Chapter 2

Scotland via Wales and The Lakes District

The beautiful weather continued. So... now on to Swansea (pronounced Swanzee). All the way down to the bottom of Wales just so I can see Swansea....as I grew up in it's namesake...Swansea, Lake Macquarie, NSW, Australia.

After a lovely breakfast at Nant Y Fedw we headed off for a town that was recommended by a Scottish couple we'd met over breakfast at Portadown...'Betws-y-coed'. A beautiful drive through the mountains of the Snowdonia region.

Bangor Village and the Snowdon Mountains

Llwyn Ogden

All along the way were small car parks filled with cars, groups of small hiking tents, hundreds of hikers and mountain climbers. To go with these were literally hundreds of people with stout walking boots and rucksacks walking the roads or heading into the wilds.

Perfect weather for them and fantastic mountains to climb. Some looked like overgrown grassy hills but others had rugged cliffs...enough to challenge all comers.

First Heather, Wales

At one stage going down the mountain we passed a narrow 'pull over' bay, where there was a mobile shearing station set up with 3 men at work, bringing sheep through from the paddocks.

There were several signs 'beware of deer crossing'! We were already looking out for cows, sheep, goats, hikers?? Betws-y-coed was indeed picturesque and well worth the visit. We continued south and towards the coast. Once out of the mountains the scenery was like any we'd see on the NSW coast and the roads too far inland to see much of the water. We lunched at Machynilleth...wonderful mushroom and bacon soup. The whole town was just assembling for a parade. Petrol here was 85.9 pence/litre.

We hit the coast at Aberystwyth, a very pretty old town with lots of variety in building styles and beautiful gardens. For about a mile leading in from the north there were, every few metres, a large tub garden amassed with flowers. We went as far as Cardigan at the top of Pembrokeshire. We looked out for some of our dog 'Vincent's' Cardigan Corgi brethren but didn't see any there or anywhere else in Wales... not one!

Then we went back inland to Carmarthan through pretty little villages, stone houses and shops almost stumbling onto the roadways. We also travelled through many areas of 'Open Cut' slate mines. Big ugly, dirty gouges into the beautiful hills.

We thought that although the houses are stone and similar in architecture to Ireland there was a different feel to them, possibly the stone... in Ireland they were all very uniformly grey while in Wales the stones were bigger and had a lot more variation in colour.

During the afternoon it was so warm we needed the car air conditioner on.

At last into Swansea, a huge industrial city, resembling Newcastle or Wollongong with many high chimneystacks, smoke and smog. We followed the signs to the beach and run out of town and were down the peninsular before we knew it. We found the beach - no waves and lots of sunburnt people not used to the incredibly warm spell they were experiencing.

Eventually we found a B&B...Alexander Private Hotel (50 pounds for the night), at Sketty, not far out of Swansea.

We were both very tired after covering best part of 200 miles, much of it on narrow winding roads. The manager there was quite snooty. He informed us of House Rules which included NO Takeaway food in rooms. It was after 6 on a Saturday night and there was nowhere open EXCEPT for a really greasy looking 'Takeaway joint' so we had to buy awful food and sit out on the street to eat it.

The night remained very hot. Russ rinsed a Tee shirt and hung over the bath where it dried completely.