A proper UK seaside holiday!

Along the boardwalk at the RSPB reserve

Eleven days since the last blog, how naughty. Wednesday we had a lovely lunch out with Joan and Keith, that took us well into the afternoon. Thursday we had a great catch-up with Alex and Rob, while Friday saw Brian off to the hospital for a regular checkup.

Saturday at a fairly leisurely pace we packed the car and headed to North Wales. We arrived in Conwy in time for lunch before a visit to the tourist information to help plan our week. A quick walk on a small section of the walls that along with the castle surround Conwy, before stocking up in Lidl and arriving at our bungalow in Deganwy in time to hand over with our lovely hostess. Mum had a little rest so we nipped our to find the lie of the land, well the co-op for the paper and the pub. We did walk past, but then felt compelled to nip in and sample a pint. We felt like naughty children, out without her knowing!

Conwy Castle

Penderyn Distillery, Llandudno

Sunday we caught the open top bus that tours between Llandudno and Conwy to give us a good idea of the lie of the land. We did the whole circuit before hopping off in Llandudno to have some lunch (fish and chips) before visiting the Penderyn Distillery. Very interesting tour before a sampling of whisky and gin. Brian was all fired up to buy a bottle of their chocolate orange gin, except I was sure I’d seen it in Lidl (I do like the way Lidl does actually support local producers) and not for £25. (When we went back it was £18.99, so nearly a 25% saving! Not to be sneezed at!) Although it wasn’t the best commentary on an open top bus, and the weather was too cold and windy to sit out in the open, we enjoyed our trip. The driver was lovely. He stopped and waited a moment or two apparently at the Penderyn stop for us to get back on, only to find us back at the pier as we’d had time to walk and there was more to see round there. He did then drop us off at the bottom of our road, so saving us a good 20 minute walk. What a very nice man.

We did see some ponies in the RSPB reserve..

...And a few birds

Monday we headed off to the Conwy RSPB nature reserve, a wetland on the east bank of the Conwy estuary, created from material dug out during construction of the A55 road tunnel. I remember the creation of the A55 road tunnel well. Having been a student in Bangor, when I joined the BBC I spent most of my weekends/time off going back to Bangor for nearly 2 years. I quickly got fed up of the A5, cross country and through Betws-y-coed and preferred the longer but easier M6 and A55 coast road, except for the bottle neck that was Conwy. It’s so much easier now! We had a very pleasant walk, though didn’t actually see much nature! Mother didn’t much fancy the castle so we went back to the bungalow for lunch before Brian and I headed back to have a look, she reckoned the fantastic view we had of the castle from our lounge window was enough! The castle and walls were built between 1283 and 1287 by Edward I and are well worth a visit, though we did get slightly rained on.

Brian with Pauline geared up and ready for the zip line

One of our group just heading off on the lower zipline

Tuesday, fortunately, dawned clear and calm, just as well as we’d booked tickets for the three of us to ride Velocity 2 at Penrhyn slate quarry near Bethesda. The world’s fastest and Europe’s longest zip line. Jonathan, Lucy and Caroline did it a few years ago, so I’d asked him what he thought about taking mother on it. His reply that Lucy (who is quite a wuss) had thoroughly enjoyed it, led us to book. His following comment that perhaps he should have had his glasses on as he hadn’t seen the word ‘mother’ in my original message did make us all laugh!

At the top (main) zipline after our bumpy ride up in that truck

For a one minute ride, the whole experience took two hours, but time flew, as did we. We were very impressed by the safety procedures, everything was double checked, from the fitting of the harness to its attachment to the bobbin thing. We first had a short test flight which we could do as a three, that was cool enough. The 15 minute ride of hairpins up the hill in the horrible lorry made us all feel slightly sick, but it didn’t last long. With that it was our turn, Brian went first as they were only doing twos on this one, with mum and I right behind him. It was fab, you really did feel like a bird, flying weightless through the sky. Lots of kudos and congratulations for mum when we put it on Facebook, while sitting in the restaurant with a glass of wine! Brilliant morning.

