North Wales - Castle Hunting

North Wales – Castle hunting

Gareth and I decided to go castle hunting in North Wales, and boy did we pick the right area! The place is covered with castles – you drive through some random village in the middle of nowhere and there's the ruin of a castle sitting there. It was fantastic.

So we picked up a car, and a girl or three (Jas and Sha and a Korean girl named Christina from Gareth's orchestra) and set out on the motorways. Before long, we were talking like all of the English: “I think we want to take the M2 until we reach a junction, and then take the A234 to such-and-such, and then the B543 until it rejoins the A32 and then splits into the ...” you get my point.

We planned to stop at a couple of castles along the way, so on the way up, we got ourselves severely lost in backways, driving back and forth through towns whose names looked like they belong in some fantasy book.

We found a couple of castles in a small town whose name escapes me, and did a tour in the first one. It was really a manor house that was converted to a castle by a gentleman with social aspirations, but it was interesting nonetheless. There was an art gallery in there, as well, and I ended up having a long conversation about painting styles (which I know nothing about) with an old gent who was working at the castle as a steward of some description. I learned a lot, not least that you can hide behind being a Kiwi quite effectively – no one seems to expect a Kiwi to know anything about things cultural, so you get kudos for the tiniest of insights...

So, anyway, having left the castle, we were driving along listening to the Wales vs Fiji rugby game on the radio, and, with the (immensely partisan) commentators commenting on what a great match it was every few minutes, we eventually decided that we'd stop at a pub and watch the last 15 minutes. Now, we weren't thinking too far ahead, so we didn't even consider that we had Fijian Indians with us. So when the final try was scored, and Fiji won it, Jas and Sha both jumped up and shouted “YES!” This is not a great thing to be shouting in a Welsh pub after seeing Wales get knocked out of the world cup. Thank goodness those girls are so attractive, otherwise we might have had more trouble. As it was, all of the blokes who weren't muttering about how crap the Welsh rugby team were clustered around the girls and tried to engage them in conversation. So we ended up getting a lot of recommendations on places that 'you simply have to see, it's absolutely lovely.'

Our second castle was cooler by far – it was a battered old ruin sitting on a slight rise in the middle of town, and it looked like it had been built for war; thick stone walls, a moat, the works. We didn't get too much information on it, because it was closed for the evening, and we were chased away by the rather annoyed caretaker. I think we'd interrupted her dinner, or something. Still, we got a few shots, and were left with a sense of mystery, which in some ways is better.

Then we drove on to Llandudno, where we were staying the night. This involved driving down Conwy Vale to the sea – a valley of lush green farmland amid the rather more inhospitable expanse of North Wales. It was at Llandudno that our research let us down – we were told the next day that one of the most impressive castles in North Wales, Conwy Castle, was situated in the next town. Unfortunately, by the time we'd found that out, it was too late.

The next day we made our way down to Caernarfon, and had a look at the castle there. This one was awesome – I wandered round it in awe until the others dragged me out of there. The castle was built by Edward the First during his invasion of Wales, and... well, it's incredibly impressive. Have a look at this page if you want to know a bit more about it. Gareth and I had a great time framing photos and all that...

By this point we were pretty castled out, so we went and visited Mt Snowdonia (beautiful), some little stream (New Zealand-like, and beautiful) and had some ice creams in the sun. Once we'd done that, we decided that a good way to round off the weekend would be to go horse riding. So we found a farm that did horse treks, and forked over ungodly sums to ride horses through the vales of north Wales. It was lovely.

Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, Bath and Bristol

I'm going to make this fairly short, and hopefully at some point I'll catch up in time.

Gareth organised a trip for the two of us, plus Sha and Jas and Kylie (three Kiwi girls) out to the places mentioned above. We hired a car, and, after a few false starts, got out toward the Salisbury plain. We stopped at an old English pub in the middle of nowhere and had lunch, and were delighted when a local gentleman rolled up in an old Bently, but that's another story for another time.

Stonehenge is situated at the junction of two fairly major motorways, which might be fitting considering that it was originally situated at the junction of two roads. Possibly the motorways follow the path of the ancient ways that have wound their way across the Salisbury plain for millenia. Either way, I wasn't expecting much, because I'd been told that it was somewhat underwhelming, and the setting didn't give much in the way of hope.

I was wrong, and so was every person who told me that it wasn't much. The feeling of age was incredible. Looking at that awesome old structure was cool, and the size of the stones was truly impressive, but the best bit was to stand beside Stonehenge and look out across the Salisbury plain, and see that every ridge line is covered with barrows, marking the graves of the great and the glorious of the people of... no one knows who... I mean, if you want a feeling of wonder, go look at the burial monument of someone who was obviously worth the effort to bury in a grand fashion, but who was buried so long ago that no one is even sure what tribe he belonged to, let alone what his name is.

Driving on from there, we soon came to Bath, which was a cool little town in the very quaint English style. We of course went through the tour of the Roman baths, which were great. The water tasted terrible, so consequently must be immensely good for you. The best bit of the Baths for me were the curses and prayers, inscribed on metal, and cast into the spring in the hope that the goddess would grant them. What a way of preserving the pettiest parts of human nature for posterity! After the baths, we visited Sally Lunn's bread shop, at which I bought the most expensive bun I'm ever likely to buy, and then went and got lunch. Then it was time to push on, and head to Bristol.

Really, we just tacked Bristol on at the end cos it was close, and we had a bit of time left. It's a bit of a University town, but there are some nice features in the part that we were in. We just generally wandered around and had a bit of a giggle.