Day 8: Riding on the Railroad All the Live-long Day

Happy Fourth of July to all!

Well today I spent seven and a half hours on or waiting for trains.  But it wasn't all a bad experience!  I left my B&B in Caernarfon this morning and went to the Wales Highland Railway train station, right by the harbor.  The railway runs along a historic, narrow gauge railway from Caernarfon to Porthmadog, a harbor town that originally boomed with the slate industry in the region.  The train runs 25 miles, with stops along the way, and is pulled by a steam powered engine.  It felt very much like taking a step into the past.  The train had a first class observation car, with big glass windows and armchairs set before them.  The rest of the cars were made up of small cushioned benches and tables for the third class passengers.  The train even had the classic "toot toot" of what I presume is a steam whistle.  The only downside of jumping back into the past was trying to stay balanced during the unexpected lurches of the train ride. 

The route of the Wales Highland Railway runs through Snowdonia National Park and around the base of Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales at 3,560 feet.  For the vast majority of my train ride it was a stereotypical British summer morning: cloudy with misting and light rain.  This obscured some of the views from the train, but I think it may have actually been an improvement.  Every mountain peak (especially Snowdon) disappeared into the low-lying clouds and with just a small amount of imagination, it seemed like they could have gone on forever.

Another great part of the view from the train was all the animals grazing in pastures along the train tracks.  I saw thousands of sheep, hundreds of cows, a few horses, three ponies, and just a few goats.  For some reason, I find all of these animals adorable, especially goats and sheep.  I took many, many pictures of the sheep we passed by (partially trying to capture a picture for the fun fact!).  I've decided that there are few things cuter than watching a lamb run through a pasture.  They just look so knobby and uncouth, but so excited.

After the two hour ride, I reached Porthmadog, where I had originally planned on spending the night. Unfortunately I could not find a hotel in advance, so I had planned to keep moving closer to Shrewsbury, my next destination.  I ate a quick lunch in the harbor area and then headed to a different train station, one that has trains that can go farther and faster than the Wales Highland Railway.  The route I took towards Aberystwyth (my port of call for the night) followed the Welsh coastline.  I looked up from a guide book to be struck by views of a beautiful, white, sandy beach and light, clear, blue water.  I questioned again whether or not I should have brought my bathing suit with me.

My train took me from Porthmadog to Machynlleth, where I disembarked and waited for a different train.  My next train took me to Aberystwyth, a beautiful university town on Cardigan Bay.  I found the guest house I'm staying in and took a little break from all my traveling.  Feeling rejuvenated, I made my way down to the promenade by the sea.  There is an expansive beach by the water, running up to meet the road and the pastel, Georgian houses that line the seafront.  In January of 2014, Aberystwyth was severely damaged by a storm and the promenade suffered.  A year and a half later there is still some evidence of reconstruction, but very little and the promenade is lovely.

Walking along the promenade, it is impossible to miss the ruins of Aberystwyth Castle.  The castle is another creation of Edward I, like Caernarfon, but was not used as extensively.  The castle fell into disrepair rather quickly, but was still involved in Welsh rebellions and the English Civil War.  The ruins are now part of a public park, right near the Old College.  I loved that there was a playground, just below the ruins.  It seems like an ingenious way to interest young children in history, by allowing them to play in the shadows of their local history and hopefully encourage their curiosity and desire to explore.

Continuing down the promenade to the South Beach, the harbor comes into view.  There is a long jetty at the end of the harbor and there was a lone angler fishing as I walked towards it.  The views out over the ocean and the landscape outside of town were wonderful.  I reached one end of the promenade and headed back towards the main part of town.  I had a very nice dinner at a small restaurant on the promenade and even indulged in some ice cream as I walked through the town after dinner.

After a long day of travel, it turned into a lovely evening.

