This weekend we decided to embark on a 400-mile round trip to Snowdonia. We travelled with some of our friends who thankfully had a proper car, rather than in our increasingly rickety Rover 100. Google maps reassured me that the journey would take a mere 3 hours. This was not close. Not even to the nearest 3 hours, 20 minutes. I’m considering writing a (strongly worded) letter to Mr. Google Maps. We eventually rolled into the general cottage area around 1am and that’s when the adventure really began.
I’m not really sure how to describe the exact location of our cottage. Betws-y-Coed was the nearest town, but we were a fair distance from there. We were a few turns off a little road, up a tiny track, through a few gates and then down another worryingly tiny track, past a few hundred sheep, and over a little bridge. Not so easy to find in the dark. My map-reading skills were not improved by the relaxing tones of my screaming, overtired one year old, who’d been wide awake since entering Wales.
Still.. we found the cottage and all slept very well. The light of the next morning revealed that we were staying in one of the most beautiful locations I’d ever experienced. The snow-topped mountains of Snowdonia loomed all around us. All I could hear was the rushing water of a nearby river, which was only disturbed by the noise of our neighbours (several hundred sheep). The sheep proved Adlai’s main attraction. He tried to communicate with them on a regular basis throughout the weekend but with limited success. I can only assume they were Welsh-speaking.
With Adlai strapped to my back, we saw more waterfalls and mountains than you could shake a medium-sized stick at. It was a fantastic time. The return journey was broken up with the less majestic, but equally effective scenery of KFC and Starbucks and seemed to pass relatively pain-free.
