Last evening walking back to our home away from home yesterday we saw the swans stalking the ducks. They were stealth hunters, picking one duck out of the group to torment. This picture tells the tale…
On our early morning walk to the train this morning we saw the family coming down the river. They look so nice
We missed breakfast because we had to catch the early train for today’s all day adventure.
Even though it was early, there is always has something going on in town & this morning, the sweepers were out.
We grabbed a coffee and scone at a little shop called Iron Fire by the station and caught the train headed to Bangor.
Where’s Bangor you wonder?
A few hours later we arrived in Bangor and left the train to find a bus for the next leg on today’s adventure. In the middle of the street I saw a little Teddy, face down. I’m sure some wee one is very sad that he jumped out of their bag. I put him at the train sign hoping they’d find him again…
We stood at the bus stop hoping for the T10 bus to the town of Llamberis and the Llamberis Interchange stop (as specified by ChatGPT) which was closest to our last leg of today’s adventure. The T10 was listed on the posted schedule at the bus stop. Looked like we had a bit of a wait for the bus.
Two young ladies appeared and asked where we were headed. They were off to another town but our stop was before theirs. They had the bus schedule pulled up on their mobile and said we needed to go around the corner to the another stop and catch the S2 bus. Lil guardian angels along the way…
Less than 5 minutes after we got to the new stop, the S2 bus arrived and we were off. We arrived in Llanberis, walked across the road to the next train station, the Snowdon Mountain Railway! We had plenty of time to see their movie about the history of the Railway before we headed off towards the summit.
The Snowdon Mountain Railway (Rheilffordd yr Wyddfa) is a narrow gauge rack and pinion mountain railway in Gwynedd Wales. It’s celebrating its 130th anniversary. It travels for 4.7 miles (7.6 km) from Llanberis to the summit of Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales. A return journey, including the stop at the summit, takes 2½ hours.
It looked pretty chaotic but it was actually very well organized. Your ticket had a compartment number and you were in that going up and down. They asked everyone to switch sides going down so everybody got to see the fabulous views.
Ok, enough babble, how about some pictures!
Because there is only one track, there are several pull outs that were timed perfectly for one train to pull over and let the other pass.
Ok, back to the scenery…
The rack and pinion track enables the train to climb the steep slopes up to the top but it’s slow going.
Sadly, we only got 30min at the top. You had to be back in your train car on time, because they were leaving on time! And no catching a later train, they were all booked for the whole day!
It was a fast two and a half hours for sure! What an amazing place. We grazed through the gift shops while waiting for our bus back to Bangor. Dropped us off right at the train station with plenty of time to spare. Unlike some poor bloke who came running onto the platform only to see his train pulling away! Oh well, just another hour wait till the next one 🙂
As we left one of the towns on our way back to Shrewsbury, Ellen got a nice picture of one of the rail bridges that seem to dot the countryside. No sign of the Harry Potter Hogwarts train I’m afraid.
Before we knew it the day was done and once back in Shrewsbury we grabbed a bit to eat before heading back to the B&B. There were so many wonderful sights today, it was had to sort them all out.
Tomorrow, off on another adventure to explore an old city still wrapped in its Roman walls!
