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Published: January 27th 2012
Today we set out on a quest to see the coast of Wales - by foot. The city of Cardiff itself is not right on the coast (the water being the Bristol channel which eventually goes out to the Atlantic) but a borough of the city, called Cardiff Bay, sits (surprise!) on Cardiff Bay. The actual bay is separated from the channel by a series of large locks. We'd heard that Cardiff Bay (the city) is known for being one of Europe's most modern waterfront complexes, so we wanted to check it off the list. So we started walking in what we thought was the right direction, and didn't feel the need to consult a map. We were going the right way, but what we didn't realize was that we were on the wrong side of the river that flows through Cardiff, so we followed the water along to a completely different side of the bay, to a town called Penarth. And we are glad we found it! The highlight was walking by the International White Water Centre, which was this awesome complex designed for white water kayaking! We could walk around the man made track and watch people go round
and round. I think anyone can decide to go kayaking and get in a boat and go (for a cost)!
The next area we encountered was a community that was right on the water, probably on some old docklands. This area was right at the edge of Cardiff Bay, at the edge of the locks that keep Cardiff Bay separate from the Bristol Channel. The otherside of this picturesque little community sat under some very steep cliffs. Penarth is on top of the cliffs.
The locks are actually a massive structure, because the tides in the channel are quite extreme. We were there at low tide, and could see the high tide mark way up on the edge of the dam. The dam is there to keep the water in Cardiff Bay when the tide goes out. Three locks allow boats to come and go, and a fish ladder is there too. One neat benefit of this setup is that all of the water in the bay is actually fresh water. Much nicer for sailing and swimming!
Once we were finished examining the locks, we hiked our way (along the road) to the top of the cliffs
to see the panoramic view of the ocean. The town of Penarth looks different than the other Welsh communities we saw on this trip. The architecture was more from a Victorian era than from medieval. Other than walking along the cliff and exploring the town, there wasn't a whole lot to do in the town. Before leaving, we walked back down off the cliffs and we strolled along the waterfront, which had a huge pier out into the water. I'm sure this town is much busier in summer. Since we had walked about 7 miles so far, we elected to fork out the £2.70 each take the train back to Cardiff.
When we got back, we still wanted to visit Cardiff Bay, so we first switched to a different hotel (called The Big Sleep Hotel) because it was slightly cheaper (£29 per night). We were determined to have a traditional British Sunday night roast, and thought maybe we could find a place in Cardiff Bay, or just come back to cardiff for it after. We started off walking again, and it turns out if you go the right way, it's actually quite close! The walk was about 15 minutes
from the hotel and we reached this built up area of restaurants right on the water. There wasn't much to see - it was dark, pretty deserted and there were only restaurants there. It was cute, but we didn't want to eat alone in a restaurant so we spent 10 minutes walking around and left. The area looked new and very North American, but it was nice. We were happy we went the wrong way this morning.
When we got back to town (around 6:30 pm) we spent almost a half hour wandering around trying to find the place we wanted to go for our roast, and when we finally did, we found that they stopped serving food at 6pm. Fail. So we went to another place that we saw had Sunday night roast, and they were sold out. Fail. The guy at the bar said we'd be lucky to find a roast dinner at this late hour of 7pm! Apparently in the UK you eat dinner at happy hour or your out of luck. My question is: Do we get the seniors discount if we eat earlier than 5 o'clock? And, do we need white sneakers to get
CIWW: Going Back to the Top of the Rapids
From the top of the rapids, people ride the man made river down into Cardiff Bay. Then, they paddle over to this huge conveyer that takes them back to the top of the rapids so they can do it again. How fun does that sound?!?!in?
So eventually we gave up and just went to the cheapest pub we could find for any food they could serve us. Sunday night roast was a big fail, we'll have to try again another time.
As it turns out, the failures continued on Monday!
On Monday, we were supposed to leave Cardiff to go back to London so that Mike could get to his afternoon classes. Apparently, the tickets we purchased were to go home next Monday, not today. The name of the responsible party will not be mentioned.... But, we only realized the mistake when were in line to get on the bus at 8am. We still tried to get on, but unfortunately they had a guestlist, which we weren't on. (When we left for Cardiff from London, the driver only glanced at the email reservation on our phone to make sure we were on the right bus - he didn't look at the date, so we were hoping the same thing would happen. The bus company wanted a whopping £54 to change our ticket (when we only paid £11 for the tickets in the first place!), or £50 to buy two new tickets.
Unwilling to pay such a rate, we waited around and found cheaper tickets later in the day. In the end, we paid £21 for a new ride home. On the upside, if we want to come back from Cardiff again next weekend, we can!
Lesson Learned: always double-check your dates or you may end up staying for an extra week! Hopefully the same thing doesn't happen in Edinburgh next week!
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