Man, I AM hilarious. So, you have now probably guessed I went to Wales.
For the geographically simple this sign tells just how far from home Wales is
It was grouse (I have never used the word grouse in a spoken conversation, thought I would try out in written form first...felt good). Gemma and I planned a road trip that was to include castles, mountains, puffins, and boats, jumped in her car and away we went! As usual my week long journeys are too big for one article so this will be split in two.
We stayed in that castle. Phillip 1 Romance 999999 (I am still losing the battle quite convincingly)
Apparently, Wales is the land of castles (also sheep, there were lots of sheep). It didn't take us long to find one, because it turned out that the first B&B I booked was in a castle. Yup, you read that right; we stayed in a CASTLE. For our first few nights we used Caernarfon as our base and roamed the countryside.
CASTLE!
This included the great Conwy Castle, a massive fortress built by Edward I and checked out the Conwy suspension bridge. Unfortunately, closed sites was a theme of whole road trip. We also walked along the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and went searching for waterfalls.
Gemma on the Pontscysyllte Aqueduct.
Not long after I made Gemma drop me off at Pen-y-Pass where I followed the Pyg trail to the summit of Mount Snowdon and then ran back down to Llanberis. It was cold and foggy and all sorts of awesome. Gemma wanted to join me at the top, but when she heard that the train wasn't running (just me hahahahahahaha) she decided to visit a slate museum instead.
On the way to the summit of Snowdonia (or potentially a random photo in Snowdon National Park)
We took a scenic route through the rest of Snowdon National Park and stopped by a random copper mine that was open for tourists and poke our heads in. It was awesome because we got to wear hard hats.
A Gemma sized tunnel. Normal people duck.
To complete a northern trip a couple of nights in Holyhead an island just off the Isle of Anglesey. Our main purpose was to see puffins, but in actual fact this is when we realised that tourist attractions just shut down for three/four months of the year, and apparently November is the cut-off month. Even so we managed a nice walk to see the South Stack lighthouse and went puffin watching.
The lighthouse, access was closed because apparently no one travels in November
Fun fact: despite all the advertising about puffins they only come to land for the mating season, and this is a very short period of time that definitely not the onset of winter. Not-so-fun fact: the amazing colourful beaks that make puffins so iconic are also seasonal.
A hut cicrle.
They shed them after the mating season, making them monstrosities of the ocean! However, despite numerous places been closed, we still managed to visit a small jam factory (I bought jam!); dance in Bryn Celli Dhu, a 4000 y/o burial chamber located in some poor sods paddock; and see some hut circles - remnants of round stone huts 4000 years old. I also found the remnants of a snake - this I promptly through at Gemma because I forgot it was her car and she was driving.
Tomb raider!
