Waterfalls

Heading back from Bodnant across Snowdonia, we stopped at a couple of waterfalls. The first was the Ogwyn Falls, at the western end of Lyn (lake) Ogwyn - we just happened to notice it from the car and stopped for a look. The second was the more well known Swallow Falls in Betws-y-coed. As there had been a reasonable amount of rain, there was quite a decent flow over the falls. ...
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Snowdon

The Snowdon Mountain Railway gets booked up, so there's very little chance of being able to turn up and go. This means that you fork out your £25 (!) for the train without really knowing what the weather will be like. We passed through Llanberis on the Wednesday, a beautiful sunny day, and booked for the following day. Thursday was really nice in Llanberis, and most of the way up Snowdon. As we got about 3/4 of the way up, we found a bit of cloud - this was the view back down to the Llanberis pass. And by the time we reached the summit, we could see absolutely sod all - this is the new visitors centre from the summit. A pair of overly optimistic photographers... This is one of the trains making its way up. I did think about asking for a partial refund - not because of the weather, but because we had a diesel train, not a steam one. Still, we were lucky...
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North Wales

We had a few days pootling around bits of North Wales. We were based in Porthmadog, which turned out to be a really good base for getting around. Home of course to the Ffestiniog railway. This is the evening sun breaking through the clouds onto the Snowdonia hills behind Porthmadog. While much of Snowdonia is beautiful, you can't escape the industrial background of some parts. This is in Llanberis, and I think the Dinorwig hydro power station is in that hill. One of these hills is apparently Snowdon - taken from the road between Beddgelert and Llanberis. One really annoying part of Snowdonia is the lack of places to stop by the road and take photos of the views. The road down the Llanberis pass has great scenery but only about 2 places to stop. There was plenty of military jet activity. Unfortunately, by far the best view of a plane was one that appeared out of nowhere and passed very low overhead -...
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Welsh Wales

We've been spending a few days in Welsh Wales - the weather has been pretty good, but it's been damn cold. It's bloody May - it shouldn't be this flamin' cold! First up was Manorbier in Pembrokeshire. We've heard how lovely it is - it wasn't. Might have been something to do with the Arctic gale blowing, but we didn't hang around for very long. There's a surprisingly pristine castle, but it's not National Trust so we were buggered if we were going to pay to get in... After that, we went to Colby Woodland Garden, which *is* National Trust. Quite nice, with a reasonable walled garden, but nothing desperately exciting. When we were in Wales in September, SWMBO was trying to find a beach on the Cardigan Bay coast that she visited as a child. We've been to about half a dozen of the damn things now, and we still haven't found it. I suspect that the passage of 30 years has...
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