I’m riding in the car on the M4 heading east back towards London. Owen and I are returning to Reading after having the spent the weekend at his parent’s cottage in Northern Wales. What a great weekend. The weather was great, we had a lot of fun and actualyl caught up on some rest too.
The cottage is in Llangoed, near Beaumaris, and it had a great view of the sea that I only discovered this morning when we were leaving.
We left Reading at about 7 pm on Friday night, and got into Llangoed at about midnight. The drive was nice, quiet and uneventful. We ate Burger King at a services stop, and were on our way for the rest of the trip. I couldn’t help Owen drive because I have no experience driving on the left side of the road, and with our borrowing his Mum’s car, I wouldn’t have wanted to try and learn this weekend.
Saturday was spend Mountain Biking in Betws-Y-Coed. I being a dumbass, forgot my shoes at the cottage. We parked the car right outside a bikeshop, thankfully, and they set me up with a new pair of shoes. I tried to borrow clipped pedals, but they didn’t ahve them, as most people either use the clipless system that I use or they go without toe clips, which I think is nuts. I ended up buying a somewhat ugly pair of Shimano soft-soled SPD shoes, which I was looking for anyway, so that I could walk around when I’m riding my bike, and not get footcramps from the hard soles of the Specialized shoes that I usually wear. I also rode on the semi slick tires that I usually ride on the way to work, which made the riding interesting, as I had about 25% of the tire tracktion that I’m used to. The rest of the gang rented Marin bikes with front suspension, and disc brakes. Mechanical disc brake, but I was still jealous. Gear Head.
The riding was good, and we were pretty tired by the end of the day. We had a couple of pints in a pub in Betws-Y-Coed, and then made our way back to the cottage to clean up and head out for dinner. We ended up eating in the Liverpool Arms hotel in Beaumaris.
On Sunday we were set to go hiking. Now, I have been hiking a few times in CA. I was expecting a somewhat strenuous but otherwise pleasant hike in a wooded hillside. We didn’t get that at all. What we got was about 6 hours of strenuous walking, rock hopping, and climbing. It kicked my ass. My thighs are still in pain, and it’s difficult to get up. I feel so old. BUT, this isn’t to say that I did have a good time. I had a great day. A day in which you know that you didn’t something right for yourself and your body no matter what the pain is at the end of the day. It’s a great and rewarding feeling of exhaustion. My legs were actually buckling by the end of the day on some of the decent.
The views were amazing, and I hope that some of the pictures that I’m going to post will do them justice. There were some frightening sections that made me realize that I might be afraid of heights. Not afraid of heights in general, but afraid of heights in which I have no protective harness, there are no railings, and the bottom of the fall is a bunch of jagged mini boulders 15 feet below. One of the things to do when you make the first summit, is to to jump from one of these 9 foot tall boulders with about 4.5 feet of distance between them. What you don’t see from the pictures is that they both had a 10 degree slant on them. You can see the video of my cautious, yet completed, leap of faith (It’s ~16 MB, so click at your own risk!)
For pictures of the day click here.
After the climb back down, and my legs had to recover, we teated outselves to pasties, coffee,and ice cream. We then went back to cottage and had dinner, we were famished after the day that we had. Rhiannon and Athena had to head back to Liverpool after dinner, so Owen and I went out to the pub, played a few games of darts, which I managed to win none of, and headed back to the cottage.
Today we spent most of the day driving, and stopped in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, so that owen could pay a quick visit to his grandmother. While he was doing that, i wandered around trying to find a Welsh football scarf, but to no avail. I did get to see some cool parts of the capital, like the castle, and the outside of the Museum and the capital building.
I’m finishing this entry as we just pull into Reading which I think is appropriate. We are pulling onto our street now. 🙂