So having had a wander round
Ogmore Castle it was time to head north up to Snowdon. Having never been to
that part of Wales I had to fully rely on Kate to get us to our destination...
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| Not a bad view |
Kate gave us a drive time of
about 6hrs so to make the most of the journey and see as much as we could we
asked her to pick a route that didn’t use any major roads, the result some of
the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen.
Our route took us through the
middle of the Brecon Beacons, the ground was covered in a good layer of snow
which just looked epic.
The most random moment was
when we can across a burger van in the middle of a National Park, it just
seemed so out of place! But, as there wasn’t much that resembled civilisation
anywhere near it seemed as good a place as any to have a late lunch.
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| Should have worn a bigger coat... |
The whole drive up to Snowdon
was a really nice experience, even the moments when Kate got confused and sent
me the wrong way (or it could have been I was too busy looking at scenery to be
really paying attention to her, but shhhh don’t tell her that). Sometimes it
doesn’t matter where you’re going it’s just nice to enjoy the journey...
Our accommodation for the
night was the Snowdonia Mountain Lodge which was a really nice place to stay. We’d
arrived in the dark so we had a shock in the morning when we looked out the
window as saw mountains, proper actual mountains.
Having had a good breakfast
and put on many, many layers it was time to complete today’s task: Climb
Snowdon!
Having never climbed a
mountain before I wasn’t sure what to expect or how tough it would be, I also
had that nagging doubt in the back of my mind saying “Am I going to be able to
wander around SFX tomorrow without being in pain?”
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| Matt of the Antarctic... |
Once we got to the correct
trail (Kate was in one of her moods again...) we set off up ‘the hill’. Leanne
did grumble a little bit stating that she wasn’t built for this sort of thing,
but once we got to the mountain proper the path became less steep and the
grumbling stopped.
Our original plan was to make
the summit, however due to it being -7 degrees he path was rather icey and
there was a fair bit of snow, as a result we went as far as was safe (about two
thirds of the way, 1700ft), going any further would have required crampons and
an ice axe.
Once we’d made our way back
down it was time to stop for a bit of afternoon tea once again (I’ve said
before I’m a bit English!).
As we’d spent less time than
planned on Snowdon it did also mean there was enough of the day left to do
another castle (yay!). This time we headed further north to Beaumaris, a proper
example of how a castle should be built! Unfortunately the castle itself was
never finished due to the Scottish getting over excitable and threatening to
invade...
Once the castle had been
explored it was time to go in search of food before making sure we were all
packed ready to head to Prestatyn in the morning for the SFX Weekender...
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| Beaumaris Castle |
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