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Published: April 9th 2010
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Pembroke Castle
Our first castle of the trip After a short hiatus where I was back at work earning money to pay for these trips, I was back on the road again. Literally this time as Hannah and I used the Easter break to do a road trip through Wales and a couple of bordering English towns. We both managed to scoot out of work early and managed to beat the worst of the traffic out of London as we headed to Cardiff for our first stop to meet up with Brendan and Renee. Unfortunately Renee was busy working while Brendan lazed at home so he had the enviable task of keeping us entertained. We went out for a fantastic Italian dinner before a few pints of the interestingly named Brains beer. Cue all the zombie or 'what was it like for Hannah to have brains?' jokes.
The next morning we managed a brief glimpse of Renee as we all went out for a delicious breakfast before she had to head back to work. No rest for the wicked. Meanwhile the rest of us headed into town and Brendan showed us the sights, including where to get fantastic fresh Welsh cakes - think a cross between chocolate chip
Fishguard
The view over the bay from just down the road from our hostel cookies and pancakes. Then after saying our goodbyes, we continued our trip along the south coast to Swansea where we stopped before lunch before carrying along to Pembroke. We had a stop here to check out the castle before finishing up in Fishguard where I had one of the better hostels I have stayed at. Fishguard was a very small town, which seemed to be full of drunk Irishmen for the weekend - Leah you would have loved it.
The next morning we were up bright and earlyish as we headed into St Davids and spent a fair bit of time walking around a cathedral before heading out to Whitesands - the first time I had seen a beach (not counting the snow covered one in Finland) in ages! It was good to breathe the salty sea air again. Then we continued on our way right up through the heart of Snowdonia National Park, which was incredibly beautiful and did remind me of home. We stayed in a very out of the way place just outside of Porthmadog. Unfortunately this hostel was full of teenage Scousers who spent most of the night drinking so we didn't get a whole
Rock tomb
About 5,000 years old and it was part of a larger burial complex lot of sleep. On the bright side, we did satisfy our craving for Fish and Chips here (well Hannah had the fish and I got the burger), and they did provide a cooked breakfast in the morning.
So with our bellies groaning contentedly, we carried on with our first stop being a small town called Harlech, which we aimed at because of it's castle. Edward the 1st, the English King built up many castles in Wales in order to strengthen his hold over Wales and this one, along with one we visited later in the day at Conwy were two of the more impressive ones. From Harlech castle, there were incredible views over the countryside and they were even holding a medieval tournament inside the castle, but unfortunately we left before it began.
Next up we headed to Ffestiniog to jump on the old styled train to Llechwedd where we visited the slate mines. The journey itself was pretty scenic and the tour of the mines was very cool, especially the underground cavern lake. After the train journey back we headed north while stopping several times for photos over the valleys and mountain range that included Mt Snowdon,
Hannah cleaning her hands
Of course when you don't have napkins, what do you use? A tree.... the tallest mountain in the national park. We attempted to grab the train to head to the top but just missed out on the last one so we headed to the coast to Conwy, where we checked out our second castle of the day, and the largest that Edward the 1st built. As the sun set we walked a circuit around the walls before grabbing dinner in Betws-y-coed and finding our hostel, which was much more difficult than it seemed!
On our final day, we finally struck bad luck with the weather and had to abandon our plans to head up Mt Snowdin and check out Betws-y-coed and instead headed back into England to Chester where we did a circuit of the walled city and had hot chocolate and scones before heading along to Liverpool. Other than Leeds, it was the first big city I had visited in England and the first thing I noticed were the accents. Just brilliant - I have heard it said that Liverpool is the only place in the world where the guys voices are higher than the girls, and after this trip, I could definitely believe it. We wandered around the waterfront and
Snowdonia
The view of the National Park went up the Liverpool Wheel (pretty much the same as London Eye, but smaller) before some lunch and signing off our Liverpool visit with a trip via Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club. Hannah got her photo taken with one of their great managers while I got my photo outside the gate while wearing my Leeds jumper!
Then it was the long road back and we were lucky as the end of the long weekend traffic never materialised, but I was still quite disbelieving as we drove back. As the roads are so much straighter, the speeds that are cars are travelling are much higher as well. There was one point when I was cruising in the middle lane with cars in front and behind doing the same speed, and I looked down at the speedo and I was cruising at 150km ph! And I was getting easily overtaken in the outer lane! Ridiculous speeds compared to NZ where you think someone is a maniac for doing 130!
But we made it back safe and sound, and not surprisingly, a little early. So the end of another weekend away and only a few weeks to wait for
Harlech Castle #1
View over the countryside the next one as I have a long weekend booked in Estonia and Latvia at the end of April. So things are starting to get busier and more exciting as summer starts to creep it's way into the northern hemisphere. About time considering this time last year I was baking in 45 degree temperatures in Costa Rica!
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