UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions

We always find a vintage steam railway to ride on, so we headed into Wales for the Welshpool & Llanfair Caereinion narrow gauge railway.
 

This shot shows the engine driver in the historic 1902 steam locomotive on the Welshpool railway.  Now Mike would like that job!

A look inside the vintage carriages as the train steams through Wales from Welshpool to the picturesque Banwy Valley at Llanfair Caereinion.
 

At Llanfair Caereinion we headed into town via this attractive bridge over the River Banwy.  The Welshpool railway was an alternative to the Severn Valley Railway we planned to visit, but the floods of the preceding weeks had disabled it.  See our UK tourist links page for the websites to the attractions we visit.

After a rather yummy lunch in 'The Goat' in Llanfair Caereinion in Wales we enjoyed a lovely scenic walk alongside the River Banwy through the charming Deri woods.

Back at Llanfair Caereinion we had time to enjoy an ice cream before the return journey on the Welshpool narrow gauge steam railway through the mid Wales countryside.
 

We had a great day out steaming through mid Wales on the Welshpool & Llanfair Caereinion light railway.  The fare was £10.80 each return.  See our image gallery index for other UK vintage steam railways we've visited.

These two guys stood on the carriage open balcony at the back of the train for the whole journey back to Welshpool, watching the contours of the beautiful mid Wales countryside roll by at a sedate 16 MPH (according to our Sat Nav).
 

Mike, complete with his newly purchased Engine Driver's hat, is seen here pouring the Cider we bought in Ludlow the other day.
 

Day 5 of our Shropshire holiday and time for another walk, this time from Craven Arms to Aston-on-Clun along part of The Shropshire Way.  As you can see, the sun's out as it was all day, no mean feat for the summer of 2007!  See our tourist links page for related websites to our visits.

 Presently we hit Broom and enjoyed our picnic on the green there.  We also visited 'The Engine and Tether' in Broom, but were served by a rather surly young woman.  The Engine and Tether is also a caravanning & camping site, but it all had a rather run down look, sorely in need of a lick of paint and cheerful staff!

Here's the Flag Tree, or Abour tree, in Aston-on-Clun.  The Abour festival is celebrated every May in Aston-on-Clun and is the only village that still does so.
 

Aston-on-Clun is a small village and we tried 'The Kangaroo', but were abruptly informed 'were closed' - despite the 'open' sign outside.  Moral - don't bother with the unfriendly pubs in Broom or Aston villages in Shropshire!

Mike had previously stayed in Aston-on-Clun with his family in '75 and was pleased to discover little had changed.  We headed back along a different route, aiming to pick up The Shropshire Way a few miles further along.
 

After some dodgy signposting along The Shropshire Way we ended up walking some 9½ miles return to our holiday cottage in Craven Arms, it's only 3 miles each way on the map!  Waymarking should be better than this, after all they try to encourage us to walk to reduce our carbon footprint and keep healthy!  And the village pubs were duff!  Come on, get your act together Shropshire!

On the last day it rained - and rained!  So we visited The Land of Lost Content in Craven Arms, a museum of artefacts from recent bygone times.  The Land of Lost Content is another attraction that doesn't permit photography, if we'd known before paying the £5.00 entrance we wouldn't have bothered.  The Land of Lost Content exhibits were interesting enough, if rather ill maintained.
 

Next, we moved onto Acton Scott Historic Working Farm, near Church Stretton, to see how farming was done over 100 years ago.  We found ourselves the only visitors on such a wet day.  Entrance cost a very reasonable £3.50.

We saw the cows being milked by hand at Acton Farm.  There were other demonstrations including rural crafts, the blacksmith and wheelwright, brick making, a nature trail, farm animals and machinery to look at and, of course, a gift shop!
 

Mike's caption: Can I borrow your brolly please?  Belinda's caption: Under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh.  Well, either way, the little pig suddenly turned tail and ran back into its pen at Acton Scott Farm!

On the way home from our Shropshire holiday we stopped off at Mahorall Farm Cider near Cleehill to sample the ciders and buy some.  The owner was very helpful and the ciders delicious!  So a thumbs up for Mahorall Farm Cider in Shropshire!  Yeah!