Rachub, near Bethesda - Snowdonia
The drive up to Snowdonia was absolutely beautiful - through wooded valleys, mountainous heavily wooded areas, with large lush green meadows with lots of little white spots everywhere (sheep with long fluffy tails). There are many walking trails, cycle and mountain bike trails in the area.
There are many traditional old natural stone houses with slate roofs and stone bridges. Some of the houses are slightly plastered and painted in different bright colours, very different to the english villages.
Along the way we came across large slate mountains, which are the dumps for the mined slate (only 10% of mined slate is used and the remainer is placed on the dumps). Not a very pretty site - more grey !
At the moment the fields and mountains are lined with pink flowers, purple heath , many yellow and white field flowers and gorgeous bluebells.
Betws-Y-Coed was our halfway stop. This little town is know for the 3 rivers that converge here, several interesting and ancient bridges, railway museum, miniature steam engine and quaint architecture. The tourist buses had also found this town ...so we moved on quite quickly, also partily due to the rain that descended again.
We arrived in Rachub - and after a few phonecalls to our host we found our next abode - a bunkhouse ! This is the traditional accommodation in this area, which is filled by walkers, hikers and mountainbikers. It is cosy accommodation attached to a traditional house in the middle of a small village. The only downside - especially in the rain - the bathroom is situated on the other side of the garden !! The idea of travel is to experience some authenticity ...so here we go.
While we are here, we want to climb Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales and England. The weather has turned and rain was predicted, so we put of climbing Snowdon for another day, with the hope of a window of sunny weather. The views from the top of the mountain without the cloud blanket are supposed to be amazing, and we are hoping to be able to experience it.
As the rain and storms were pushing through, we decided to explore the island of Anglesey. It is also here, that one finds the town with the longest name, but it is told that the name was created for it to be a tourist destination. We were lucky to have the last few hours of sunshine to enjoy the small Llanddwyn Island near Newborough - a fantastic suggestion from our host Sam. Such a special place - in folklore the resting place of the Saint of Love - a young woman who died in 1465 and who had lived on the island as a hermit. The lighthouse, the small natural harbour and the ruins of the old church create an amazing atmosphere. The rocks and cliffs around all sides of the island are quite aweinspiring - especially as the specific lava rocks and quartzes which are dated to 530 million years ago. We enjoyed the views by sitting in the sun on soft green patches of grass sheltered from the chilly wind. As we got to our car, the front arrived and rain started bucketing down. Lucky once again !!
We drove across the island to Beaumarin, another rather quaint coastal town, with a large yacht harbour and unfinished Edwardian castle (one of the many in Wales - Edward I of the 14th century had a castle building mania. This is definitely the territory of hard-core sailors. Back over the huge bridge linking the island with the mainland and back to our bunkhouse for a cosy evening.
Heard on the radio : Life is just a brief journey between two points of darkness.

Snowdon
We did it ! We climbed the highest peak in Wales and England...and we conquered the most challenging route ...totally unintentionally ! Snowdon is 1085m high and there are 6 official routes ( we created a 7th !) up the mountain. As there is a railway that runs up the mountain as well, there is a walker highway, which runs alongside the railway tracks. And ...if I say highway, that is what it is. We keep on forgetting how many tourists (locals and foreigners) are around. Sights are just totally overrun. We could not take a picture on the peak of Snowdon as it was "full". But, I am getting ahead of myself.
We decided to use the Pyg track, which was said to be less busy than the Snowdon Highway and slightly more challenging. The starting point was also closer - until we had to find parking - at which point we realised that just a few (thousand!) other people also decided to make use of the short sunny break in the weather for their "epic" walk. Parking a village away , scrambling to find change to pay the £4 parking fee (you have to have a bag of £1 coins in the car to be able to stop anywhere ) , we took the bus to the starting point of the Pyg track.
As an aside - about the parking (yet again !). I think I may have mentioned a few times already that it is madly expensive, but the other frustrating thing is that you need to have exact change, as the pay and display machines take only coins and give no change. Aaaaah! So you arrive at this remote spot, and dont have parking money - as you never know how much it will be. A second Snowdon Sherpa bus had stopped at the parking lot, when we realised we had no change for parking. I went to the second busdriver to ask for change, and he so very kindly obliged. The young french woman was not so lucky - as he said he could only assist me. When she asked the other busdriver (who had a very full bus ) he said he had no change (very unlikely!). We then shared our change with the young french couple - who paid our busfare up to Snowdon in return - and the busdriver (who had no change) - then had to give them the same amount of change they had asked for anyway. Interesting times !
We found the start of the Pyg track and merrily went along our way, starting to chat to 2 american women on the way, one of whom had done the walk before. She told us that the route splits ahead and that we should take the middle track, as the right track takes you over the Ridge, which is very challenging and involves some rock climbing. Famous last words "we'll take the easier track - no longer have anything to prove" , off we went , as our pace was a bit faster. Getting to the crossroads we made our choice - without taking the time to read ALL the signs and took the middle route, where the sign was only in Welsh. Well - all I can say is that it was definately the most scenic route and certainly deserves its name. At one stage we had the feeling that we were on a knife edge - as there was a shear dropon both sides of the rocks we were clinging onto. Luckily the rocks are quite jaggered, so you can get a hold for both your feet and hands (hoping desperately that there are no scorpions or snakes hiding in the crevices!). I realised - I do have a bit of vertigo after all - so concentrated only on my hands and feet and decided to forget totally about "the view" - which consisted of sheer drops ! Well - seeing that I am here to tell the tale - we made the scramble, with a bit of a detour I may add ! We had the feeling that we were climbing Snowdon about 3 times, as every steep ridge we scrambled over, we then had to go down to a saddle again, before scrambling up the next steep cliff. When we then saw a path going around the side of a cliff, we decided to take "this road less travelled". Well, there was a good reason why it was less travelled - it led to nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere - it led to sheep grazing area halfway down the ridge into a loose shale area (seriously scary to walk on - rock avalanche territory) - and we therefore had to scramble up to the top of the ridge again - more or less on all fours. This was our 4th Snowdon ascent ...before the final ascent. We must have looked a real sight to the masses of people able to watch us from the Pyg track . After all that the last bit of the ascent was on the Snowdon Highway (deluxe people watching area ....ok ...who invented lycra tights for overweight men to go hiking in...now one isn't safe from budgie smugglers anywhere. There should be a law against the wearing of certain items of clothing ! The fashion police would have had a field time here.) - and at the top we gave the very pinnacle a miss for fear of being pushed off by the masses !
The return trip along the Pyg track was rather uneventful, although our legs realised that we had actually used them for their intended purpose for a change and our muscles were making their discontent clearly known !
The weather gods were smiling on us all the way - although the chilly wind kept reminding us that the weather could change in an instant. As we got on the bus to the parking lot it started drizzling.