Well I finally did it and managed to escape from England without leaving the UK. I spent a wonderful weekend with distant relatives in Wales. Andy Bull and his family live in Cross Gates which is near Llandrindod. This was a long weekend here, and given that i'm on uni holidays I had two full days with them. I went with Stan and Glenda who live just outside of Leicester, so didn't have to try and negotiate trains and buses to get there. The weather for most of the weekend was fabulous with it only raining today as we were leaving. The two days were spent sightseeing mostly, with evenings spent playing different versions of Trivial Pursuit after fabulous meals. Pleased to say i was on the winning team two of the three nights.
On the drive to Wales on Friday we stopped in Pembridge, which is a small town with an amazing amount of medieval buildings, and many of them show their age in the incredible angles they lean at. We spent quite a while strolling through the town and along the river, it was really pretty, and the age of the buildings was incredible.
On the saturday we went to the coast. We stopped at a Red kite sanctuary on the way to Ynyslas and the Dyfi inlet. The Red Kites were close to extinction in the UK apart from two colonies in Wales. Over recent years with careful breeding and protection they have become common again throughout wales and are gradually being seen again in England and Scotland. The sanctuary was lovely. We didn't see lots of kites, but we saw a few and we had a lovely walk around the lake. We then headed down to Ynyslas which is where the River Dovey meets the sea. The tide was low so we could drive down to the inlet and then walk through the sand dunes to the sea. Sadly because the tide was out there was a rather large mud flat between the sand and the sea, so none of us went wading, although i think it might have been too cold for that anyway. There were lots of people there and I had to laugh at how so many of them were really dressed for a day at the beach with little tops and shorts whereas I was still rugged up with three layers and big thick boots and socks. It got warm enough that I unzipped my jacket, but that was about it. It is getting warmer, just not enough for me to think about donning beach clothes yet.
On the way back from Ynyslas we took the scenic route and went along 'the mountain road'. I'm not sure if it was so called because it travelled over mountains or because of the wonderful scenic spot looking over the many mountains to the north with Snowdon just visible behind them all. The day was a bit misty so the photos don't really do it justice, but you might get a bit of an idea.
On the Friday night Andy had discovered that I had packed my walking boots and that I was quite happy to do some more difficult walking and was equally happy with the idea of doing some peak bagging. So on Sunday morning he and I set out without the others to some smaller peaks south of their place, towards the Breacon Beacons. The first peak we climbed was Mynydd Troed which was 609m. It was not a bad climb without any real scrambling needed. Sadly the clouds were sitting pretty low and got lower as we went up, so by the time we got to the top there really wasn't any view to speak of. It was possible to see into the valley below, but it really doesn't show up on any photos. However i do have a photo of the trig point at the top to prove i got there. We got up and down the peak much quicker than expected, so decided that rather than leaving it at just one we might as well head up Mynydd Llangors which was just across the road and was only 508m. The climb again was really nice and we got up really quickly. However when we got to the top the absolute summit wasn't really obvious with the trig point and the contour lines on the map saying different things. So to be safe we walked over most of the summit ridge and tried to work out which was the highest point. We decided in the end that it was the original point we started at, but we had had a nice walk and also saw a hen Harrier, which I'm told are quite rare now and not often seen. As we started to walk down the clouds lifted a bit so i got some nicer photos of the valley and Lake Llangors.
This is a photo of Mynydd Troed from Mynydd Llangors - that is the face we climbed up, and while it doesn't look like that much in the picture it was certainly enough to get my heart rate up and for a few breaks to be needed on the climb.
Given the heights of the two we did on Sunday, Andy has already found a peak of 710 and another at 811 should I feel the need to do some more over the next few months. Both sound good and I intend to take him up on the challenge.
Sunday afternoon we all headed into Llandrindod which is the nearest big town to where Andy and Chris live. It was established in the late victorian period as a Spa town, so has some incredibly ugly buidlings as well as some quite nice ones. We strolled around the lake which was made to ensure there was a place for exercise. Over the last few years a community project grant has funded a water sculpture in the lake of a wonderful water beast. The scales are all individually cut and have the names of children from the local school who helped engraved on them. Not that we got close enough to see that.
That was about the extent of my sightseeing, but it has certainly made me want to go back and see more. One of the main things that struck me during the weekend was how in many situations I almost felt like I was in another country. Welsh, while i didn't hear it spoken at all, was everywhere. All the road signs are bi-lingual and when i went into a supermarket with Chris everything in there is also written in both Welsh and English. However the Welsh was usually written first with the English a little smaller underneath it. Welsh is so different to English that without the English I would not have had a hope of working out what it meant. Andy did explain that the area where the supermarket was is one of the areas that maintains a very strong welsh pride and is one of two areas where I was most likely to hear welsh spoken, it was really interesting to see and a little disconcerting at the same time.
The next few days are going to be spent doing some serious study, I have a thesis meeting on Thursday and need to be able to at least talk like I have done some thinking about it at the very least. I also have to finish off this essay before I go to Cornwall next weekend. For a small essay I have managed to drag it out for far too long. I also have another Rotary meeting tomorrow night with Wellingbrough club, that should be good. Will post again with some more photos after cornwall.
