Donaldson Crew Adventures

With White puffy clouds floating around south wales Sunday, we decided to take the afternoon and drive up to the Brecon Beacon.  This is a mountain region in south Wales that is also 1 of 3 national parks in Wales.  Here are some shots as we drove through the the region to and from the village of Brecon.  A couple of the pictures feature the mountain Pen y Fan - the highest point in south wales, and southern Britain.

Or main goal for the afternoon was a visit to the market village of Brecon at the northern edge of the park.  A great village to explore.  We wandered some of the streets and visited St. Johns Cathedral, where we also had a late lunch on the greens.  The river that you see in the pictures is the river Usk.

We decided to take a different way home and on the way I stopped to find and take a photo of Tretower castle.  Kids were tired so we didn't stay, but there is an apple festival here in mid September that we want to go to. Now know how to get there!

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.