UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions

Poor Belinda almost got clouted due to Mike's poor aim!  Criccieth Castle is in the background on the other side of the beach which we went to visit after a lovely pub lunch and a look round the Criccieth gift shops of course!

Mike's just like a little child with ice cream, he gets it all over his mouth!  It was a lovely warm day and on the way up to Criccieth Castle we found an ice cream shop so couldn't resist.  Is that a second ice he's got or is it Belinda's?
 

Belinda takes a shot of the view from Criccieth Castle.  We could see all of Criccieth beach and town, way in the distance we could see Snowdon which we were off to climb the next day.

There were lots of little creatures in the Criccieth beach rock pools, left behind by the receding tide.  Still, at least it's more interesting on the beach (and cheaper) than the gift shops!
 

The main reason for visiting Snowdonia again was to climb up Snowdon, the worry was the foot and mouth situation, but fortunately all the notices said it was open for walking, so off we set taking the 'easy' path from Llanberis.
 

Now Mike's thinking that maybe climbing Snowdon was not such a good idea after all!  He lost his Pedometer on the track soon after starting and then the weather turned nasty.  Hmmm - never mind, the only way is up, baby!

The last bit to the top of Snowdon was a real struggle, with the horizontal rain, biting gale and soaked to the skin despite our waterproofs.  At least there was a cafe (and gift shop!) on top to refresh in.  See our video clip of our efforts!

We wimped out and come back down on the Snowdon Mountain Railway. The journey took about an hour, the lower we got the better the weather became. Belinda had sufficiently recovered by the bottom to visit, yes, the gift shop!
 

The local pub turned out not to do food, despite their website indicating otherwise, so we knocked up some sausage, beans and chips which gave us another opportunity to try our hand at cleaning the saucepan again!
 

Next day we visited Llandudno on the North Wales coast and walked out on the pier after having lunch in a lovely pizza restaurant.  We also toured the shops and saw the donkey rides on the beach, amongst other things.

Here's Mike looking out over Llandudno from the Great Orme.  The Skyway cable car was closed for repair as was the putting green next door, however we had a good walk to Asda on the other side of town to get some food for the evening's meal.

On the last day of our holiday we decided to do another walk around Snowdonia, choosing the Miners Track from Pen-y-pass which took us past some spectacular scenery and lakes.  With no Pedometer, Mike was unable to report how far they'd walked every 10 steps!
 

Every holiday Mike finds a dry stone wall to try to kick down, in action here on the Miners Trail walk.  Maybe it's the vandal in him or something in his beer, but he never succeeds of course. Belinda thinks he needs to stay in more.

This is in the lounge in the in Snowdonia cottage watching TV in the evening.  We never did get the big fire going despite it always seeming chilly in the cottage, despite it being mid-summer!  I guess we're used our southern climate.
 

Here's Belinda on the cottage doorstep on the day of departure.  We were woken early when the TV downstairs switched itself on at 5am and ignored it for a while thinking it was coming from next door!  Anyway, after packing our stuff it was time to head home after a lovely week in Snowdonia.
 

It was lucky Mike had his scrambled eggs for breakfast or he wouldn't have the energy to lift out the cases to the car.  Belinda's got Mike well trained for these holidays!  See our UK tourist links page for relevant links to Snowdonia websites and the video clips page for some videos!