North Wales
Travel Location: Tywyn,United-Kingdom
Got their round 00:30 on Saturday after a rather long drive, due to road closers and diversions, etc, etc, and basically went straight to sleep. Got up early on Saturday to head to the beach!! Drove through some amazing mountains (and passed mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales – more about that later) to a quaint little town called Abersoch to pick up some surfboards and wetsuits for the girls. Then drove to Hells Mouth beach (it sounds much worse than what it is) for what turned out to be an awesome surf in less than ideal conditions. 3-4 foot but washed out and onshore winds and very messy. Still managed to catch some very cool rides though. Felt rather sorry for Alison as it was her very first attempt at surfing and the conditions weren’t great at all. Still, I’m very happy and proud she gave it a go. It must be said that Jon is very well organised, as there were 2 flasks of hot chocolate when we got out the water.
Headed back to town after that for another warm up drink and I thought it would be a good idea to buy Alison a proper wetsuit for her birthday. So I did. Still haven’t tried it out but hopefully we’ll head down to Brighton pretty soon for some coastal fun. We then took a bit of a drive around the peninsula and found the most awesome tucked away little campsite, which we could hopefully try out at some stage. Also pulled in to another beach (the name of which escapes me right now) to do some kite flying. Not much to say except loads of fun, until the tide came in and made the beach so small that every time the kite crashed it landed in the sea. We also stopped to watch a duck race (don’t ask – plastic ducks for a local school fundraiser) while we enjoyed some lovely fish and chips. Then off to Porthoer (whistling sand in English – no need to get dirty ideas my fellow afrikaners – which is another awesome beach by the way) to watch the sunset. Got there a little early and left halfway through but the sunset was brilliant.
All of that just on the first day!
All of that just on the first day!
The next day was just as busy but much more simple. We climbed mount Snowdon. Absolutely awesome, albeit very cold. Jon climbs it about once a week and is therefore rather bored of the normal routes, so he took us up a very interesting but rather challenging way. Not much to report here either except that we were hit with spells of freezing winds mixed with lovely but short sunny spells. And I’ve never seen so many hikers on one mountain. Another great day out, made more special by the fact that we were greeted at home by Pam with a roast dinner. How spoilt were we.
The next day was heading home time unfortunately, but we spent the morning doing site seeing in the original Llandudno. It doesn’t come close to the South African one (although one must admit that it’s rather hard to beat) but it was pretty in it’s own way. Met up with Pam and Jon for lunch and then headed home for a (strangely) very relaxing drive home. We owe you big time Pam and Jon. Thanks so much!
