More Welsh Railways and Slate

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Another rainy and cold day, this time riding on the Lake Llamberis railway, another former slate mine railway, which only runs a distance of about 2 miles along Lake Llamberis. The engines and carriages on this railway are tiny, with tall thin funnels.

On the return journey, we stopped off at the Welsh National Slate Museum where we happily whiled away a couple of hours learning about the history of slate mining in Wales, and lifestyles of the miners. We had the chance to see a slate splitting demonstration, and marveled at the biggest waterwheel within the British Isles that is still in its original and working position. While we had lunch, Little Cocky met up with some local school kids who were as interested in him as he was in them. At one stage we looked over to the playground and he was surrounded by about a dozen kids, all firing questions at him at a rapid pace.

As the afternoon drew to a close, and the weather began to draw in again, we took a ride on the Mt Snowdon railway. This is a very steep, rack and cog style railway, which was used to bring slate down from a number of mines high up in the mountains. After getting over our initial disappointment that it was a diesel and not a steam engine, we sat back and enjoyed the bumpy and steep trip to the top. It wasn’t far, but took about an hour to get to the top. We had a short break at the top of about half an hour, during which it was impossible to get any scenic photos due to the low cloud surrounding the summit. Then it was time for the ride back down. Being the last train for the day, the staff locked up the visitor’s centre as we left, and joined us on the train back down.

Sure enough, when we got back to Caernarfon and to the service laundry, the lady knew exactly who we were and where our laundry was. How she did it we don’t know, as the whole place looked like such a jumble! Our things were beautifully washed and folded, still warm when we unpacked them.
We had our last dinner back at the same restaurant, and then headed back to our room to prepare our bags and things ready to move on in the morning towards Reading.

LITTLE COCKY’S COMMENTS: The first train we went on was a little tiny train, and went around the lake. On the way back we went to the slate museum, where we learnt about the men who mined the slate and how they cut and split it into roof tiles. They had to make 128 slates to get paid for 100, in case some got broken. I met Welsh school kids and I told them everything about my friends and school. They said that I talked funny, but I think that they did! One of the kids used to live in Australia and wants to go back because he likes snakes and Australia has 9 of the top 10 snakes in the world.

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