This is the view from the upper launch area. You can just see the cables on the right heading down and I've marked with a red arrow outline the little landing area one mile away. You hang face down under the cables and wizz down at up to 100mph over the lake and come to a fairly abrupt halt where people grab you and unhook you. All very exciting!

Mum had picked up a little book in the cafe we’d had lunch in on Saturday, so tour Guide Brian had been through it, and took us on a great little tour of Conwy, much more prosaic, but jolly good. A celebratory drink in the pub rounded off a great day.

The person ahead of me having just set off. The red platform is raised up, you lie face down and they attach the mechanism, a second person checks it, they lower the platform so you're suspended in space, they count three, two, one in Welsh and off you go! Next stop, that little rectangle in the distance. Click this youtube link to see the promo video of what to expect: https://youtu.be/5iSewoC1inM

Wednesday dawned wet, (thank goodness it hadn’t been Tuesday) so we got the jigsaw out, how very different from yesterday! We finally ventured out to do a drive around and over the Great Orme overlooking Llandudno, very scenic, even in the rain, and it had to be a drive as neither the cable car or tram are yet running. We didn’t stay long on the summit, 5 degrees not being very warm!

Here comes Pauline!

Thursday started with great promise, so we went to Trefriw for breakfast and a little waterfall walk, breakfast was great, the rain that came in not so, but seeing waterfalls in the rain somehow is ok, and it was only a short walk. A scenic drive along the Synchant Pass back to Conwy and a good walk along the river rounded off another varied day.

Jackie and a member of staff helping Pauline after her release. They even gave us a lift back down in a car rather than having to walk down like everyone else

Friday we split, Brian went for a ‘little’ 20 mile training walk for the West highland way, while mum and I went to the seaside. 14 degrees and sunny, it would have been rude not to! We started off in Rhos on sea and moved on to Colwyn Bay, where the dogs on the beach passed a very entertaining hour for us. Evening meal in the pub, well it was only 5 minutes away, it had to be done.

Here's the stats for the zipwire we did

Saturday up to pack and drive drive home. The scenic route, through Betws-y-coed which really is very beautiful, and today? Up in the loft, getting different bags and bits of kit to start packing for Egypt and Jordan, two loads of washing done, and a chicken roasting in the oven. We don’t mess about!

And for Pauline, a large glass of wine was the next order of the day!

And, of course, we had to take this photo!

I know this is a boring food photo, but this is Welsh Rarebit! I've wanted to try this for years, thought I'd had one a couple of years ago in Newport but was told that was just cheese on toast. This was the Real McCoy and fabulous it was. It is basically cheese on toast but with some additions (always a secret)

This was on our guided (by me!) tour of Conwy with the help of the book Pauline bought. And this, as the sign says is the smallest house in the UK. Last lived in in 1900 by someone who was 6 feet 3 inches tall!

Walking along part of the town walls. I won't put on any more photos of the town, but we saw the oldest building, town gates and old pub and many more. If you're in the area of Conwy it's well worth a visit. The castle itself is well worth the entrance fee

I won't bore you too much with my 20 mile walk either. I walked from the cottage in Deganwy, up over the Great Orme, down into Llandudno, along the seafront, up the Little Orme, then back along the upper back streets of Llandudno, back up onto the Great Orme, then back to the house via Conwy (I had to go via Conwy as I wanted to do 20 miles and it wasn't quite long enough without that! You can check out the walk by looking at this short video with a lot more photos: click here

All right, just a couple then... this is the summit cairn on the Great Orme with, in the distance, Little Orme, my next objective

And this is the summit cairn on Little Orme with Great Orme in the distance and Llandudno spread out below it. Did you know, the name Great Orme derives from an Old Norse word meaning Sea Serpent

This is the dry ski slope on the Great Orme. It looks quite good, a button lift and a reasonably long slope down, steeper at the top, easy at the bottom for beginners

Llandudno pier. You know you're at a proper British seaside resort when you see one of those!

The view the other way from Little Orme with Rhos-on-Sea and Colwn Bay

A photo of Jackie and her mum's day out. Guess where they were

On our way home with a stop at Betws-y-Coed