Long Weekend: Wales Visit #3 (Snowdon, Swimming, and Slate)

Family photo on Mt. Snowdon

After our trip to Wales in 2014, we decided we enjoyed the cottage so much that we would come back the next year.  On our drive to the cottage in 2015, we got the phone call that our secondment had been approved.  We decided as we left the cottage that we would keep the May bank holiday tradition going and come back once more in 2016.

Our friends in Bristol kindly made the (considerably longer) drive up for the weekend to join us.  Like our previous trips, the experience of driving from Derby to Betws-y-Coed was more than a bit hair-raising.  Let's just say that what happened in the car or by the side of the road doesn't need capturing for posterity.  If you've driven windy roads with children who get motion-sick, you'll know what I mean.

Like our previous trips, the cottage and view of the surrounding area made the trip worthwhile.  We've stayed in larger cottages.  We've stayed in a couple that have comparable character.  This one has a special place in our family's memories.  I think it is the windows.  More specifically, it is the windows with sills that you can climb onto and sit in relative seclusion from the rest of the world.  It is good for the soul to have places like that when you go on holiday.

Elise reading shot

Kristine reading shot

Clare eagerly got in on the window reading this year

Daddy !!! (in exasperation) - you're not taking my picture!

Negotiated Charis window shot

Even I got to grab the window during a rare moment it was free

Two 5 yr olds playing with fire (actually with a fireplace)

The children turned the stairs into a playground

Sausage, eggs, beans, and mushrooms - a holiday tradition

Shawn's lunch - the broccoli makes it healthy, right?

When all four parents like to hike, and you're close to Snowdon, it's tough to have a weekend agenda that doesn't include making the climb.  When your group includes five children under aged 10, it's tough for the climb on the agenda to reasonably be the whole mountain.  In the end, discretion triumphed over valor on Saturday.  We stayed together as a group and did a short walk up one of the easier routes (although not every one agreed it was particularly easy), with one pause for lunch and another to inject energy into flagging children via chocolate and biscuits.

Reconstructed route for our hike (it took much longer than 36 min)

Refreshment break

Peaks of Mt Snowdon in the background

Final stop to refuel weary little ones with treats and turn around

Charis hero shot

Shawn and Clare super-hero shot (if not "look at the camera together" shot)

Saturday completed the quota of pleasant weather for the weekend.  The girls did not mind this on Sunday morning, as we had already planned to continue another tradition - swimming at the hotel pool in Betws.  They would have enjoyed it anyway.  Adding two more children who enjoy the water, along with good-natured parents of said children, made it even better.  Let's just say we had trouble convincing them to get out when it was time to leave.  We grabbed some goodies for lunch before heading back to the cottage.  I stayed there with Charis and Clare while the others enjoyed a short, wet walk at a nearby river.

Elise in action

A friendship that has spanned the Atlantic for two decades now

Daddy, I'm not tired!

Monday morning we responded to even more rain by visiting the Llechwedd Slate Caverns.  The Llechwedd Quarry still operates, although the lower levels of the mine have been flooded with water.  This meant the tour "only" took us about 500 feet underground.  The special effects on the tour - audio at several stops, along with a hologram here and there with characters from the mine's history speaking about their lives - were very well done.  The content was sobering.  Evidently working in the mines provided a better income than other jobs at the time.  Those guys definitely earned their keep.  The girls left having decided that if they had lived in the area, it was probably better that they were girls and not allowed to work in the mines.

Slate art

Taking advantage of the playground before the tour began

The background would have been much more interesting if we'd paid for the adjusted photo

We had a little trouble finding a helmet small enough for Clare

This looked a whole lot easier on the hologram

The photos doesn't do justice to the scale of these caverns - one of several on this level on the mine, and all dug / blasted by hand

Kristine got to try out the chain that the miner would hang from when they worked

Final visual at the end of the tour

All aboard for the ride back to the surface