Warning: This may be quite a boring read to anyone else!
Last week we went to Wales, which in itself is actually a small miracle. A couple of years ago we took a cheap holiday there, but had to go in October because I was working as a teacher and the only time we could get the cheap deal was in October half term. We went to Prestatyn, which in my opinion is a dump! Weather was horrendous, we cut short the holiday early after a couple of miserable days with nothing really to do in the wet weather and decided to travel down to Reading instead. Except we set off at tea time, drove south through Snowdonia, just as the weather got even worse. We ended up on windy back roads in thick snow with 2 small children and the journey that should have taken us around 4 hours took 8. So at the point we determined never to set foot in Wales again.... However my family all go camping together each year, and since Jess and I chose the location last year (Cornwall by the way) we had to give in and accept it when Cait chose Black Rock Sands, Porthmadog this year.
We had a pretty good time actually, great location but the weather was very average. We didn't get any lovely days for just chilling on the beach, but it wasn't a total wash out either. So we arrived on Saturday around tea time and got set up. Cait and Richard had cooked chicken and bread for us for tea, which was extremely welcome after a long journey with the kids. On Saturday evening we got the kids settled in their beds just as they realised that tents don't behave like houses and even if they couldn't see each other they could still talk to each other :) So it took them quite a while to go to sleep as Zach was calling out to Lani and Tilly was echoing his shouts - she's a little parrot at the moment. After that Mom and I went to Tescos for supplies, where we noticed a lovely family, with beautiful well behaved kids and the Dad playing games with them as the Mum went along doing the shopping. Next morning we went to the local branch of our church where upon arrival we notice sitting at the back the family we'd commented on in Tesco :) They were holidaying too. Just goes to show that people notice a good example that stands out.
Sunday afternoon we went for a walk on the beach which really was a stone's throw away from our tent. Really, if you through a stone over the dune next to us it would have landed on the sandy beach. So it was lovely to just nip off to the beach now and then and not need to pack loads of stuff, because you could just nip back whenever you needed to. The beach was lovely and with the tide out you can walk around the cliffs (which are black with distinct strata - very pretty) and go rock pooling - which the kids loved. They spent quite a lot of time catching little fish and shrimp and playing in the pools.
Oh I forgot - Saturday night I didn't sleep very well at all, was very cold and by 5am decided I was wide awake and too cold to get back to sleep so may as well make the most of it. I slipped out quietly so the kids wouldn't wake up and camera in hand headed down to the beach to get some pictures of the sunrise. Was gorgeous. The only other people on the beach were a man and his dog and another photographer - a woman with a lot more equipment than me, was quite jealous :)We had a fire on a disposable bbq each night which was lovely. Monday we just had a wonder around Porthmadog, poked around the shops, went to see the steam train, went to the harbour where Cait, Rich and Ethan were crabbing.
Tuesday we went to Greenwood Forest Park which is kind of an eco friendly little theme park. It has a roller coaster the is "people powered". To get it up to the top of the hill the people in the queue walk to the top and then go in a lift thing and their combined weight counter balances the roller coaster so as they go down, it goes up. you then walk to the top on the other side to ride it down by the power of gravity :) They have peddle go karts and big slides, magic shows, jumping pillows, some animals. Was a great place for the kids. |
| Hanging on for dear life! |
So on Thursday was our planned hike up Snowdon. Jess decided to come with us, but the weather wasn't great. At the bottom it was pretty average with a few light showers. Still, we started up the mountain. The others took a steam train ride while we were doing this. The plan was that they would go up the Snowdon train and meet us at the top, but it was fully booked when we rang and would have cost £25 each anyway. So Mom, Jess and I start up, but Mom was finding it hard going because she had forgotten her pain medication and her knee supports so she turned back half a mile in. Jess and I carried on together. I was really glad she came because it would have been so much harder on my own. The first half was ok, but the second half was really difficult. We soon hit cloud which brought freezing rain with it and we couldn't see more than about 10m around us. About 3/4 of the way up is the hardest part of the climb, it gets really steep and was very difficult. After that, the climb wasn't too bad but the weather was awful. Our fingers were freezing to the point of not being able to feel or move them and that spread up to my forearms too by the time we hit the top. The wind was scarily strong and we didn't send very long at the top at all - just enough to snap a quick pic on my mobile phone. There was no way I could have got my camera out, my fingers were pretty useless by then!
We hurried in to the cafe (which was sooooo welcome!) and dried ourselves off on the hand driers a little. There was a woman in there who was stripping off her clothes and drying them one at a time. She had done the climb a few times though. We didn't stop long and set off down again - running as much as we could to get out of the terrible weather as soon as possible. At the bottom we felt pretty grotty - tired, achy, really cold and wet. Proud of ourselves, but would probably never do it again! I could possibly be tempted some time in the future only if it's a VERY good day weather wise.
So Friday, our last full day, again the weather wasn't great, but good enough for a walk on the beach in the morning. The kids wanted to go crabbing again, so off we went to the Harbour. Caught loads of crabs which Lani loved. Zach got bored fairly quickly so Mom took him and Tilly off to go fetch fish and chips for us all. That evening we had some pretty distasterous attempts at setting of chinese lanterns :) The first two we tried on the beach before the kids went to bed so the could see. The first got caught by the wind and burnt a hole in the side before it could set off. The second got going but once it was up the wind tipped it a bit and I guess most of the hot air got out because it started sinking fast and couldn't get itself back up again before crash landing on the beach. That evening we saw people setting theirs off from their tents so we thought we'd give it a go. We got it lit, filled up with hot air and off it went... sort of... it got up a couple of metres then went sideways and started coming down towards the tents! Adam had to run after it and cuaght it just before it hit Cait and Richard's tent. Thought we better just give up there and didn't even try the 4th one we had.
 |
| Just about ready... |
 |
| And it's off! Except it soon came back down again... |
No comments:
Post a Comment