After rain all week, we were blessed with a beautiful clear and crisp fall weekend. Saturday was spent working around the house. On Sunday we decided to take the kids to Margam Park for a picnic lunch and some exploring. It has been recommended to us a few times and since its only about 25 minutes from our house we thought it would be a fun Sunday outing.
Margam Park is an 850 acre country estate that is one of the oldest human settlement areas in Glamorgan. The current Tudor Style Castle was built in the early 19th century. The park is covered with open grasslands, forests, animal park, kids play area, a train, a castle, ruines of an ancient abbey etc. Here are some pictures from the outing. Note the picture of the billy goat. The kids called him the big billy goat from 'The Billy Goats Gruff'.
There was an apple festival being held this weekend at a place called Tretower castle up in the Brecon Beacon so we decided to take Saturday afternoon and check it out. The festival was ok - it could have been a lot better with more vendors but the kids still had fun trying some unique types of apples, watching the entertainment, making apple bird feeders and exploring the grounds.
Probably the highlight of the day was the medival garden and what we found out to be a mulberry tree growing with mulberries ripe for the picking. Kelly and I had only ever heard of a mulberry bush in the nursery ryme. Why these trees are not more popular is supprising. The sweet juicy berries are spectacular. The darker the berry the more ripe it is, and the sweeter it is.
Hunter wanted to try a science experiment from this book we have: "101 Weekend Science Experiments". It was a home made hot air balloon to show how hot air rises. It ended up being a lesson on how easily things made with paper catch fire:).
(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.
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