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| 11.07.2014 - 14.07.2014 |
My North Wales jaunt started off in England, in Shrewsbury,
where I dropped Kate off for a train. She had a wedding to go to before coming
back – so I had a week on my own to knock the north off!
Having such a short time limit it was a shame to spend my
first night in a camp site – but camp site it must be due to the whole
overflowing toilet situation. So I headed back in to Montgomery and what turned
out to be an enormous static caravan park. The chap put me in this lovely spot
next to the river – but I spent the whole time tapping away on the laptop
anyway, and I was miles from the miniscule toilet block. The place was packed,
but
completely empty. Every pitch was
a season pitch, and since it was a week day there was not a soul around –
really rather creepy!
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| My ghost town right on the river. |
In the morning I headed east and up a winding valley to the
Pistyll Rhaedr waterfall. It was such a dead-end, isolated area I was surprised
to see so many cars out there – turns out there was a wedding going on. So I
climbed to the top of the waterfall, a 240 foot drop it is the highest in
Wales. Up there, health and safety be damned – no fences. You (and countless
others) can just wander to the edge of the cliff. Once I clambered back down
the wedding party had wrapped up the ceremony and were rocking out the folk
music in the tearooms.
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| From the top of Pistyll Rhaedr |
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| The falls |
Harlech Castle on the east coast sounded interesting, so I
took the more interesting mountain passes to get there eventually. Passing
through Llangynog was a treat, as the hills of these isles gradually grew into
something resembling mountains and I travelled up a mountain valley. You don’t
know how much you miss mountains until you see them again, and marvel!
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| The lovely roads of Wales |
I arrived in the charming town of Y Bala, in the Snowdonia
National Park. I drove around the Llyn Tegid (a lake) and then went to
visit the visitor centre.
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| Llyn Tegid |
Arriving at the visitor centre, I found a very flash modern
building, all circular and slopes and that – completely overgrown. It was like
a modern derelict, really rather fascinating! I did some Googling and BBC news
told me the locals were well-pissed that so much money had been pissed in to
something that closed five years after opening. I thought it’d be fun and novel spot to park for the night, so
I did.
Heading out in the morning, the laybys by the nearby lake
Llyn Celyn were just
stunning. The
lake was as glass. A derelict visitor centre carpark didn’t hold a candle – oh
well, can’t win all the spots!
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| Llyn Celyn |
I took the most windy, valley-like A roads I could find,
which saw me past Llan Ffestiniog and more wonderful mountain passes to the
charming seaside village of Harlech. Harlech Castle was the draw – it had seen
a lot of action with three sieges over 350 years. Fascinating place. It was
originally surrounded on three sides by the sea, but in the last 700 years the
sea has withdrawn and the defending seafront walkway (which kept the castle fed
through the lengthy sieges) now awkwardly leads down to a bunch of caravan
parks and sports fields. Never-the-less you can walk the 40ft castle walls all
the way around, and the view from one of the main towers is spectacular.
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| Harlech Castle |
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| The view - that was all sea when the castle was built |
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| The keep |
I’d done some weather homework and decided to tackle Mt
Snowdon on the Sunday, since the weather was a bit balls on Saturday. So with
some time to spare I jumped north up the A4085 to Caernarfon to pick up some
food and that.
Heading up this neat windy road, I had my first scrape with
a rock wall when I came across a tour bus and a roadworks sign all at once. The
bus wasn’t going to go back, and my mirror wasn’t close to scraping the wall –
so I inched by and then heard the squeal as the bumper and bits of the right of
Dorothy scraped along the wall. I was not that happy about it, but it was bound
to happen eventually and only cosmetic damage done.
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| TRAGEDY! |
I also had another fun driving incident on this trip, with
an old woman in a new Golf. I had just driven maybe 300 metres down a
single-lane, no passing places bit – and then she came around a corner. I could
kindof see there was heaps of room just behind her, but she refused to back. So
I started backing and eventually made it to a tiny passing place, way too small
for both me and the opposing Golf. Then a guy came up behind me, and we both
did a backward shuffle for a while before I decided this was just bonkers. There
was no-where behind us where both me and the dude behind could get out of the
way of this lady. So I edged forward, and the old woman was forced to attempt
backing.
All she had to do was go directly backward. First thing she
did was turn her wheel sharp and nose in to the bank, then the other bank, and
slowly but surely she dodgemed back to this ridiculous spot. Glaring, I passed
her by, just to see the biggest bloody passing place in the world right behind
her! Gosh the locals must find it a right pain in the ass.
After stocking up on food I headed up to Penrhyn Castle.
Build by Lord Penrhyn and his successors, Victorian magnates of the sugar and
slate industries, the place is obscenely grandiose. Grotesquely decadent I have
jotted in my notebook! 300 rooms, it’s just ridiculous. In the former stables
they had a wee train museum which was cool also.
