Kristine and I had a conversation last fall where we weighed the opportunities we'd have from living in the UK, the common expectation among Rolls-Royce expats that weekends are opportunities to travel, our desire to have some level of rootedness in Derby, and the reality of traveling with three young children. At the time we thought that 9 or 10 trips during our 18 month secondment would be about the bandwidth we could support.
Fast forward to the first weekend of May as we're driving to Wales for a bank holiday weekend. We realized as we made the drive on Friday evening that we've been out of town four times since we landed in the UK four months ago. We've also moved once (from temporary housing to our quasi-permanent home in Melbourne) and had guests from the US twice. So much for maintaining a low-key first few months here. And no wonder both of us have felt stretched a little thin recently.
The conversation on the drive didn't change our agenda for the weekend. It did make me grateful at the end that we arrived home refreshed and able to say we enjoyed ourselves.
We made the trip to Rhydlanfair Farm Friday night after I got off work. Kristine and the girls picked me up at the Rolls-Royce office when we did our CenterParcs trip. We discovered that getting out of Derby in general, and Rolls-Royce in particular, does not happen quickly at the end of the day. This time I cycled to and from work. We left after I packed the car when I got home. Overall this worked well. I did have a learning curve to install the cargo bag on top of the Golf. This follows another lesson learned from CenterParcs. Staying in places where we can control our own food works very well. The Golf doesn't have cargo capacity for luggage and food. The cargo bag was a find from RoofBag in San Diego. It's a soft bag that anchors to the car via straps. $130 for the whole kit. They shipped it to my brother-in-law, who brought over when he visited in April. It took Elise and I about a half hour to figure out how to install (I know, I know - how hard can it really be to put a bag on top of a mat, thread two straps through it and connect them in the cabin of your car?).
Cargo bag successfully installed and loaded, we made the drive to Rhydlanfair Farm largely without incident. We stayed in a 3 bedroom stone cottage right next to one of the (many) sheep pastures. The main cottage, which is behind ours, dates to the 18th century. We weren't sure if ours was comparably old, or constructed more recently but designed to look comparably old. The cottage was lovely. The view was amazing.
This picture doesn't do justice to how much fun it was to look out of the windows from downstairs. Kristine credits that view with much of her rejuvenation over the weekend.
We intentionally kept the mornings low key. The girls put the alcove spaces in the cottage to good use during that time. Elise's reading material (silently to herself and out loud to her sisters) for the weekend included a collection of Asterix the Gaul. I'm not sure how to describe what it was like driving to Wales while she read Asterix the Legionary out loud in the back seat. Or sitting in the cottage while she read Asterix at the Olympic Games. Part of it was seeing her read something that I enjoyed so much as a child. Part of it was also the joy of listening to her giggles as she read.
The cottage included a supply of wood. Somewhat to my surprise, I successfully got a fire going in the fireplace. We're taking bets on the age of the wooden beam above the fireplace. Kristine's guess was that the beam is considerably older than the rest of the cottage.
These Dutch Blitz cards have become a staple part of our luggage when we go on trips. Elise asked for them during on afternoon we spent at the cottage. Here is the result.
Our cottage was right next to a couple of sheep pastures. This meant we got close-ups of the lambs who were clever enough to figure out how to get out of pasture, but not clever enough to figure out how to get back in (and who found the strange humans worrying enough to warrant loud, prolonged bleats of despair). The bleats of despair were not always thoughtfully timed for the strange humans in the cottage. Say for instance a lamb were to get stranded right around 8 pm when three of those strange humans are supposed to be going to bed. There may or may not have been a pasture gate fully open and unguarded for a few minutes while an adult chased the lamb off down the hill so it could climb back up to the same spot on the hill (just on the other side of the fence).
Our Saturday activity was a trip up Mt. Snowdon. We briefly discussed different options for making the trip, before settling on taking the train both ways. The 1.5 hour wait for our train after we bought tickets gave us a chance to do a little exploring in Llanberis. I was quite intrigued by the huge gash in this hill in front of us. I never figured out what had happened. It's obviously man-made. Possibly slate mining?
We spent a little time giving the girls lessons in how to skip rocks.
People asked afterwards what we thought of Snowdon. I said three things. The train was packed, the peaks were amazing when not hidden by fog, and the summit was even more packed than the train. Here's the train as it pulled into the station to take us to the summit.
Each compartment in the train had 2 rows of 5 seats. We set up across from each other on one side of the compartment. A benefit of buying a ticket for Clare was that Kristine and I got a little extra space on the bench. We used the trip up for the girls to get some more practice taking pictures with the camera.
Clare even got in on the action. My (un)biased opinion is that this is an amazing photo. Obviously she's got photogenic sisters to work with, but I have yet to take a photo like this. I think Clare's inherited some talent from her uncles.
The train was packed and loud. That wasn't so great for Kristine and I, although the girls enjoyed the experience. We did however greatly enjoy the views of the surrounding mountains.
The road at the bottom of the pass is the one we drove to get to Llanberis.
