Wednesday I left to go to Snowdonia National Park with my friend Luke from Wyoming. We left right after class and jumped on the train to Bangor. I took a couple short naps on the train because I had been running around all morning trying to get things ready for spring break. By the time we got there I was well rested and ready to go. We had a fun time trying to find our hostel in Bangor because it was nestled back into some woods a ways and had a nice long path leading up to it. It was a really cute hostel but had horrible location! We checked in for the night and dropped off our bags and then went to find some food and a cool pub to chill in for the night. We ended up getting some Donner kebabs because Luke had never had them. They really filled us up!
After that we went to a great local pub and chilled for a few hours before heading back and getting some sleep. We got going at about 8 the next morning. We walked down to the pier to do a little bit of sightseeing before heading to find the bus to Canearfyn. This was the town we needed to go to, to catch the bus into Snowdonia National Park. We wandered for quite a while around the town before finding the bus stop. When we finally got on the bus it took about 20 minutes to get to Canearfyn. From there we had to wait about 30 minutes for the bus to take us to our hostel.
We went and grabbed a few snacks and had some tea and then caught the bus to our hostel. By that time it was about 11 am. We couldn’t check into our hostel yet but they did let us leave our bags there. We took things out of Luke’s bag, only keeping water and snacks and left his things in my bag so we could hike up the mountain with only one bag. We immediately started hiking toward Mt. Snowdon, the highest point in Wales and Britain. We started out at about 450 ft and ended the hike at about 3550 feet. It was quite a hike! I was thinking it shouldn’t be too bad of a hike when I first looked at it and at first it really wasn’t bad at all, but once we hit the base of Mt. Snowdon the pitch really went up. It took us about three hours to get to the top of the mountain with a quick break to eat and apple and a granola bar since we were really needing the calories at that point. The entire way up the view was amazing but when I got to the top it was literally breath taking.
I have never climbed a mountain before so it was great to see the view from that height. Luke said that is had many similarities to mountains in Wyoming, but it was cool because there weren’t many trees so you could really see the lay of the land. We stayed up there for about an hour and Luke practically had to pull me off the mountain.
The walk down was not nearly as fun as the walk up. I think I about rolled my ankle about 40 times and about fell 20. The rocks that were loose and I didn’t really like coming up were even worse going down. It made for an interesting descent. When we got about half way down the steep climb of the mountain I was walking across this grassy area and discovered a really squishy moss bed. We needed a break anyway so we lay down in the moss bed for about a half hour. We both decided it was more comfortable than our beds in Swansea!
We continued on down the steep portion and I somehow managed to only fall once and not to roll my ankle! Then we were back on flat ground for a while! Luke had seen a rock on the way up that he wanted to try to climb so we headed in that direction. We had to climb over 2 fences and go through a really marshy area to get to this rock but it was pretty cool to see Luke try to climb it. Also, on the way back to the path we found some frog spawn which looked really squishy and gross but it was cool to say we had seen it!
We continued on the path back to the hostel and checked in when we got there. It was about time for supper so we ordered some food at the hostel and chilled for a bit until it was ready. We were both pretty exhausted and didn’t realize that it was actually sunny enough to get a good burn for the day. I mostly just got burnt on my neck but was wearing a necklace so I had a sweet line where that had been. My neck looks a bit like a candy cane!
We had our supper which was actually really good considering it was hostel food. I had pasta with sun dried tomatoes and mushrooms and had homemade sticky toffee pudding for desert. It really hit the spot after that long hike! We both took showers after that and then worked on a puzzle for a little bit before calling it a night.
This morning we woke up early and climbed a closer, smaller mountain to watch the sun come up. We started the climb around 5 and it only took about an hour and half to get to the peak from our hostel. It was amazing watching the sun come up over the mountains. We didn’t stay until it came all the way over but it was really great to see the colors when the sun was coming up. It got pretty chilly pretty fast so we hiked back down. When we got back we had a quick bite to eat and then took a power nap. After our power nap we showered and checked out of the hostel.
We wanted to walk around the lake that was in front of the hostel but there was no path leading around the lake. We walked the little bit of path there was around the lake and then found a great beach to lay on and bask in the warm rays of the sun until the bus came to take us back into town. It was a relaxing couple hours. We saw some geese and some ducks on the lake and took lots of pictures. After that is was back to the real world of public transportation and long train rides! Luke came as far as Chester with me before jumping a different train to go to Manchester for the soccer game. I headed back to Swansea to unpack and repack for my month long trip which starts on Sunday.
I am leaving tomorrow to travel to Birmingham and staying overnight because there is no train that will get me there in time if I leave in the morning. Karl is traveling with me and we are staying at another girl from TN’s dorm in Birmingham. I can’t wait! My next blow will hopefully be from Prague!