Saturday 25 November 2006

Another Day, Another Mountain...

... Or two or three!

A few weeks ago, a friend and I went to north Wales to walk and over these 3 mountain peaks that overlook the Snowdonia national park...

The main track leading to the ascent paths


Along this path is an old dam that broke in 1925. The dam controversial at the time and built on the cheap, to help power at metal processing plant in the valley below, so this was a terrible disaster killing 16 people in Dolgarrog; a small village downstream...

The force of the water was so great, when the dam broke, it carved out this gully!

I found a website that contains three short silent movies filmed at the time of the disaster.
I was amazed to see how good the films are, given the period, and that filming was so readily available back then... Watch the films of the Cwm Eigiau Dam disaster HERE.

A view looking back down the valley to where the dam holds no water back at all. A small shallow lake is all that is left...


I found this furry little fella on the way up...

Near reaching the top, it suddenly got dark and I turned round to see a real* cloud heading straight for us, much to my surprise...

Dogga, sweating his ****s off in the cloud.
I suggested stopping for lunch, to which my friend replied, "OK, that's sounds like a plan, but lets just pop over this next bit."
The "next bit" was another mountain peak that took over 30 minutes of hard slogging to get up and over!!! He's a walking monster he is...


Before starting the walk, my mate advises me not to buy any crisps, as he has a large bag of slightly out of date Walkers we can share.
A generous offer I must say, but he failed to tell me that "slightly out of date" was actually nearly a YEAR out of date!!!
(There were actually very nice and perfectly OK though)


On the descent, I spotted these wild horses and loved the black and white contrast of these two...

The next day was glorious, so we walked up the side of Snowdon and followed the Watkin path up and crossed the Watkin waterfalls at this charming little bridge...

On the ascent, I thought this green tree line against the blue sky looked fab...

There are many mines around north Wales and we found this opening to one. Eeewww, they make me shudder for some reason and it's hard to believe this was the entrance to work for many men not too long ago!

It's great to see the moon out in the sky on a clear day and though it looked rather good against the branch of this fir tree.


I may have mentioned this before, but Betws-y-Coed is probably my fave place in north Wales and it has two great eateries, one of which is this bistro.
Vegetarians look away now... I ate pigeon and rabbit
for the first time and enjoyed both; highly recommended... You can look again now.

[*Not a pretend one]

Today, I'm Most Angry About: Suddenly loosing my internet connection this morning, so I unplugged my router and went in directly in to my pooter, rebooted my pooter, repaired the pooters LAN connection, swore at the pooter, got annoyed and then it suddenly came back... It was my ISP not me! Grrr
Grrr-O-Meter Rating: 3/10

Today's Top-top: Don't spend money on expensive personalised car number plates; simply change your name to match your existing plate - Mr or Mrs. JVL 741Y! [Not my number plate :-]

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looked like a great walk. I'd love to see a cloud like that. Great pictures and a really interesting history of the places.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting. I loved those videos.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pictures, wonderful post :) Makes me want to jump on a plane and go there myself. Thanks for sharing :)

Anonymous said...

Great shots there, DoGGa-boy, and great account!

Anonymous said...

Makes me want to go geocaching, except I'm too lazy to go when it's cold

Anonymous said...

Top walk! I love that bit of Wales too. So much archaeology.
Did the crisp packet swell up with the drop in air pressure/growth in crisp fungus?
A pedant writes:typo:loosing

Anonymous said...

eeks! hairy worm. your tummy ok from eating year-old crisps?

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pictures! The country reminds me of some of the mountains in the eastern side of Washington State. Check out our Cascades hiking site if you wish.
http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/

LindzyPinzy said...

so ahh... I've just decided that we are going to travel your way for our next vacation....hope Ryan agrees...he doesn't know yet...hehe...Seriously, magnificant photos, you are really talented at taking photos. The composition in these photos is really great and very pleasing to the eye..The scerery is amazing, just like out of a fairy tale or something. haha walking monster...that s funny. I went on a couple multi day hikes while travelling in NewZealand..its a really good way to really see a lot. You have been to some beautifull places Dogga.

Kayla said...

Hey DoGGa!
Wow, all the photos are amazing, but my fave is the one of the two wild horses.
How lovely to see them just wandering around in the park..

Glad you survived the walk!
(and the year old food pack!)
Your friend is a real slave driver, eh? haha
It's good to have people like him to spur you along, I think.

You look very happy in that photo.
Nice to see
;-)

Anonymous said...

Nobody capable of independent thought takes any notice of Best Before dates. ;)

Me Myself and I said...

wow Dogga boy, I LOVED the photos!! Looks like a wonderful hike :)

karen said...

Best Before dates are for sissies.

Great photos - love the cloud! It's slightly creepy, like The Fog. Those films were good too, really good quality. Nice post :-X

kat said...

I know everyone else has said it but I will have to say it too - Very interesting post, Dogga.

Phil said...

Rob:
It was good but tiring walk, totting up a mere 10 miles and involuntary removal of skin from my left big toe! :]
Being ingulfed by a cloud is very surreal. Glad you liked the post!

Kouros:
The vids are kinda eerie, I think, but so good given the time :]

Dakota:
Aw, glad you liked the post and you're welcome to come on a walk if you're over. You can give me a piggy-back :0)

Jan:
Cheers me dear and glad you liked it! :]

Max:
Hehe, yeah, it's not warm and I bet there's no geocaches up there! Or is there? Hmmmm :]

Hutters:
There's a lot to look at in this part of the world and yes, the packet was a little bulging at the time of opening about 3000' up :)

Boo:
Aww, the hairy worm was cool and soft. No tummy probs here *eww, I used the word 'tummy'* :-) x

Anon:
Thanks (whoever you are). Glad you like the pictures, but they're not a patch on some of the ones from that site! :[]

Lindzy:
Wow, thank you ever so much! I only use a small compact digital Pentax camera, but it's OK. I want a proper digital SLR soon :]
Oooh, let me know if you're over in my neck of the woods!!!
Cheers Lindzy :)

Kayla:
Hey Kayla... yeah, the horses were great, but it took several kissing sounds from me to get them to look at me :]
The walk was good, but seriously hard going... 10 miles in total and as mentioned previously, I lost some skin from my left big toe! Eww.


Anan2:
Hi, whoever you are!
Hahaha, I love your philosophy on BB dates! :]

Celeste:
Cheers Celeste! I was a nice, but hard hike :] Glad you liked the piccies...

Kees:
BB date are indeed for sissies! I just proved it... My next mission is the 6-month-old uncooked chicken breast in my fridge! Reckon I can take it? LOL
The cloud was cool, but creeoy yeah; it surrounds you.
Cheers Kees... XXX

Kat:
Aw, thanks Kat! :]

Anonymous said...

what is your car plate number? i wanna play the lottery :p

Phil said...

Boo:
Ya wanna play the lottery using the numbers from my car reg? LOL ;0)

Anonymous said...

sure why not :X

Anonymous said...

very picturesque.

nice to know that you're still into your music in the middle of all that grandeur. rock on!

Cecilia said...

Very nice pics..tho the furry fellow is yeeewuck!!:D

Phil said...

Boo:
Twe only numbers in it are 4 and 0 :]

Guggen:
Hehe, yeah, iPod comes with me. Your too out of breathe to talk most of the time so... :]

Ceclilia:
Hello and welcome!
Thanks, but the caterpiller is really cute... :0)