Kristine looked more than a little longingly at the folks who hiked the mountain instead of taking the train. It's 4 miles each way, and the terrain is relatively rugged. Taking the train was the right decision for us. But it didn't stop dreams about a future vacation in Wales that included childcare so the two of us could make the trek.
Since we took the train, reaching the summit isn't much of an accomplishment. Getting from the platform the actual peak on the other hand is a truly noble achievement. The return ticket with the train allows 30 minutes at the summit. This includes the time to get off the aforementioned packed train. Between the platform and the peak - a restaurant and gift shop packed with people who didn't take the train, and so are in no hurry to move anywhere (something about a tough 4 mile downhill hike ahead of them). No hurry to move anywhere includes not being interested in making space for people who would like to get from one side of the restaurant to the other. I should have channeled my inner obnoxious American and pushed through. I didn't. We did make it through, and eventually got to the peak. At this point we had 10 minutes until the train departed and we were fighting with other crowds trying to reach the peak. So we decided not to ask anyone to take a family picture. Instead, I spread my 6'5" frame across the steps to bar other hikers while I took a picture. Actually that's not true. I had Clare in one hand and pulled the phone out to quickly grab this shot.
I mentioned the amazing view that was contingent on not having fog.
The cottage fee included access to the swimming pool at the Best Western in Betws-y-Coed. Elise and Charis did much better with their goggles when we spent time there Sunday morning. And yes, in case you're wondering, Elise did come up for air. Occasionally.
Rhydlanfair Farm has a 2 mile hike around their property. This was our Sunday afternoon activity. Two things struck me on this hike. The first was the beauty and variety in the landscape. There was one constant - unlike the relative stable elevations in Derbyshire (Tissington notwithstanding), this had lots of up and down hills. To their credit, the girls handled it extremely well. Clare did get some time riding on Kristine's back, but she also did quite a bit of walking on her own. Charis walked the whole way without really mentioning being tired. There is a beauty to this landscape that the photos won't do justice to. There is also a silence to it. We met the owner of the farm at the beginning of the hike. Other than that we were alone. All this contributed to Kristine and I feeling refreshed when we left the farm Monday morning.
Taking a picture of the three girls running ahead at the beginning of a hike has pretty much become standard practice now. The hedges on either side are upwards of 400 years old.
The farm used to have a mill. When it did, this weir supplied water to it.
We saw many, many fields. This wood covered only a small part of the farm. Evidently woods like this used to cover much more of the Welsh countryside.
The second thing that stood out from this hike was all the sheep. We've seen sheep on other outings since we've been here. I think our stay at the farm probably counts as the highest sheep population density. Unlike the landscape, the sheep don't get any credit for a rejuvenating weekend. They do get credit for laying obstacle courses that we had to navigate through their pastures.
This high population density meant we saw some good looking sheep, and some pretty ugly sheep. This was one of the pretty ugly ones.
We also saw signs of dead sheep. This skull is the only one I was allowed to put on public record.
More photos of the landscape.
Every once in a while, you get that really good "why are you taking my picture" shot.
These sheep got special attention because they were black.
This cottage is called Cefn Cestyll. It used to be a Drover's inn, dating back to before the present-day A5 road between London and Holyhead was built in 1826. The owners were doing pretty major renovations on the cottage while we were there. That didn't stop us from dreaming about a future stay with enough friends or family to justify a 9-person cottage (so if you read this post and you're interested ...).
Monday morning we packed the car and drove up to Castle Conwy (pronounced CON-way). The castle was built by King Edward I from 1283 to 1289. It cost
£15,200 to build the castle and town. That was a huge sum at the time, but is "only" equivalent to ~£3,000,000 in today's value. Massive government project is completed in 6 years, and the cost in millions can be counted on one hand. Wow. Considering the castle is almost 800 years old, it is in remarkably good shape.
Many of the walls around the town are intact. We walked to the castle along part of them.
When we bought our tickets to go into the castle, the girls each got treasure hunt cards to find clues in the castle and color in the appropriate shapes on their card (resulting in different versions of the Welsh dragon). The clues all dealt with the Welsh invasion of the castle in 1401.
The clues were a great way to keep Elise and Charis busy. The good thing about them was you and to search the whole castle to find the answers. The unfortunate bit about that was that searching the castle meant going up and down lots of stairs. I'm not sure how the division of labor wound up with me getting Clare, but I got the better end of the deal. Kristine and the girls were pretty tired after spending 2 hours exploring the castle. They did find all the clues though. And to my credit, my heart only jumped into my throat a little bit when they were on the castle walls. After all, a normal father wouldn't have visions of his children (or himself for that matter) accidentally tumbling over the edge would he?
Several colleagues encouraged us to visit the sea when they found out we were going to Wales. This photo from the castle wall is about as close as we got. Maybe next time.
All in all it was a great weekend. For the limited scoping that we've done about potential trips, we've generally assumed we won't go back somewhere twice. This is simply because (notwithstanding my earlier comments about how much we've been out of town) we expect we've got relatively few opportunities to take advantage of. That said, pretty much everyone in the family made a comment at some point in the weekend about how much fun it would be to go back to Wales. Specifically the cottage and the farm. Perhaps we'll make a return trip.
