YAY
The weather decided to half play ball, while it was still drizzling on and off at least it wasn't raining hard and we could get out and do things again! Starting in Ganllwyd with a beautiful waterfall walk, through thick green grassy farm land with old bridges and ruins from old farm houses, mossy and damp woods and around a gorgeous lake. Waterfalls covered this place, every crack or down hill slant there was a waterfall, and because of all the rain of recent, they were gushing!! What a beautiful place! After our walk and a cup of tea we went to Coed-y-Brenin into a forest/park with great biking and walking tracks all over. We opted for a small walk along the river before stumbling across a shower block. We were stoked about that, only a pound for 3 mins, and thats all we needed so we grabbed our stuff and off we went, 3 blissful minutes in a hot shower!!
Next up on our list was the Harlech Castle, we went and seen it and decided against sneaking in or paying, while it was a nice castle I couldn't be bothered to climb these walls, they were too big and people were everywhere. Off we went to Betwsy-y-Coed a place we fell in love with. To get here we drove through amazing beautiful mountains, which we were surrounded by, we passed plenty of waterfalls and beautiful rivers, snow capped most of the mountains and there was no one about. A small town population of maybe 1000 people, one main street with two small dairies and about 6 hiking and camping shops, the rest of the buildings where all BnB's and hotels. This little town is almost dead in the winter but in the summer months it all gets a bit crazy, like Queenstown. There was free parking everywhere and we had lakes and waterfalls and mountains all around us to be walked. A great spot to stay for a few days while we explore. Our first day we braved the rain and headed out on a hard going 2 hours walk around a lake before making tea and hitting the sack.
Aaron's dad Andrew came out to see us the next day for a 'small walk around the lakes' and then relax in the pub. We had other ideas, we decided to pick the biggest, best, most scenic walk for Andrew seeing as he'd driven all the way from Leek to see us. So off we went on our little adventure, up and down the hills, through the woods and around the lakes. What a beautiful place!! Really amazing. By the time we were finished our legs were hurting and we were feeling very tired. We walked 9.1 miles!! Thats 14.55km!! Talk about exercise!! Feeling good we headed back to Andy's BnB showered and went out for dinner. What a nice day it had been! The next morning Andy left for home and we walked to Conwy falls, it had poured down rain the night before and the waterfall was overflowing!! It was massive, the roar it made was impressive, I could hardly talk over the noise, we walked 2 miles back to the town got in the car and decided we would drive to a small town near us to walk around another supposedly stunning lake. When we arrived at the lake I was disappointed with the lake and wasn't up for it at all, we drove around passed lots of mountains when Aaron suddenly pulled over and said, lets climb this mountain!! Tryfan.
No. Immediately the answer was no, I didn't want to. This mountains nickname is 'the dinosaurs back'. Its hands and knees climbing and very scary. Andrew had done it a few years back and was telling us just how scary and intense and UNSAFE it was to climb. So my mind was made up. I wasn't climbing it, no way. Too bad Aaron said, he was going to do it with or without me and that meant me waiting in the van for a good few hours. I kept telling him I wasn't doing it, as I put on my boots. Im not going I said as I grabbed my jacket and scarf, your stupid and your gonna hurt yourself I was saying as I dragged myself out of the van. How was it that I was walking up to this beast?? Aaron was smiling and I was dreading this. WHY AM I DOING THIS I thought. I have no goal I told Aaron, I'm going to climb and when my feet stop I'm stopping, nothing further. Aaron agreed and slowly we made our way up the start of the mountain. It wasn't long before we were grabbing onto rocks about us jamming our feet into small gaps and pulling our selves up the mountain bit by bit.
A few times my brain told me to stop, we were way to high now and this was getting dangerous, but my feet were trying to be all mighty and show off and they just kept going, I had no goal, I was just gonna keep going, it started to get really exciting and I could feel the adrenaline rush!! I sat down for a moment to breath, I was on the 'path' and sat down on a rock and looked out at the view then I looked down. WOW. Thats a very long way down and thats just right there by my feet, I took a quick snap and kept moving, my heart was pumping from the realisation of how close we were to the edge, we were literally scrambling along the rocks from one to the other on the very edge of a crazy mountain named Tryfan.
