I have been to Wales twice now. The first time was in late November 2005, to Snowdonia for a weekend with the Fell club (the hiking/mountaineering club of the University of East Anglia). The second time was for a week over Easter 2007, also in Snowdonia. I really like Wales: wide beaches, tidal flats, and plenty of hills and mountains to climb :)

2007

Over Easter 2007 I stayed in Wales for a week. It was Spring time and the weather was beautiful. We stayed in the house of Paul's parents in Llandanwg (don't ask me to pronounce that ;) ), very near the beach. I tried to take a panorama of the beach, and I like the result, though I can't get it straight :) There were also swans on the beach. The last photo is Harlech beach, very wide!

Some very typical images of Wales: sheep, there's lots of them. And little lambs! The sign is in English and Welsh. This language is very alive, all the signs are in both languages and I saw many where somebody tried to erase the English version. I only remember a few words in Welsh, 'crusoe' which means welcome and 'araf' which means slow... you can see why I remembered that one in the last photo ;)

This is the railbridge near Barmouth. Cars cannot use it, but it is open to pedestrians, bikes and motorcycles for a small fee (70p for a return). The views from the bridge are very nice!

We walked to the Blue Lake. That sounds very idyllic, but it's a lake in an old copper quarry. It's very blue indeed! The lake is surrounded by very high rock cliffs, and to get to it you have to go through a low (& wet!) tunnel. The local youth made a sport of jumping into the lake from the cliffs, very spectacular to watch! A bit scary though, you have to jump forward quite a bit to avoid crashing on the shore - not something I intend to try!

These photos are taken from another railbridge, but this one also has a road over it. One photo taken in the afternoon, the other at sunset :) The bridge leads to Porthmadog, and the other two photos are taken in a little village (Borth-y-Gest) around a bay that falls dry at low tide, near Porthmadog.

The rail bridge is used by the Ffestiniog Railway, using steam trains! We saw a few passing while walking on the bridge, quite impressive! The last photo is the little harbour in Porthmadog, just behind the railway station.

These photos are taken while climbing Rhinog Fawr, 720m high. The views were nice, but unfortunately it was a bit too hazy for good photos. We wanted to take a photo on top of the mountain, these towers that mark the top were used for measuring distances in the past. At the first try, self exposure went off too quickly... take two was more successfull :) The last photo is some beautifull moss growing in a stream.

We also walked to an island called Ynys Gifftan one day. When the tide is low, you can reach the island, it's located in the estuary. You have to be careful to go back when the tide is still low, or you will be stuck on the island for a long time ;). We had to cross some gullies, but most were narrow enough to jump over. Somebody used to live on this island! We saw the house, but we couldn't tell if it was still inhabited.

These last two photos are taken on the way home. We drove through this valley and decided to climb up the mountain. The view was amazing! I loved the sharp edge of the cloudfront, it was impressive.

2005

These photos are taken on my first trip to Snowdonia, in late November. We scrambled up Tryfan (915m) on the first day. The first photo is taken from the parking place, and in the second photo you can see the mini buses far below! The third photo is a famous rock called The Cannon, a good photo-posing place ;)

The views were amazing, it was very clear and we could see very far. Below you can see Colin jumping from Eve to Adam on the top of Tryfan, this is also a famous pair of rocks that you can find in many photos as it is not too hard to jump from one to the other (though I am not brave enough) and it makes a spectacular photo! The second photo below is taken by Alex Roddie, you can see how steep our climb up was!

It was a fun day! My first try at scrambling (basically climbing but without needing any ropes or other gear, just your hands and feet), and I loved it! I had to pay for it though, I could hardly walk the next day and had to settle for an easy walk around the lake at the base of Tryfan - still very pretty!