A Wales Tale – Part 3

 AKA – A Day of Really Old Stuff

Sunday morning brought intense pain in my legs from our super hike the day before, but it also brought with it sunshine.  We packed up our campsite, and headed into town for some breakfast .  On a side note, why must all English (or Welsh) breakfasts be entirely made up of meat?  Some of us are not excited by the idea of two different types of sausages, and bacon along with eggs, beans, mushrooms and tomatoes.

Gross!  Who wants to eat this  for breakfast?

Anyway, after breakfast, we decided to take a walk around the tarn (for you Americans, that’s a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier.) 

Our walk led us past the old slate quarry.  Closed in 1969, the quarry now is home to the Welsh National Slate Museum (free) and the Quarry Hospital Museum (free).  It’s also a popular destination for climbers who scale the slate faces.  

Not my idea of a good time, but whatever floats your boat I guess… 

In addition, the pool at the foot of the slate cliffs is popular with the diving set, although there’s not much down there to see.

Again, not my idea of a good time… 

After checking out the slate quarry, knowing that all Americans love castles, Sarka and Al took us over to see the remnants of Dolbadarn Castle.  Originally built in the early 13th century by the Princes of Gwynedd, not much remains of the castle besides one circular tower.  While I pretended to be unimpressed (mostly due to the fact that I had to walk my poor aching legs up a hill to see it), I still had a good time checking the castle remains out. 

After we visited the boring, tiny castle, we drove out to Anglesey to check out the seriously awesome Beaumaris Castle.  Anglesey is an Isle located in the north-west of Wales, just a short drive from the Snowdonia area.  It can be reached  by either the newer Britannia Bridge, or the extremely impressive Menai Bridge.  One of the first suspension bridges, Menai Bridge was built back in 1826, and still spans the divide between Anglesey and the mainland today. 

Snowdonia as seen from the coast of Anglesey 

While I love all castles, both great and small, Beaumaris Castle for two reasons.  1) The brochure referred to it as the most “technically perfect” castle in Wales and 2) it has a real moat.  I was intrigued by the fact that the castle was considered “technically perfect”, and my sister Mini-Deal is obsessed with moats, so I figured that Beaumaris Castle would be a great castle to visit.  (BTW, when I told Mini-Deal of the moat, she was disappointed that toothed creatures were not in there to eat invaders.  Guess you can’t please everyone)

I stole this aerial so readers could get a sense of the overall layout of the castle.

Begun in 1295 for Edward I’s campaign to conquer Wales, it was never finished as Edward I, being a typical English King, lost interest in Wales and turned his attention elsewhere instead (Scotland).  Regardless, it remains an excellent example of concentric castle building.  It really is an interesting example of castle architecture.  Upon doing some research, I found out that the castle gate features meurtrières (murder-holes), which are totally cool.  If I had realized they were there, or thought to look up, I would have taken a few photos.  For those of you not obsessed with castles like me, murder-holes are almost exactly what they sound like – holes in the ceiling through which to murder invaders.  In the case of castle defense, boiling oil was often poured through the holes to discourage the breaking down of the castle gates.

At this point, a great number of readers are probably suffering from exactly what the folks at Beaumaris Castle warned of: Warning: History Overload

They were also kind enough to warn of the following:

If you try and abduct a child, you will break your ankle, fall down the stairs and be attacked by killer seagulls.

  This sign was placed with the knowledge that Allister would be visiting

While Al climbed the walls (literally) and he and Kevin ran around in all the secret tunnels, I took the time to take a few pictures:

  

After the castle, we headed to our new campground, but not before stopping at a neolithic burial chamber on the way that Allister had heard of, Bryn Celli Ddu.  It consists of a mound at the center of a henge.  Not only is it a burial mound, but its also an ancient observatory that has been hypothesized to mark the summer solstice.  The coolest part for me was the carving on the center henge stone. 

 

We made our way to our campsite, had a barbeque, consisting entirely of meat.  Apparently the spicy pork steaks and spicy sausages were lovely, but I stuck to the burgers.  After dinner, we drove down to the beach and walked around a bit. Naturally, Sarka and I took photos while Kev and Al acted like monkeys in the sand dunes and took ridiculous photos.

That night, I froze my butt off even more than usual.  Come to find out, it had snowed overnight.  No wonder I was so cold…

    

Overall, I had a fantastic time in Wales.  I’d love to go back again and see more of the beautiful country.  I highly recommend a trip to anyone in that corner of the world.