Fun Fact #8: So this is sort of a two part fun fact.  Many people may already know this (I actually did), but I was struck by it again.  In the U.S. most sheep tails are docked, leaving them with small, bobbed tails.  But this is not what they naturally look like!  No, sheep have long, wooly tails, larger and longer than many dogs!  I think they make sheep even cuter.  The second part of the fact is that some sheep in Wales are dyed with bright, neon colors.  Apparently in recent years rustling has been on the rise in certain part of the U.K. (I'm not sure about in Wales) and shepherds and farmers have taken to marking their sheep with bright colors so they can identify their animals from great distances.

Day 5: Getting Lost...A Lot

Well today was a lot.  I'm expecting (and hoping) that today will be my most physically challenging of the trip.  Today I hiked from Holyhead, along the coast of Holy Island, to the top of Holyhead Mountain and down the other side to South Stack, a 206-year-old lighthouse, and then back again.  All said and done, I took over 30,000 steps today and walked almost 14 miles (thanks Fitbit!).

For the most part, I followed the Anglesey Coastal Path, which runs around most of Holy Island.  I do immediately have to say this was one of the day's biggest challenges.  The trail is marked, but not all too often, and there are hundreds (yes, hundreds) of offshoot trails from the main paths.  Some of these offshoot trails look bigger, more official, or easier than the path you are supposed to take.  This meant I spent a great deal of the day wandering on paths, hoping I was still heading in the right direction.  The views you get from any of these paths are amazing (one benefit of so many paths is you can almost always find a way to the coast or the cliffs for magnificent views).  I did not hike on the best day, with sporadic bits of rain, but the scenery was still striking.  Apparently from a clear day, you can see all the way to Ireland!

There are many things of note along the route, but the first really striking one for me was the old fog station.  It is apparently home to a local artist and I wish I had seen her walking around; I would have had so many questions for her.  The station is perched on a cliff over the sea and down a rather treacherous path.  It was a great place to try to imagine life on a relatively isolated island.

From there, I started my climb up to the summit of Holyhead Mountain, which began slowly.  I reached a lower crest and became very certain that I must be at the summit even though I could see a higher part of the mountain.  This was because I had reached a well laid out wall (a section pictured below) and the foundation of a rectangular building.  This seemed like it was the Roman watch tower I was meant to find at the summit!  I wandered around and took my notes rather confusedly before deciding that it must have been some later addition and the true Roman tower was up the mountain (I believe this is an old telegraph station, based on the route I was using, but an employee at the South Stack visitor center told me he thought it was Roman.  I'm guessing he was probably wrong.).

I happened to pick one of the more obscure paths up to the summit and did my best imitation of a mountain goat, hopping up rocks, trying to reach the Roman ruins.  I was very impressed from my approach that anyone could have identified the jumbles of rocks as anything more than that, let alone the remnants of Roman occupation.  However, when I finally made it up to the summit, I saw more of what I was expecting: the base of a building at the highest point of the island.  There was clearer evidence of the a Roman wall on the other side of the summit.  The spot had commanding views all around, even on an overcast day.  The tower would have been able to watch out over the Irish Sea for raiders and look back towards Holy Island, Anglesey, and mainland Wales.  Nowadays, the summit gives a striking view of Holyhead and her harbor.

After descending the summit, which took longer than expected as one path I followed tried to have me scale down a 20' cliff, I turned towards South Stack.  I had been able to see the lighthouse a few times and it was beautiful from a distance.  The route there was more circuitous than it probably should have been, but as scattered raindrops fell, I reached the crest above the lighthouse.  There I came to a ruined structure, possibly a gun turret, and looked down at South Stack.