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| Penrhyn Castle |
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| This cabinet would be cool in the pewl room. |
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| Some of the extreme craftpersonship in the grand staircase. |
For the evening I headed to a layby on the shores of lake
something, south of Llanberis. The lake is part of the Dinorwig powerstation, and I noticed the lake was significantly lower when I woke in the
morning! The power station pumps water out of the lake in the evening when
there’s little power demand and stores it in a huge reservoir in the mountain.
Then when the early-evening demand for electricity comes on, they release all
the water through massive turbines and back in to the lake to meet the power
demand. Cool! Kate and I had played with a wee hands-on demo of this exact idea
in the Centre for Alternative Technology so it was cool to see it in motion.
After I had refreshed a little, I headed to the nearby
Dolbadarn Castle. Just a tower between the lakes, it was a 12th century fort to defend the mountain pass. Though there is little to see the
scenery is quite something, a romantic spot!
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| Dolbadarn Castle tower |
Just around the corner was the National Slate Museum. Even
the name bored me so I wasn’t going to go, but I overheard someone saying it
was great. I was glad I did go in the end! Built in the old Penhryn Quarry
workshops, the place still runs the enormous waterwheel which powered all the
belt-driven machinery that maintained all the tools and infrastructure of the Victorian quarry. This was the slate quarry that Lord Penrhyn got loaded from
which allowed him to build the obscene castle mentioned earlier in this post!
Top bits of the slate museum were the working 80ft waterwheel
and all the old machine tools, wooden foundry templates and the belts and
connections all leading back to that one mighty axle on the waterwheel. The
human side was great too – a fantastic photo and story gallery which explained
some of the friction between workers and owners, and a retired slate shaper
chap who came in to do a slate shaping demonstration. Part of our viewing group
were some young Welsh teenagers, and he gave them heaps in Welsh, with them
replying in turn. It was nice to see the language being used and I could see
where the cheeky Welsh get it from!
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| Old blacksmithing tools |
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| Slate shaping demo |
My knees were not enthusiastic but I dragged them from the
museum into the neighbouring quarry hills - part of the Padarn Country Park. You are able to explore up
there, and there’s a zig-zag path that leads up to the old Anglesea barracks, 1860 or so. So I went up there, seeing amazing views and lots of old
Victorian quarry sheds and infrastructure – and then found the barracks. It was
very isolated, wild and just super bloody cool. The views of the valley were
stunning from up there too.
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| Views from the zig-zag quarry path |
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| The relics of the Anglesea barracks, above the quarry in the Padarn Country Park. So cool! |
On my way out of Snowdonia National Park I stopped for some
gorgeous views of the now-clear mountains – it was a special moment!
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| The sweet mountain pass roads out of Snowdonia. |
On my way out I had a look at the Swallow falls. These were
pretty shit really, and I had to pay £1.50 for the privilege so I wasn’t that
impressed. What was fun was the family ahead of me. Inserting £1.50 into the
turnstile, the dad and teenage son crammed in together and penquin-stepped
their way through the stile – only to have the elderly kiosk attendant lay into
them about being caught on CCTV. Turns out that family had seen me climbing
down Snowdon as they’d been climbing up the previous day - EXCITING TIMES.
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| Swallow Falls - meh. |
Heading to the mighty dual carriageway of the A55 ‘North
Wales Expressway’, I popped in to Bodnant Gardens. These are touted as some of
the finest in the land – and they were okay,
sure, but my knees were screaming and I just wasn’t in the zone for lovely gardens.
The coach loads of crones arriving every minute also made me feel like quite
the old fart!
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| Bodnant Gardens |
The Rough Guide had suggested the only good place to visit
in North Wales is Conwy, with the rest of the coast just being miles and miles
of caravan parks interspersed with gaudy rides and carnival shit. I visited Conwy Castle and found it surprisingly
intact, donned with six towers and additional higher towers on four of those. Really
interesting to prowl around.
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| The castle-themed 1820's suspension bridge and slightly later rail bridge - 'castle themed' so as to not spoil the castle view at Conwy! |
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| A panorama from one of Conwy Castle's many towers |
I snapped a pic of the ‘smallest house in Britain’ and had a
look-in – not much smaller than the inside of the van, I wasn’t horrified at
all! Nearby was Aberconwy house, a 12 century house on Conwy’s main street. I
enjoyed the angles and creaks in the floor, the woodwork of craftsmen long-gone
and the tales of its various uses throughout the centuries.
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| The smallest house - pretty pokey. |
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| Aberconwy House and the main street looking up to the castle - Conwy. |
I then got on the slower coastal route out of Wales and saw
the kilometres of caravan and theme parks for myself – all flashing light
arcades and that. Not my cup of tea these days! So it was with a bit of a
stinker final glimpse of Wales that I departed back to England (without even
noticing the boundary) and picked Kate up for our continuing journey north.
Thoroughly enjoyed Wales! So much to see and do, and such
different regional feelings within such a small space. Felt a bit like home
with the open space, the sheep and the varied and empty landscapes. Top stuff!
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