Donaldson Crew Adventures

(For some reason the video above doesn't seem to show up on Ipad's so if you cannot see it try this link)

We spent a week up in North Wales for summer vacation this year.  We rented a cottage on the Lleyn peninsula near the village of Cricceith (pronounced Crick-eth) in the Snowdonia Region that we used as our home base.  While the distance from our house to the vacation spot was only about 165 miles, it was about a 4.5 hour trip as there is no real direct high speed road to get to this area.

North Wales is a beautiful region of the UK.  It suprises us how few people from South Wales have ever been up there considering how close it is.  We had a great week visiting villages, beaches, mountains and castles.  Some highlights that you will see in the video.

• We travelled 4 miles by steam engine on the only rack and pinion railway in Britian, to the top of the highest peak in Wales - Mt Snowdon at 1085M (3560ft).  The train must use rack and pinion due to the steepness of the tracks!  
• We visted the village and castle of Beaumaris on the Island of Anglesey.  (We also got drenched here in a sudden downpour that caught us off guard:)
• We visited the village and castle of Caernarfon.  One of Edward I mightiest castles.  This is also where the original 'Prince of Wales' was born hence the start of a standing tradition where the eldest son of the king/queen is given this title (currently held by Prince Charles).
• We visited the north coast resort village of Llandudno with its victorian inspired downtown, spectacular waterfront, and the Great Orme Peninsula - a massive headland that overlooks the village and gives great views of the snowdonia mountains.  
• We visited the walled village and castle of Conwy - another great castle built by Edward I to keep wales under control. 
• While most days were not perfect beach weather we were able to spend some time at the beach in Llandudno as well as the beach below our cottage at Black Rock Sands, which is one of the few places that allow you to drive your car right onto the beach!

The weather was looking good so we headed west to Pembrokshire in southwest wales.  Our target for today was St. David's Cathedral.  St. David was born in the year 500 and died in 589.  He is the patron saint of Wales and there has been a monstary/church of some sort at this site where the current cathedral sits since the 6th century.   It is also the largest cathedral in Wales.  The town around is a small and quaint tucked away on the western tip of wales. 

After exploring St David's village and cathedral, we headed to the beach.  The Pembrokshire coast in south-west wales was ranked the Number two coastline in the world by National Geographic, so it seemed that we could hardly go wrong.  I picked a small beach very close to St. David's called Caerfai and it turned out to be everything we had hoped for an afternoon of fun in the sun.  Kelly was kicking herself for not bringing shorts/swim suit on this trip but had fun testing out the new telephoto zoom lens on the camera.  (see some of the great shots below)

From Caerfai, we looped up around north Pembrokshire to take a different way home.  Not being sure I would be in that general vacinity again, I wanted to stop by an ancient megalithic monument called Pentre Ifan.  It is what remains of a burial chamber believed to have been contructed around 3500 BC.  Amazing rock formation with a 16 ton capstone balancing on 3 points under it.  A little off the beaten path to get there but it was worthwhile and a nice break to get out of the car and enjoy the late afternoon sun.

A long but enjoyable day of travelling.  Kids were great in the car.  Well stocked snacks and a recent purchase of a portable DVD player helped as well!

The Gower Peninsula is about 70 Sq miles in size and sticks out from South Wales into the Bristol channel.  It is classified as an 'Area of Outstanding National Beauty' within the UK and in fact was the first area to receive this designation in 1956.  The weather took a turn for the better this past week and with a 'Proper British Summer' in swing (at least for a few days) we decided to take trip to the Gower. 

As is often the case, I overplanned and had too many 'options' identified for the day - at least too many for a family with 4 young kids in a car on the first nice weekend in a while that also co-incided with the first weekend off school. (everyone was out and there was a lot of traffic)    I am also not as adept as Kelly in planning car rides (snacks, in car entertainment) so unfortunately while the weather started off great, the atmosphere inside the car was stormy. 

We drove through Swansea, and then toured through a small seaside village called Mumbles.  From there we drove further down the peninsula and settled on going to a beach at Port Eynon Bay.  It is one of 4 Blue Flag beaches (rating for quality beaches) on the Gower. We spent a good amount of time here having lunch, playing in the sand and water at very low tide. (see pictures below).  A very good beach for kids as the car park is only about a minute walk to the beach. 

 

Here is a video.  Excuse my miss-pronouciation of 'Port EYnon (as in Eye). 