I had decided when I began the day, I was going to push myself and go out to the lighthouse.  Those who know me well (or maybe less than well), know that I struggle with anxiety, and long staircases (I know it's weird), as well as heights, can give me bad anxiety.  I knew I would find both of those at the South Stack; it's 400 steps down the cliff, then across an aluminum bridge over a rocky, rough channel, and then the stairs up the 135' tower.  After some confusion over where to get tickets and a stop to look for puffins at the RSPB observation area (no luck), I headed down the stairs.  They were not nearly as bad as I expected and soon I was at the bridge.  I started across slowly and then basically sprinted to the other end because I was getting the skeevies knowing there was nothing below the bridge but angry water.  I walked the path to the lighthouse and was quickly shepherded into a tour of the house, which consisted of being told to climb the tower.  The tower staircase was the epitome of what gives me anxiety: a small, narrow, spiral staircase built into the wall with no support beneath.  Since there were people following me (and because we were heading up), I took a few deep breaths and made it up to the top.  The view was again impressive and it was very cool to see the glass that magnifies the beam rotating around a lightbulb.  A cheery guide spouted off some facts about the lighthouse.

Unfortunately, I missed most of what he said because bad luck had befallen me.  I noticed that a cushion from one of my earbuds had fallen off and had probably fallen into a grate at the top of the lighthouse.  Now this is no disaster, but a true annoyance to me.  In the immediate sense, I had picked out songs to help keep me calm when dealing with the stairs, and in the longer sense, I was using music to keep me entertained on my long walks and train rides.  I knew it would be hard to find a way to replace the bud, so I fruitlessly tried to find my missing cushion.  No luck and I took the stairs back down (which was much worse than going up).

I headed back to the visitors center, grabbed a quick lunch, and then tried to head back towards Holyhead.  Tried being the operative word.  I tried to take many trails that led nowhere.  One advantage of all these mistakes was that I was able to see the ancient huts near South Stack.  They date from as early as the Iron Age (around 500 BCE) to the post-Roman period.  The huts were small farmsteads, with homes and areas for livestock.  There's also evidence of farming going on around the huts.  It is believed that though there are eight farmsteads, only one or two were occupied at a time.  There was also one hut complex that was much larger than the rest.  This one consisted of two circular buildings, a small, closet-like building, and a walled yard.  The huts were quite fun to wander through and the knowledge that they were probably occupied simultaneously as the Roman watchtower brought new ideas of native and Roman interaction.

Eventually I found a path heading the way I wanted, around the non-coastal side of Holyhead Mountain.  As I was rounding the mountain, I kept hearing voices but there were no others on the paths around me.  Finally I spotted four men climbing the cliffs of Holyhead Mountain.  I was distracted by this for quite sometime, both fascinated and terrified that someone would fall.  I moved on once I saw the man pictured below safely reach the top of the cliff he was scaling.

Coming around the other side of Holyhead Mountain, I got a closer look at the Roman walls...I think. I already had doubts about the extent of the walls that were "Roman" and they were made worse by taking this route.  I soon found that there were many other walls around Holyhead Mountain, presumably from old or current grazing areas.  I wandered through these, trying to angle back towards the town of Holyhead and my B&B, but never knowing if I was really heading the right way.  I found a path heading back towards town area and started down it carefully.  Then I stopped.  I was at an impasse...with four horses.

Grazing right next to my path home, were four horses - two stallions and two mares.  I've never known horses to be aggressive or territorial, but because it seemed like it might be two males and their mates, I decided to be cautious and wait for the horses to move on.  That didn't quite go as planned.  Three of the horses took a lot of interest in me, coming up to the small wall that I was standing by.  The one pictured below let me pet his muzzle, but another just seemed annoyed I didn't have any sugar for him.  After around ten minutes of the horses looking at me like I was a fool (I was probably being one), they eventually moved farther down their field and I calmly, but quickly, crossed the pasture.  After another twenty or so minutes, I finally made it back to my room and collapsed into bed, with aching feet.

Fun Fact #5: In the 1800s, a young man working at South Stack was so worried about his sick mother that he crossed back to the mainland in a storm...on a rope using his hands and feet.  There was no bridge at that time and as his friends cheered him on, he scrambled across to the other side, over churning water and through pouring rain.  Just to check on his mother.  No son can top that.