A Wales Tale – Part 2

AKA What Happens When You Hike With Seasoned Climbers

Saturday morning started with relatively sunny skies and no rain, which was perfect in keeping with our plan of hiking Snowdon. While it may not have been raining, it was freezing, so we all geared up for the cold.  I, being the person who is always the most cold, decided to wear thermals underneath my clothing along with a microfleece and jacket while Kevin, Sarka and Allister stuck with regular hiking clothes and a jacket.  After a breakfast of sausage buns (or a bagel in my case), we set off on our 20K roundtrip hike.  Right away, I had to start removing layers, having been overzealous with my layers.  By the time we reached the actual trail, I had removed all the layers I possibly could (with the exception of my Tuukka Rask Bruins shirt.  I couldn’t let the fact that I was in Wales hiking interfere with my donning of at least one Bruins item a day during the playoffs.  The last two times I didn’t wear something  both resulted in Bruins losses the next day!)  However, I was still wearing a pair of thermals under my jeans, which was a seriously bad idea since it caused me to almost die of heat exhaustion.  Needless to say, we had just started the actual hike and not only was I the only one pouring sweat, but I was already lagging behind.

Wait for me!

We decided to take the tourist route up the mountain as we didn’t want to try and take Floss on the bus.  The tourist route is the longest route, but it is pretty much a graded path, so it is much less difficult than the other routes.  It pretty much follows the train tracks up the mountain, which can be quite discouraging when you are gasping for air and a train full of fatties passes you.

                                                                        Cheater Train

However, taking the tourist path turned out to be a wise decision due to the fact that I am a snail compared to Sarka, Allister and Floss.  Kevin usually isn’t that much faster than me, unless he is with the hiking superstars, and in that case, he leaves me in the dust.

Everyone’s waiting for me - again

Snowdon is the highest peak in Wales, and the highest peak in the UK outside of Scotland.  It stands at 1,085 meters (3,560 ft for you Americans), which makes it the same absolute height as another mountain I have climbed – Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.  (Come to think of it, I was lagging and sweating bullets on this hike too.  Maybe it’s just me?)  Because of its height, it should come as no surprise that the mountain has some of the wettest (and coldest) weather in the UK.  In fact, there was still remnants of snow on some of the peaks as we climbed.

Floss is glad she is wearing a fur coat up here

The other incredible thing about Snowdon is the fog. In the span of 5 minutes, it went from clear to so foggy you could barely see the path.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The time between the first and the third pictures was only 5 minutes!

We had a contest walking up revolving around who could guess the number of people at the summit.  I guessed last and guessed 167 at which point everyone laughed at me for picking such a high number.  When we finally got to the top – it was insane. I won by far, and I even underestimated the number of people.

A fantastic photo by Sarka.  No, those aren’t pointy rocks – those are people waiting to reach the summit!

Even though I absolutely detest crowds – I managed to get up to the top to get the obligatory photo.

Go Bruins!

Notice how I look like I just died and Kev and Al look fine

         View from atop

After a quick rest and food break, we decided to get the heck off the summit and away from the annoying crowds, once again with me carrying the rear.  While it was good to be able to say “I hiked the highest peak in Wales”, I think I’ll stick to the slightly smaller peaks next time – if only to avoid the annoying crowds.

A Wales Tale – Part 1

This past weekend was one of the many, many bank holidays here in England, so Kevin and I thought it would make the perfect weekend for a quick getaway.  We had been wanting to go to Wales and hike Snowdon for awhile, but either the weather never cooperated or we were busy.  Luckily, our friends Sarka and Allister used to live in North Wales, and were free this weekend so we decided to take a camping trip to North Wales with built in guides. 

We set off Friday afternoon, in the little VW camper van that could, affectionately called Lucie by her owner Sarka, with about 20 pounds of meat, a box full of beer, camping gear, and our co-pilot Floss. We were all amped up to go camping, hiking  and (for Kevin and Al) drink  beer and eat meat.  However, Floss had no sooner stopped her start of a car ride barking when we hit a queue. (For you normal English speakers, that’s a line of traffic).  What should have been a 3 hour car ride wound up taking 5 1/2 (with a short stop at McDonalds right over the Welsh Border.  That makes 8 countries of McDonalds in my quest to eat a double cheeseburger in every country.)  It seems all of England was out on the motorways for the bank holiday.  Regardless, we finally made it to our campsite just before dark. 

Lucie.  Jeremy Clarkson, eat your heart out!

