Iniitial blog posts

content/blog/day12.md

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+---
+title: 'Day 12: Holyhead (hiking Snowden) to Crickhowell'
+date: 2013-06-19T15:01:49+02:00
+Tags: []
+Categories: []
+---
+
+## Cymru
+
+There's a funny thing about Welsh. It seems most words in this language have at least one of 'c', 'w', 'y' or 'll'. Some words are just
+(seemingly) random permutations of these four options. And we figure the remaining words are borrowed from foreign languages or something. I
+mean, who comes up with a town name like 'Mawddwy' and how on earth do you pronounce that ? Or, worse still,
+'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch' ?
+
+Anyway, that is our first stop today. We'll just refer to it as 'DEST' from now on, to save on bandwidth. We leave our Holyhead Travelodge
+pretty early and drive to DEST. Of course, the requisite pictures are taken of the train station's name sign but after that we are mostly
+just very hungry. A quick visit of the local supermarket to replenish our supplies later, we leave DEST and head for more sensibly named
+places. Like Snowdon, something we (think we) know how to say.
+
+Pim finds an interesting trail head in yet another unspeakable place ("Rhyd Ddu", if you must know), so we program the satnav and start
+driving. Pim makes a nice sandwich and before we know it we're in Rhyd Ddu and find our trail head. However, while ascending, we grow more
+and more skeptical about being on the right mountain. Looking around, we see many hills that seem to be higher. Right, that's because we
+wanted a proper look at Snowdon from another hilltop! This was planned all along baby. It's a pretty tough trail, so we progress rather
+slowly. The local sheep run away when approached, so we can't ask them for easier accessible paths either. When settling down at a local
+maximum, we snack on some cheese and take photo's of what we now know is Snowdon, spotting what is probably the Rhyd Ddu trail we were
+looking for in the first place. We also decide to go up there by train after we get back to the car.
+
+Unfortunately, after we descend the hill and drive to Llanberis, we find a sign that tells us the next train leaves at 16:30. Since it's now
+just after two, we decide against waiting around for two hours and visit Caernarfon castle in the mean time. It's all quite close anyway.
+
+Turns out that Caernarfon castle is absolutely huge! After walking around (at high pace) for more than an hour, we still haven't seen half
+of it. But, we have to get going if we want to make this 16:30 train up Snowdon, so we head back to Llanberis to find that the next
+available train is actually at 17:30. Sigh. Just our luck. Should've bought those tickets when we were in Llanberis the first time around.
+Oh well, we'll snack on some fast food and hang out in the sun while we wait, not too bad! Before we know it, it's 17:30 and our train is
+about to leave.
+
+We go up in a car pushed by a pretty good looking diesel engine. The ride up takes approximately one hour and the scenery is beautiful. We
+have a nice view of the mountain we climbed earlier and Caernarfon (although we can't make out the castle from the distance). When the train
+arrives at the top, there's a few more meters to climb on foot to get to the actual peak. Using the GPS in my phone, I confirm that we're
+almost 1100 meters high: the highest point in Wales. Some pictures and looking around later and it's time to take the train back down. It's
+the last one of the day, so we better not miss it. One hour later and we're back down in Llanberis, and it's still sunny!
+
+OK, so it's now 20:00 and we still have to get to our hotel. We found a place in Crickhowell called 'The Dragon Inn' which is pretty close
+to Big Pit (our first stop tomorrow). Unfortunately, that's about 93 miles crow's flight and roughly a 130 miles drive. All very windy
+roads, with lots of construction going on. Fortunately, the drive is through a beautiful part of the country, we're treated to some very
+nice scenic views. Anyway, it takes us about three hours to get there, after which we're pretty much done with driving for the day and in
+desperate need of something liquid.
+
+We come to the Dragon Inn with little difficulty but find the door closed and nobody answering the doorbell. We try calling the phone number
+listed on the signs next to the door but there's no answer. However, from a bar across the street where live music spills out onto the
+street comes a man in our direction asking if we've booked a room in the inn. Turns out this is Pedro, the innkeeper, who was just having a
+drink in the bar while waiting for us to show up. He's very welcoming, lets us into the hotel and shows us our room. In fact, he gives us
+two rooms for extra privacy and less snoring! He also invites us to the bar for a much needed drink, making sure with the owner of the bar
+that it's cool we come in after closing hours.
+
+Over a couple of beers (both for Pim), we discuss the day: that was pretty awesome! Four activities in what has been the best weather so
+far. Cool!
+
+**Posted by Paul de Weerd at 1:00 PM**
+