Wonderful Weekend in Wales

Shwmau / Hi !

Last weekend was a bank holiday over here and you have to make use of any opportunity to do some trippin’ out of London. Justin, his flat mate Patrick, Turtle and I all went on a tour of Wales with Shaggy Sheep tours. It was the smallest tour I’ve been on so far, with 16 people, but there still was interesting people.

After being sick with food poisoning and having to get up at 5:30am to meet the tour at 7:30am, the first day was a bit of a slog for me. Our first stop was Cardiff and we were left to our own devices for a few hours to explore the relatively small city centre. We did a tour of the Millennium stadium where many big concerts and sports events are held. They were setting up the stage for the Rolling Stones concert at the time. The big opening roof would have been impressive to see open, but apparently it takes 20min. After Cardiff, we saw A.B.C. (Another Bloody Castle or Another Bloody Cathedral – typical of any tour in Europe) and then went to the smallest pub in Wales for a pint, before having some dinner and heading to our hostel.

The next day was better. Firstly we went to explore where a famous Welsh poet by the name of Dylan Thomas lived. It sounds like he was a man plagued by an excess of alcohol, but he has sparked my interest in poetry somewhat. Maybe his prose speaks to me better. One of his more well known poems is entitled ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_go_gentle_into_that_good_night.

We then headed to the smallest city in Britain on the west coast, called St. David’s with a population of 1979. It is only called a city because of it’s cathedral called St. David’s also. After that, was the highlight of the trip; coasteering! Now many of you will wonder what that is, like I did a few weeks ago. Well a simple way to describe it is: Coasteering involves doing all the things you were always told not to do at the beach. You head straight for the rocks, scramble up and down the cliffs, jump into the ocean, let the waves carry you into swirling rock pools, then get back up and do it all again. That’s pretty much it. I’ll let the photos explain the rest. I must say though, it was great to do some adventure sport. Some of the jumps were about 17m high with people hitting the water at nearly 70kph! It was quite hard work for over 2 hours, but really exhilarating, and helped us bond a bit as a tour group.

After that we went to have a well earned beer and feed at another nice country restaurant where we had a hearty Welsh soup called Cawl. Some had servings of faggots and spotted dick for dessert! A fun night was had.

The next morning, we headed out to climb Brecon Beacons which woke us up! Apparently it’s where the SAS soldiers train. It was nice climb up to some decent views, while seeing some sheep along the way. It was nothing compared to the beauty you see of nature on a typical hike back home though. After that we headed to a coal mine, which was quite an eye opening experience to see the conditions they had to work in. I think we headed 90feet underground and got kitted up with hard hats with lanterns. It was cool when we turned all our lights off to experience the most purest of darkness.

That about rounds the trip off. All in all a great weekend. I loved going to the little country villages like where Daveth off Little Britian is from, and hearing their almost singing quality of the language.

Iechyd da! (Welsh for cheers / good health)