Wales Part III: Conwy, Llandudno and Aber Falls

As mentioned in our previous post, we had a couple of full days to amuse ourselves from our base in Llandudno. I guess we had thought perhaps there might be the occasional swim at the beach; or at least a few hours building sandcastles, especially given the previous two days had been wall to wall sunshine. But, let's face it, the odds of 3 consecutive days of sun in Wales are remote, and accordingly we awoke to a drizzly Monday morning.

So, we took the most indoor option available to us, which was a visit to the old walled town of Conwy and its castle. The town walls are pretty much intact, and on a fine day would have been a pretty nice walk. But in the wet, the stone was treacherous, especially for 3.98-year-olds, so we gave that a miss and headed for the castle.

The castle itself was built between 1283 and 1287. It's really an English castle, being built (along with the town walls) by Edward I to support his conquest of Wales. As with all castles, it's had periods of neglect and resurrection, but in general it seems to be pretty well preserved. We explored a number of turrets, cellars, walls and the like, and we're all getting used to impractically small stone spiral staircases, not without a few episodes of anxiety by us on behalf of our children!

After the castle, I headed out for a run, and then we all explored the city a bit (and tested out the coffee shop) before returning back to home for some "quiet time" (which translates to "play with iPad" in Katy-language).

We dithered for some time on our Tuesday plans, oscillating between a day walking in forest or immersing ourselves in the previously mentioned Welsh fetish with narrow gauge steam trains. In the end, we decided all the narrow gauge steam trains were just too far away. Moreover, the weather wasn't too bad, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed for Aber Falls. This was a nice little river valley with some stunning forest (and some plantation pine as well). It also had the advantage that there were some nice runs up in the hills -- and I explored those hills while Nat & the girls walked to the falls.

 The walk heads up a relatively flat valley, surrounded by high mountains with deciduous trees in the valley itself. The going is relatively easy, but it was still 2km each way, which is a long way for the girls. They were coaxed through with tree-climbing games (below left), and another game called "sleeping lions", where said lions cuddle rocks in the grassy meadows (below right).

Finally they were rewarded with the sight of the falls themselves. About then the rain began to set in and they turned homeward. I caught up with them about half-way back, with Katy proudly announcing that she had done this walk unassisted, which is a big improvement on our Snowdon expedition earlier in the week.

Since we missed out on the narrow gauge steam train, our final activity was to take the old tram up to the top of the Great Orme  - a limestone plateau that sits next to Llandudno. The trams themselves are hauled up and down by cables, so they always have a partner going the opposite way -- and they magically avoid each other by a short section of double track about 2 tram-lengths long.

By this time, the weather had turned well and truly Welsh. Our views of the bay were somewhat obscured by cloud, and we reached the trig in blustery rain. Moreover, the playground at the top was too wet and cold to play on. Such is life. We entertained ourselves on the way down with Ella trying to teach us all to raise a single eyebrow to take our mind of the wet cold wind that was blowing through the carriage ....