After our beautiful, and relaxing Christmas break down in London, we headed to Wales from the 27th of December – to get in some hiking, and, as Wales had recently got it’s fresh dump of super powder snow on the mountains, we were in for a great time.

We woke up, first thing Sunday morning, and headed straight to Llanberis, as we needed some fresh hiking socks for Gina, as she had just bought herself a new pair of beautiful boots: Scarpa Ranger Lady – Gina was over the moon with them. After a swift purchase of her new socks, we jetted up Llanberis Pass, and parked the van in a wee lay-by just after Pen Y Gwryd (the expedition pub), booted up, and headed straight up the Southern flank of Glyder Fach. Once we hit the snow line, we knew we were in for a good day’s hike, as the wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, the snow was super fresh-powder, and the views were stunning.

Gina, Snowdon Horseshoe & her new boots

Snowdon Horseshoe

We powered up the hill, cutting through the epic balls-deep snow before reaching a nice wee plateau to which we stopped and had ourselves a lovely spot of lunch. As we bought up with us from London the beautiful Czech cookies that Gina baked for us, we thought that these would be a wonderful addition to our hiking snacks, and boy we were right: cheese ‘n pickle sandwiches, Czech xmas cookies and wonderful mint tea – perfect hiking foods.

Gina hiking in the snow

Snowdon Horseshoe

After a nice lunch, we headed right up towards the summit of Glyder Fach. We hadn’t seen a single soul all morning, and it wasn’t until we reached the top plateau that we found the other hikers traversing from Glyder Fach towards Glyder Fawr. We stopped over at Castell y Gwynt, where the views down the valley, and over towards Y Carneddau were majestical and Wintery. I took a few snaps of the ice covered rock formation over on Castell Y Gwynt, and looking across towards Glyder Fawr.

Gina hiking up Glyder Fach

Amazing views over towards Snowdon

Gina on Castell y Gwynt, with Pen yr Ole Wen behind.

Icy Castell y Gwynt & Glyder Fawr

From here, we traversed across to Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder, and stopped just shy of the summit of Glyder Fawr, as the sun was setting fast. We decided to head down a different route – from y Bwlch, straight down Bwlch Dwyglydion, and over to Llyn Cwmffynon. The sun was setting rather nicely, where we stopped for a breif moment to get some nice pictures.

Gina on Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder

Bwlch Dwyglydion – looking down towards Llyn Cwmffynon

Rather fantastic round trip, in glorious weather. Really nice to see Wales on top form!

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12
Jul 14

A short Welsh weekend

As Gina has recently moved to London (!!), it’s now going to be a lot easier for us to head to Wales when we feel like it. This is pretty much exactly what we did over the weekend. I took the late ferry from Dublin, and Gina caught the train up from London – and we’d be meeting in Holyhead around midnight. Perfect!

The train ride, and boat trip went without any hitches, and we met bang on time in Holyhead, where dad picked us up and took us home to Groeslon.

We got up super early, and after some hearty breakfast and catch-up with Mum and Dad, we decided to head up to the Welsh mountains – the Carneddau. The weather wasn’t particularly favourable – from down in the Ogwen Valley we couldn’t see the tops of the Carneddau, but we decided to head up anyhow, to stretch our legs, and because we’re cŵl like that.

We started from Llyn Ogwen, and belted up the steep slopes of Pen yr Ole Wen. The fog was thick from around the 600m mark, so just before heading in, we took a few snaps, as I had borrowed a friends Wide-angle lens for the weekend.

Gina & Cwm Idwal

What followed was a really refreshing 5 – 6 hour walk into the thick cloud, from Pen yr Ole Wen (978m), across and up to Carnedd Dafydd (1044m) across the ridge to Carnedd Llewelyn, a wee bit of scrambling before heading up to Pen yr Helgi Ddu, and then descending the road-path that leads from Ffynnon Llugwy down to the car. There was a few people up on the hills, as there was a ‘Vegan 10km’ race on – but me and Gina marched onwards, enjoying being out together in the hills.

Directly afterwards, we headed to one of our favourite eating places (especially after a big hike): Pete’s Eat. We had the usual Veggie Grill, with a massive mug of tea, and hot chocolate for me.

On the drive home on Saturday, I noticed that we might be in for a fantastic sunset, as the clouds were breaking up just above the horizon, so after quickly changing from our wet-hiking clothes, we dashed on down to Dinas Dinlle to catch the epic, fantastic pink sunset, which gave me an opportunity to play with another borrowed lens, a 60mm Macro lens which I’ve fallen in love with, while Gina took epic snaps with my iPhone for Instagram (something we’ve both adopted very well):

60mm Pebble shot

And that was it for Saturday night! We were both blasted by the day’s hard work, so we had an early night.

Sunday bought with it, much better weather, so after another super early start and hearty breakfast, we decided to go to Gina’s fave place in Wales: Ynys Llanddwyn, and as it was a super nice and sunny day – this was a great idea!

We jetted over in the van, blasting some sweet music from my younger days, to a fairly looking, busy Llanddwyn. Armed with an ice cream (and a chat with the ice cream vendor about my family – Wales is a small place) we made our way towards the island and lighthouse. Thankfully, the tourists were all crowded along the main entrance to the beach, once we past the first 100m walk, the tourists were no where to be seen, which was great.

Wide angled Gina, gallivanting

60mm flowers, sea and mountains

We made our way over and across towards the lighthouse, where we sat and chilled, and enjoyed the sun together. I (probably) burned my face because of the sun, but it was nice to be by the fresh sea, relaxing with Gins.

Macro Ynys Llanddwyn

Gins.

From Llanddwyn, we decided to head on over to Rhosneigr for a spot of lunch. Our main priority was pancakes (clown ones!), but the wee cafe was closed, so we decided to have some proper seafood – Gina went wild and had some lovely Rhosneigr Mussels, while I had traditional Fish ‘n chips – with mushy peas! It was fantastic.

And that was it, our short weekend had come to and end – we had to head back to Groeslon to pick up our bags, and catch our trains and ferry, back to London and Dublin.

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A short Welsh weekend

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