Like smart women, Sarka and I left the men to set up the tent while we took Floss for a walk.   The campsite was nestled in between mountains just outside the village of Llanberis, where Sarka and Al used to live.  

The view from our campsite

When we arrived back at the campsite from our walk, Kevin and Allister had finished setting up our tent and started on a beer, after which we decided to head up to the pub to grab a pint or two and check out the band.  When we walked in, I immediately knew we were in for an interesting night as we were easily the most attractive people at the bar and 3/4 of the clientele appeared to be in high school.  Allister likened it to the  Star Wars bar)which had me hearing that annoying song in my head all night.   The band was horrible.  The clientele was straight out of Star Wars.  We had a guy named Trevor come over with the line “oh, I thought I knew you” as he grabbed Sarka and I who proceeded to talk to Sarka all night about ridiculous things.  The most entertaining thing was when he went on an on about how alcohol ruins lives and its taken him 30 years to get away from the evils of alcohol at which point he informed us that he was drinking a Rum and Coke.  Luckily, he finally went away and we hurried out of the place once we had finished our pints.  As it was supposed to rain the next day, we headed to bed with the intention of hiking Snowdon as long as it wasn’t pouring.

A Sign of the Times

If there is one thing British people love more than queuing, it’s road signs.  However, to the American tourist, they can be quite confusing.  Here’s my translation for some of the signs I have come across so far:

  Caution: Drunk Driver Ahead

 Stunt Team At Work

Horses must also obey the speed limit

Tipping of Cows is taken very seriously over here

Pedophile in residence: Police take note

and finally, my personal favorite

Area known to be frequented by elderly pickpockets

or

Caution: Handsy Elderly People Ahead

I Sea Wood

Well, after the world's worst travel day, I finally arrived in Ulverston for the first time since the beginning of December. (I note this because there has only been one blog entry since December, as Kevin was left in charge of the blog...) Since I had such a stressful day traveling Sunday/Monday, I decided to stay close to Ulverston on my first day back. On one of my prior trips, Kevin and I visited Birkrigg Stone Circle, which is located near Bardsea, just on the outskirts of town. When we visited the stone circle, we parked in an area that was posted as "Sea Wood". When I did a little research online, I found out that Sea Wood is a 58 acrea area of woods located along the sea (hence the name) owned by Woodland Trust. One thing you don't see a lot of in England is heavily wooded areas, so I decided the woods would be interesting to visit.

Also appealing to my love of British History, the property was once owned by Lady Jane Grey who, if memory serves me correctly, was England's shortest reigning Queen. She managed to last 9 days as Queen before being beheaded in 1554. Even in his death, Henry VIII was responsible for the beheading of another young Queen. Jane Grey was the great-niece of Henry VIII, and was convinced by her family to assume the throne after Henry's only son, Edward, died. Her reign lasted 9 short days, all of which she was confined to the Tower of London before she was executed due to her father's involvement in the Wyatt rebellion against Queen Mary. Talk about having bad parents!

Sea Wood is a little over 3 miles from Kevin's flat by way of the Coast Road. Since I am a champion walker and the sun was shining, I decided to head out on foot. The Coast Road is a scenic drive to Barrow along the Morcambe Bay, so the walk along the ocean and past farm land was quite enjoyable.


However, the walk quickly became very horrible when I past a farm that was literally spraying manure on the field. It smelled worse than hockey equipment in a hot car, chicken poop and Roo after she eats peppers combined. I literally almost vomited. However, a pair of bicyclists found my exclamation of "OH Dear Lord, what is that horrible smell!!!" while I started running very amusing. At least I entertained someone...

If you ever see a truck spraying something out the back, RUN!

The walk to Sea Wood takes you past Holy Trinity Church in Bardsea, which I had admired from the road many times and never gotten a chance to photograph.

When I finally arrived at Sea Wood, I was glad that I had made the trek out there. The woods were beautiful and peaceful and I hit the perfect time of year as all the flowers were in bloom. It looked exactly like the kind of place Mumsy would enjoy, and if I lived her all the time, I think I would frequent the area with a book in hand. As I am a world-class nerd, the woods immediately brought to mind Lothlorien as I pictured fair-haired elves.

Instead of walking back the same way, I took part of the Cumbrian Coastal Way, a series of footpaths leading along the coast from Silverdale to Gretna on the Scottish Boarder. The stretch of the Coastal Way from Bardsea to Ulverston is especially pretty as it winds along Morcambe Bay and passes farm land and Conished Priory.