Our 40th Wedding Anniversary

Today we decided to celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary by making a special day of it. Well we‘ve managed not to throttle each other after forty years, so it needed celebrating. Don’t ever think of attempting this lifestyle if you can’t stand each other’s company there’s nowhere to hide in an RV.

The sky was leaden gray and it threatened to rain so we prepared for the worst and donned our waterproof jackets. Off we went in the little toad to Llangollen a town Kay had always wanted to visit that was only a short hop up the A5.

Llangollen is a pleasant little town though we noticed that for a renowned tourist spot it really could do with some TLC in places. The Llangollen canal, the railway station, the old bridge with the river Dee thundering below all looked nice and picturesque.
We stopped for a bite to eat at the little Bistro on the bridges end and sat at a lovely table in a bay window that projected out above the river below. We only wanted a bacon bap and a cup of tea but what we got was a bacon bap meal with chips and salad with our tea, which to be honest was excellent and not too expensive. It appeared to us that the owner and staff where more eastern European than Welsh, still the service was good.

River Dee

Railway station

Kay on the bridge

Castle Dinas Bran

We then decided to visit a place that I had only visited once as a young boy with my parents some fifty years ago. I couldn’t remember much from those days, water and rocks sprang to mind. Still the rain appeared to be holding off, so off we went further up the A5 to Betws-Y-Coed and the Swallow Falls.

Betws-y-coed Church

Betws-y-coed station

At first the town looks open and empty until you realise that the main street is not just the front of the railway station as I did, the main street carries on up along the A5. Most of the shops appear to be either outdoor clothing suppliers or tourist and gift shops. The Church looks fantastic with its dramatic wooded backdrop and all the houses are built of that dark gray flint which gives the area a cold hard look, no doubt it looks warmer in the sunshine.

The rain started to fall but it didn’t dampen our spirits as we headed out of town to the Swallow Falls. I couldn’t remember much from my first visit but the falls were full of flood water and the thundering roar of it cascading over those jagged rocks certainly left an impression.

Swallow Falls

Kay at the Falls

What A Climb

now much older

'I'm not wet honest'

The journey back was a bit of a pain due to two old people. First was an old lady that wouldn’t go above 40 Mph and due to the areas winding roads a large jam soon formed up behind. Just as we were getting to the point where we thought we could overtake her, she was joined by an old man in his car who then proceeded to drive at 30Mph all this on a 60Mph highway. You soon realise why people get road rage, oh and the occasional idiot Vauxhall driver who thinks he’s Michael Schumacher.

We then decided to pay a visit to what was going to be our next caravan site, Newnes on the A495, the main road to Ellesmere. We were in for a shock, on the brochure the entrance looked wide and pleasant, in reality it lead up a narrow dirty farm track with no passing places, followed by a sharp turn up a steep rough dirt track hill that our RV and trailer would have great difficulty with. So we have phoned up and cancelled our stay with them. Oh and the showers appeared to be in a small wooden shed, we were not impressed.

On the way back we passed through the village of Whittington with only what can be described as a fairytale castle in its heart. So we stopped off for a cup of tea and took some photos. The castle is one of the old border fortresses and its history can be found at http://www.whittingtoncastle.co.uk/history/index.shtml.

Whittington Castle

Entrance

Stocks

All in all an eventful and memorable day, so now it’s time to get down to finding a new site that will cover the dates we had planned for the Newnes.

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