We had just climbed over a very scary rock that we had to cling to if we didn't want to fall and die when two huge army jet planes screamed through the mountains!! What a noise! And what a feeling, they were BELOW us! We were so high up this mountain when these jets just blasted through below us, I couldn't believe that had just happened and we had gotten such a big fright! Thank goodness we weren't still climbing that rock or we might have let go!! Our hearts were pounding heard and we were smiling like idoits at what we had just experienced! Sooo cool! Another hour of climbing and we reached our limit, my arms and legs were sore and my feet finally said no more, we were only half and hour from the top but it was starting to get quite late and the sun would be going down soon, our aim was to go until we couldn't go anymore, and the next day we were climbing Snowdon, so we were happy with where we got to and started our decent back down the mountain, which by the way, is just as hard as going up, its very steep and intense. We reached the bottom, high fived and ate food.
The next day was Snowdon, the third highest mountain in Great Britain. The views were spectacular. Snowdon is in the national park, snowdonia. Well known for the mountain ranges all through out the national park. We started our 6 hour hike, there are 6 different tracks up snowdon and we picked the miners track to climb up and the Pyg track to come down on. The miners track started off easy, mostly a flat walk around mountains, and beside two big lakes and then all of a sudden the track went up… up, up, up!!
Snowdon Mountain is the peak of three mountains joint together so we were surrounded by beautiful nature, snow covered the tops of the mountains and we couldn't even see the peak of Snowdon as there was cloud covering it. We walked and walked until we hit the snow and ice. A few people were already walking down the mountain, some stopped to tell us we simply wouldn't make the top as it was too icey. A little bit annoyed and feeling gutted we pushed on determined to get as far as we possibly could, aiming for the top. The path had disappeared under the snowy ice and were we braving our way, putting our feet where we had seen others put theres, never walking on ice that hadn't been walked on already, there were a few points where i stopped and looked down and thought 'if I slip on this ice now, I'll die.' It was fun and we were enjoying the walk. We stopped for lunch right up the very top, we were 15minutes from the peak and we needed a rest, plus it was beginning to get too icey and we needed to stop and think about how/if we could tackle the last leg. It was windy and just above us was the cloud sitting on the peak. A few people came down and reported to us that nearing the top was a gap only a foot wide covered in thick ice, they were saying it we would only be able to make it if we had ice picks and crampons like everyone else did… after some thinking and ummm-ing and ahhhh-ing we decided we would leave it. It was too big of a risk had we slipped. We were 15minutes from the top and we got the best views we possibly could, so satisfied we'd made it as far as we did we headed back down the mountain. What a beautiful day.
Next up Aarons sister Beth and her husband Rich came out to see us, we spent the day walking on the beach and enjoyed a meal in a nice pub, its always good to see people you know when your on the road, its a good change from only having each other!
Penrhyn Castle was the next biggie on our journey. It is the only castle we wanted to pay for as it was still fully furnished with the same decor and furnishings as they had when Lady and Lord Penrhyn lived there. We walked through the gardens, through the kitchens and store rooms, the dinning rooms and living rooms, the bedrooms and kids play rooms, the library, billiard room and the study it was all amazing, and i was fascinated with how they lived, all so very posh and old, very very cool!
The next two days we decided to climb another two mountains a bit smaller than Snowdon but much harder!! Moel Hebog and Moel Siabod. Straight up steep banks, both were covered in snow at the top, but no ice so it wasn't as dangerous to make the peak. We made a small snowman and enjoyed the last few days in Snowdonia.
Wales was good to us, we enjoyed the change from being on the coast all the time in England to being inland and enjoying mountains and waterfalls and forests in Wales.
Time to get back to England now, we have friends and family to visit and we need to get our vaccinations finished for Asia and Aaron's residency for NZ sorted. We will resume our travels in two weeks time when we will be heading up to Scotland.
Thanks Wales.
You were amazing!!
N.B. Due to unforeseen circumstances we will no longer be travelling Ireland.
