We made a late start to the day, partly due to my having sat up the night before to finish "Acorna's People". I had extracted a number of tourist leaflets for the Conwy area the night before, but we decided to go instead towards Mount Snowdon.
We took the A525 to Denbigh, then the A543 to Pentrefoalas, where we picked up the A5, and drove along it to Capel Curig, where we took the A4086.
Along the way (while still on the A5) we stopped at the Conwy Falls, where we paid our £1 each to go through the turnstile. The waterfalls were very rocky, and not as picturesque as some we've seen in magazines, but of course we took some pictures of them, after which we puffed our way up the steep direct path back to the car park.
Our next stop was on the A4086, the other side of the Llanberis Pass. I should have asked Stephen to run the video camera as we descended from the pass. The scenery was magnificent, and some of the scree at the foot of the mountains was the size of a small house.
We would have pulled over at the top of the Llanberis Pass, but the car park was full, so we pulled over at the next opportunity. Stephen marvelled at the sheep grazing on the very steep land on the side of a mountain, and someone who stopped to speak to us said that the sheep go with the land and have done for generations and know their own territory.
We saw a mini-waterfall at the side of the road, and I decided it was photogenic and got out my slide camera. We also photographed the sheep on the mountain, and watched some rock climbers going up the side of the mountain.
We found out it was £20 each to go on the Snowdon Mountain Railway, and decided to give that a miss in favour of the Llanberis Lake Railway, which was only £6 each. Stephen took his video camera, and I took a couple of cameras, one with slide film and a 35-80 lens, the other with print film and an 85-210 lens. I hung out the train window with one or the other during most of the train ride.
From Llanberis, we went on to Caernarfon. We parked the car at 6pm, just as the car park became free for the rest of the day. We walked into the town for a look around, but the sun was a bit low and most of the Castle walls were in shadow. We did see a swing bridge in action which was allowing fishing boats with catches of shellfish into the harbour. The harbour was quite photogenic.
The next item on the agenda was some food, and we found a Chinese take-away where Stephen ordered a battered sausage and chips, while I had chicken with cashews and an order of chips. We took it to a park bench to eat, and were joined there by a very plump seagull, who cadged some of Stephen's Chips. I tried tossing it the mushroom out of my chicken and cashews, but it spat them out. As soon as Stephen had finished his chips, the bird flew away, having dismissed me as of no interest!
The car's fuel gauge was showing empty, so we needed to find a petrol station. We were also trying to find the Menai Bridge, and when I paid for my petrol, I asked the cashier how to get to it, and he directed me over the much newer Britannia Bridge onto Anglesea, and told us how to find a lay-by with good views of the Menai Bridge. The Menai Bridge was built by Thomas Telford in Victorian times. It is a suspension bridge with sizeable piers at each end which resemble railway viaduct piers. It's a beautiful bridge.
While we were admiring it, a lorry driver pulled into the layby, and he told us the bridge is lit at night. As it was getting on for 9pm by then, naturally I wanted to stay until the lights came on. Stephen retreated to the car, while I donned a fleece jacket and attended to my tripod-mounted camera. The lights did come on, and I captured the floodlit bridge on film.
With Wales being north west of Greenwich, the sunset time was a good half hour later than the table in my diary suggested and there was still colour in the sky when I decided I had enough pictures of the Menai Bridge. In fact, the sky was not completely dark until it had gone 11pm.
We took the A55 road back east, turning off at St.Asaph onto the A525, which we followed back via Denbigh and so to our caravan. My major regret of the holiday is probably that I didn't find somewhere to stop on the A55, as there were beautiful twilight views out over Colwyn Bay and I don't have any photographs of them.
The caravan had been invaded by blowflies in our absence, and Stephen can't abide them and went on a one-man search and destroy mission. Unfortunately he didn't have anything particularly appropriate to use for this mission but found by trial and error that spray glass cleaner foam brought down flies better than either hairspray or deodorant. Once the flies were down, he stepped on them before the glass cleaner evaporated.
Holiday Report: Tuesday June 15th (a lazy day)
Summer Holiday in North Wales, June 2004 - Holiday Report Index
Helen Stephenson's Holiday Reports Page
Helen Stephenson's Summer Holiday Pictures - June, 2004 - Conwy Falls
Helen Stephenson's Summer Holiday Pictures - June, 2004 - Llanberis
Helen Stephenson's Summer Holiday Pictures - June, 2004 - Caernarfon
Helen Stephenson's Summer Holiday Pictures - June, 2004 - Menai Bridge
Helen Stephenson's Summer Holiday Pictures - June, 2004 - Index
Last Revised: 11th July, 2004.