Happy Travels

Once I am travelling and having to work out where to go to catch a bus/train, where to stay, how long it takes, which platform connecting trains run from – I feel great! I then remember just how good it feels (most of the time) travelling and seeing new places.

I left Erraid, ferried to Oban, trained to Glasgow, changed for train to Crewe, changed for Chester, changed for Bangor and changed finally to bus to Caernarfon. Took me all day, some of the scenery was good, other just same row upon row of similar housing in similar looking villages/towns and there wasn\’t even a fanfare to announce that I had crossed over the border into Wales and not even sure which town began on the railway line.

WELSH COASTLINE

The train followed along and tunnelled through rocky outcrops of the coast and the water looked a dirty brown as did the sand and at low tide, huge sandy beaches with lots of cement and rocky groins with rocky shore too. In places, most of the way actually, there appears to have been a wall built against the sea either as a earth wall or rock/cement. Then there are monstrous areas of mobile homes, huge mobile communities which I doubt are much mobile. There are acres and acres of these homes, actually got to be thousands some of which are for holidays and some seem to be permanently occupied. Mainly between the railway line and the sea so in the summer (?) it would be very busy and crazy I am sure. Quite a site to see row upon row upon row upon row of these.

The trip took hours to go from Crewe to Bangor, the train doesn\’t go to Caernarfon but to Holyhead, and apparently it used to.

There was also a wind farm, not sure on land or sea.

The canals seem to be about as wide as a narrow road and I have read nothing yet about them, how they are used etc. So you will know as much as I do at present. But there were a LOT of boats tied up to the shore. I even saw a couple of locks which I\’ve never seen before and this I saw from the train going west and then east to London.

BANGOR TO CAERNARFON

Bangor is a lovely place, hilly, with the Menai Straits and the bus stop was almost outside the station with buses running often during the day to Caernarfon about 25 mins ride away. There was still daylight when I finally arrived about 6pm and after 3 direction enquiries I found the very historic Black Boy (or Buoy) Inn which turned out to be a very great place to stay. The management and staff were always very friendly, willing to help, joyous and obliging. In all of my trip to date, I don\’t remember any place being so easy to be in and the whole staff so obliging. And the food was great.

Behind Caernarfon are the Snowdon mountains topped with snow, the highest is Snowdon Mountain the second in the UK to Ben Nevis in Scotland. This part of Wales is called Snowdonia.

BLACK BOY INN

http://www.welsh-historic-inns.com/black-boy/index.php.

This stay at the Inn was given to me as a gift and a wonderful surprise too – it was more history to see and learn about as the Caernarfon Castle walls passed within about 30 yds of the building. Initially I thought that that was all there was to the village, just the castle, but a bird\’s eye view proved a bigger town of about 15,000. A lot of boats in the marina too, a very wide water expanse which at low tide revealed a lot of sand but at higher tide, it was very watery. Don\’t know the in and out tide levels though.

I wandered around the town the first night, had a meal in the pub and watched a bit of TV in the room. Saturday I intended doing a few things including another night\’s stay – finding the tourist and post offices, getting directions to the Menai Bridge, and checking out the charity shops. I have found in the UK that charity shops abound and in Caernarfon there is 7! I went on a big shopping spree buying two items. I found the PO and sent some postcards, then took the bus to Bangor to change for Menai Bridge. As the bus drives over the bridge, and there are 2 lanes only with huge post in the middle, it has to crawl through the arch and it looks like there is only about 2\” either side of the bus – there is another bridge, the Britannia, which main traffic uses and obviously larger vehicles too, which is down-strait of this one. I took lots of pics of the bridge and then waited for a bus to Beaumaris Castle. The weather was very cold and that bus was late by 20 minutes so I hopped on the first bus to come and that was to Holyhead. The Stena ferries travel from Holyhead to Ireland. I didn\’t realise that it took the bus over an hour to get there. Consequently I spent the rest of the afternoon safely out of the wind but needing a walk when I arrived in Holyhead. So I waited for the next bus back which meant that I missed the opening hours of Carnarvon Castle, imagine that. I didn\’t even get inside to see it at all and just had a small walk on return, dinner in the pub and then bed.

http://www.anglesey.info/Menai%20Bridges.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menai_Suspension_Bridge

WELSH

is spoken by 95% of the people, that is in Caernarfon not too sure about the capital Cardiff. It is totally non-understandable with lots of w\’s and y\’s in the words. I love hearing it spoken.

Croeso = welcome. Tiraeth = beach. Safle Bws = bus stop. Some of the railway stations along the way: Penmaenmawr: Llanfaern: and I found out that the pronunciation of Ll is like \’ick\’ don\’t remember the dd, or ff pronunciation.

CAERNARFON TO LONDON

First bus out of Caernarfon this morning, Sunday, was 9.30a to Bangor but that was in time for the first train out of Bangor at 10.34a, a Virgin train which is just like being on a Virgin plane, cattle class, almost no room to move and even less for luggage. One thing about the british trains – the seats are fixed and there appears to be more seats facing backwards! than forwards. It is such a messy system I wonder how the locals don\’t just protest. One can book a seat to find when one gets on that someone else is sitting in it – the steward doesn\’t check seating and it seems to be that one deals with it best one can I hear sometimes losing out and having to stand if no seat vacant. One only sees the steward when they come checking tickets and that\’s about it. Australia certainly seems to give a wonderful service which I appreciate even more now PLUS the seats turn about.

CANALS

-and another interesting thing I noticed was these canals maybe only in the UK where these canals are set up for boats! http://www.canalholidays.co.uk/longercruises.php http://www.kateboats.co.uk/route.htm

LONDON

On arrival, I had booked to hop a bus at 4pm and head to Luton airport where I was going to hang about until my early morning flight but the train was a little late, I couldn\’t make that bus, and my phone card didn\’t work (imagine, how strange?? the story of my travels) to advise them, and so I have booked into St Pancras YHA again and leave on a 5.22a train from the new International St Pancras train terminal to Luton to catch my 8.10a to Bucharest. I am very tired and intend getting a good sleep tonight. By tomorrow night I intend being at Schusters\’ place in Mosna, Transylvania, Romania – for a week – yippee!

PLATFORM 9 3/4

I just had to see this and had to ask where it was. No wonder I hadn\’t run across it before as it is way out the back of the station. And the silly poms come to visit Ramsay Street?