{"id":2569,"date":"2013-09-26T21:06:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T20:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=2569"},"modified":"2026-05-24T06:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:20:11","slug":"last-days-in-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/09\/26\/last-days-in-wales\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Walks In Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rodney is enjoying listening to British traffic reports on the radio, especially when we are stationery in Eileen and perhaps looking out at a beautiful view in a remote part of this busy little country. But having said that, we’ll no doubt get caught out badly, somewhere on our travels….. <\/span> Our first morning in Betws-y-Coed was spent doing chores, while listening to the radio, and I spent a couple of hours catching up on emails. Unknown to me, until the next morning, all of the emails I wrote disappeared before they got sent, I will not write about my reaction to the hours wasted…\u00a0 Mid-afternoon Mr Itchyfeet persuaded me to join him on the two hour (return) walk to Swallow Falls.\u00a0 It was a pretty walk through the woods beside the Ogwen River and the weather was perfect, but unfortunately the stroll turned in to a muddy ramble and took a lot longer to get there than anticipated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
The Ogwen River, near BetwsyCoed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

When we finally arrived, we discovered that you have to pay to enter a six-foot high automatic turnstile, to be able to view the falls and guess what? We didn’t have enough change on us.\u00a0 After such a yucky walk, I was adamant I was going to enjoy the prize at the end of the trek.\u00a0 So we were very naughty, got creative, paid for one of us with the coins that we had, and then somehow squeezed into one section of the turnstile.\u00a0 We felt a bit guilty, but at least we both got to see the very pretty Swallow Falls.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Swallow
Swallow Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the shock of finding that almost every email I had done the previous day had not travelled anywhere, I decided that Tuesday was going to be a day when I<\/strong> wasn’t going to travel anywhere.\u00a0 The mobile phones wouldn’t work and the internet was out, so I couldn’t spend time using either of those.\u00a0 It was nice to just switch off for the day, no touristing, no photos, no writing, no cleaning, no washing, instead I just read magazines, did some sewing and even got to sit in the sun for a while.\u00a0 Mr Itchyfeet just couldn’t do it; so at midday he kissed me goodbye and wandered out of the campsite.\u00a0 Don’t panic, he did come back.\u00a0 At around about 5:30pm.<\/span> He caught a bus up to Pen-y-Pass and then set off up the Miner’s Track towards the summit of Snowden; the highest mountain in Wales.\u00a0 Without me holding him up, with my short stride and blackberry picking habit, he walked at a pretty good pace, but decided that there wouldn’t be time to get all the way to the top and back, without the risk of missing the last return bus and have me worrying where he was.\u00a0 As I said the phones were not working and they didn’t come back on until around 4:30pm.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\"On
On the Miners’ Track<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Where
Where the Miners’ Track meets the Pyg Track<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rodney got as far as the junction with the Pyg Track, about 60% of the way up, and strolled back down that route to the road, although from all accounts it was a very rough track and he has a nasty graze on his left knee to prove it.\u00a0 He made it back down in time to have a cup of tea, before catching the bus back to Betws-y-Coed.\u00a0 He looked tired and a bit red in the face when he arrived home, but I was very impressed at what he had accomplished in such a short time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Rodney
Rodney with the peak of Snowdon in the background<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The 150m morning dash to the bathroom, in the rain, was deserted on Wednesday; no other campers wandering about, or sitting outside eating their breakfast.\u00a0 There was also no sign of sunshine and on discreetly peeking through the windows in all the vans between us and the shower block, it seemed everyone was tucked in for the day and watching telly.\u00a0 We have no telly, so we packed up as the rain eased, and drove down through Dolwyddelan to Blaenau Ffestiniog, did a bit of a wriggle about and then followed the undulating A4212 towards Bala.\u00a0 All the woolly black and white sheep looked soggy and sad, but there was certainly still plenty of lush green grass around for their breakfast, their lunch and their dinner.\u00a0 We opted to eat our tasty lunch (no green grass for us) in a lay-by beside the Llyn Celyn (lake), before continuing on our journey.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Another
Another pretty picnic spot beside Llyn Celyn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

With a little time up our sleeves, we drove right around Llyn Tegid, which involved driving once through Pandy (you should live there, Andy) and twice through Bala.\u00a0 We turned up the radio and enjoyed a good laugh at the traffic reports.\u00a0 But we don’t laugh when we go over speed bumps, or I should say, that Eileen hates speed bumps.\u00a0 It feels like all the contents of her cupboards want to break out and spill all over the floor and it has happened when they haven’t been properly locked!\u00a0 We then drove through Bethel, Druid, Rug and Glyndyfrdwy en route to Trevor; that’s a village not a person.\u00a0 But when we got to Trevor Old Mill, we found some people, our friends Phil, Ingrid and Rose were at home and awaiting our arrival.\u00a0 Phil pointed out a good spot on their property to park Eileen; we had views of their wonderful mill, the valley and the garden which was still full of flowers.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"We
We forgot to take a photo of Phil’s Mill so here is an old one before the extension was added<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

They have a most beautiful home, we both love everything about it and since we last visited they have created even more sensational rooms and views over the countryside.\u00a0 If I lived there, I could never leave.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we only had the one night there, but enjoyed a good meal at the Corn Mill restaurant in Llangollen and hours of good conversation all evening and the following morning.\u00a0 It was hard to tear ourselves away, but we really did need to get ourselves further south. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Following
Following the Miners’ Track up to the top of Snowdon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rodney is enjoying listening to British traffic reports on the radio, especially when we are stationery in Eileen and perhaps looking out at a beautiful view in a remote part of this busy little country. But having said that, we’ll no doubt get caught out badly, somewhere on our travels….. Our first morning in Betws-y-Coed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-the-road-in-great-britain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8354,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569\/revisions\/8354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}