From here, I wanted to go down and check out what many consider to be the crown Jewel beach of the Gower - Rhossili Bay.  We found it, but due to the lateness of the day, and drive home we decided to skip actually going down to the beach on this trip.  I definitely want to come back to this place again at some point.

Picture below is the view of Rhossili Bay.  The second picture is the church that sits just above the bay, and overlooks it.

You know the weather is bad this summer when Welsh people are complaining about how much rain we have been getting:)  Therefor when there is a chance of a nice day on a weekend we try and get out and do something as a family.  This past weekend Sunday was looking good so we decided to go exploring and check out another somewhat obscure local ruins that is open to the public, but a little more off the beaten path: Old Beaupre Castle

It was a fun 20 min drive from our house along overgrown country lanes.  The structure was a medival home first built around 1300 and then retrofitted into a Tudor manor house in the 1600's.  Like many castles in Wales it is managed by CADW, however it isn't accessible or visited like many of the more prominenent castles.  It is accessed via the Welsh public footpath system that networks across England and Wales.  The castle was about a 1/4 mile walk from the access point at the road, through green grassy fields of grazing cattle.

 

A video:

 

After the castle, we decided to meander in a not so direct path back to our house.  We ended up heading down to Llantwit Major beach.  You might recall that we posted about this beach here on a somewhat rainy and dismal day in early May.  This is what it looks like when the weather is nice!  The boys loved the wind surfers!

Since Noah's birthday was officially on a monday/school day, we decided to do the main part of the celebration this past weekend on Saturday.  Our luck with the weather was good and it stayed dry for our day trip up to The National Showcaves Center for Wales about an hours drive from our house.  Noah brough along his friend Emrys as well.  We spent the day here - exploring the tourist caves and the large dinasour park.  After we got home we opened presents and had cake!

Today on his actual birthday, the weather cleared up after lunch so after the kids got off school, Kelly took them down to Southerndown beach for an hour or so to play before we had a birthday dinner of pancakes - Noah's favorite food!

Very nice fathers day with the family.  Kelly and the kids got me an outdoor fire pan which will be put to good use this summer on the cool welsh evenings!  After a nice sunny morning, it clouded over in the afternoon but we decided to head out and go for a walk by Marcoss beach.  We hiked along the coast trail by Nash point, and then went down by Marcross beach.  We couldn't walk too far at the beach due to high tide but a fun time nonetheless.

Noah had his first birthday party invite this weekend at a classmates house in the village of St. Donat's  He wanted Hunter to stay with him at the party, so Kelly, Abbie, Preston and I went exploring.  We first walked down and checked out St. Donat's church which dates back to the 11 century based on the exterior sign.  In some of the pictures you can see St. Donat's castle in the background.  There is also a picture of nice victorian stained glass inside the church.

Next we threaded our way down to a somewhat hidden beach below St. Donat's Castle which now houses Atlantic College.  It is difficult to find and we only found it after some advice from other parents of children at the birthday party.  Since the college is now out for the summer, it was quiet.  

 

 

St Donats Castle itself is very beautiful.  It was actually purchased by William Hearst - the newspaper baren in 1925.  He spent a fortune renovating the castle, and supposedly held lavish parties when he was visiting the site.  If you have ever been to Hearst Castle on the coast in central California, it had a similar feel - at least the parts we could see.  It is only open to the public once a year I believe.  A couple shots below of the castle pool area overlooking the sea.

 

The spectacular weather in South Wales is continuing.  We spent some time down at Dunraven Bay today near the village of Southerndown today.  While Kelly and Abbie went to the beach, Dad and I took Preston on a walk up along the cliff tops.

Saturday late afternoon we took a drive down to the bluffs above Marcross beach. It had been nice earlier in the day but was getting a little windy and cool so the kids wanted to try out the kites they had each got for Hunter's birthday. Here is a great video of the boys laughing as Noah's kite does some interesting acrobatics on its own.

Few more photos too!

A very rainy and cool weekend in south wales.  When we ask people when summer will arrive, they say this is it!... in a joking manner ... but only half joking...we never seem to get a straight answer.

On Saturday, we were running some errands in a local village just south of our place called Llantwit Major.  A great seaside village with a really fun beach to explore on the edge of town.  Here is a picture of the beach from up on the bluffs above.

The beach  has some sand at low tide, but it is much of an exploration beach.  This day the kids had a blast looking for interesting shaped rocks and pretty shells.