June 10, 2013 - Monday
John cooked a full Welsh
breakfast for us and then stayed around to chat with us while we ate. We found out that he was a race car
enthusiast but only collected certain types of model cars to keep his
collection under control. His partner,
Hilary, who lives in another village, is a garden enthusiast and they travel to
races to and gardens. John used to deal
in wholesale electrical parts before he sold up and started the b&b. In addition to the 2 rooms in the main house,
he also has a cottage beside it. The
cottage is self –catering and available for rent as well. After breakfast, we packed the car and then
took a few minutes to admire the garden before leaving on our way to the Snowdonia
National Park. Our plan was to take the
train up to the summit of Snowdon mountain. We drove through some pretty
amazing scenery on our way to Llanberis. We stopped at Pont Bethania and admired the
river and the rhododendrons growing on the hillside. Our next stop was at a
scenic lookout to admire Mount Snowdon and its neighbouring mountains from a
distance. There are nine mountain ranges
which cover about 52% of the park, and many of the peaks are over 3,000 ft or
915 m high. There are also steep river gorges, waterfalls and green valleys
with oak, ash, rowan and hazel woodlands.
The park also includes the Dyfi, Mawddach and Dwyryd estuaries and 23
miles of coastline and sandy beaches. We passed by lakes and woodlands and saw
waterfalls on our way to Llanberis. We parked the car and walked to the train
ticket office when we got into Llanberis. We bought tickets for the first
available train which was not until 4:30 pm.
We were assigned seats in carriage A so that meant we were at the head
of the train going up, and at the end, when coming down.
So, we shuffled our plans a
bit and decided to visit Caernarfon and then come back for the train ride. Caernarfon is only about a 20 minute drive
away and we found parking by the water when we got in. The castle was pretty close to the water and
just about dominates the whole village. We walked around the castle and went
into the village and found the tourist information office. We got recommendations and directions to 3
different pubs for lunch and Petros decided that we would go the Black Boy
Inn. The food was very good and we
enjoyed the various dishes enormously.
Then, it was time to head back to Llanberis for our train ride.
We made it back in good
time and I bought a cider and Irene a coffee which we brought on the train with
us. Snowdon is 3,560 ft (1,085m) and is
a place of legend, said to be the burial place of the giant ogre Rhita who was
vanquished by King Arthur. Eryri, the
Welsh name for Snowdonia, means “Land of Eagles”. We boarded the train and sat just behind the
spotter. His job was to let the train
driver know if there were sheep on the track and to try and get them to leave
the track. The sheep are generally good
and leave when he blew the horn. The
train began a steep climb up a viaduct corssing the Afon Hwch. We passed a waterfall and a forest. After that, it emerged into open treeless
countryside. About a quarter of the way
up Snowdon, we pulled into the passing loop, Hebron, named for the small ruined
chapel beside it. There is another
passing loop at the half way point on the mountain. Steam locomotives would take on water
here. From here, the train moves into
Rocky Valley, and area with massive boulders.
Beyond halfway, the black volcanic rock face of Clogwyn du’r Arddu
rises. The station at Clogwyn is the
termination point for the trains between March and the end of April due to snow
in the upper mountain. The view from the
train as it climbed to the summit was spectacular. We encountered cloud cover off and on and
more on one side than the other. The
summit’s visitor centre, Hafod Eryri was opened in 2009. It was built to complement the landscape and
grows out of the mountain and provides panoramic windows for unimpaired views
across the Swondonia range and up to the summit. We got off the train and climbed the last leg
to the summit of the mountain. We had a
half hour to admire the view before we had to head back to the train for the
trip back to Llanberis. We changed seats
so that we could see the other side on our way down. We enjoyed our ride up and down the mountain
and even though it was foggy on one side of the track, the views were still
spectacular.
After the train ride, we
drove to Betsy-y-Coed, one of the villages on the list of prettiest villages
that Florine had consulted. It is a
pretty village though we did not really spend much time exploring it. We parked in a hotel parking lot and walked
by a church to get to the main street.
We walked along the street, looking for a place to have our dinner. We finally decided on the Royal Oak Hotel and the food was very
good. We had scallops, salmon and
mushrooms for starters and what looked like pork belly and pork chops for our
mains. After that, it was time to find
our next b&b.
It was an uneventful drive
to the tiny village of Clocaenog. We had
a minor problem locating the Old Rectory and had to turn around but we did
finally figured out which drive way to go up.
The Old Rectory has a lovely garden and Catherine Parton, the owner, was
very nice. She showed us to our rooms
and told us that the lounge was available if we wanted to use it. There were 2 other women staying at the
b&b and they were relaxing in the lounge.
Irene and I went to our room while Petros and Florine decided to go for
a walk.
Where we stayed: The Old Rectory, Clocaenog,
Ruthin,Denbighshire, LL15 2AT; 44 01824 750740; Mrs. Catherine Parton
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