Monday, September 13, 2010

Take me to the mountains

Hello everyone,

After Mel left I had 10 days to spend in the UK so I headed off to Wales. After spending a day in Cardiff I jumped on a train and headed north, to the Snowdonia National Park, where the most grand mountains of Wales can be found. I stayed in a little town called Llanberis and spent four fantastic days enjoying the scenery (in between the rain.... that gave me a fantastic excuse to spend some quality time with my novel!)

Here's some of the evidence,
Enjoy,
Love Sarah xxx

Cardiff Bay - I walked all of the way around it. Later on I found out that the walk is 13km long. No wonder it took me a while! Easy walking though, all flat :)

Another cool find!

The mountains in Llanberis just before the rain set in

After the rain came some clear sky. Stunning views towards Llanberis town

Mountain biking.... I stacked it and landed in a blackberry bush.... might leave that hobby to my darling sister! Notice the rain jacket? Buying it was the first thing I did when I arrived, after hearing the forecast was for rain ALL week...

The fantastic views from my bike. It's a pretty good life!

My view as I ate dinner :) Happy days

Day 3 - clear skies!! YAY!! I headed to the National Park to climb Mount Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales. The start of the trek

My final destination... only a little bit of fog

Plenty of lakes to see on the way. The views reminded me a lot of Cradle Mountain. That's one tired girl in the photo... at least the view is something special!

Mt Snowdon - conquered!

My reward to myself after 6 hours of hiking :) Any excuse will do I guess....

I loved the Snowdon walk so much I went back there the next day to do it again, heading up one of the other tracks. There was a dramatic contrast in the weather though...

A moment of clear sky allowed for a quick snap

The mountain that couldn't be seen. Janita, does this remind you of something?? So I pulled out my book and read a few pages hoping for the weather to blow away

Another find :) If only the spelling was correct! The words underneath are the Welsh version of the street name. Crazy language that

How many greens can you see? Love it, love it, love it!

The beginning of my journey to South Africa :)
1. Eight hour bus ride 2. Five hour wait 3. Eight hour flight
4. Five hour wait 5. Nine hour flight 6. Arrive in SA
Quite the haul but so well worth it!

In case you are wondering....

I did actually make it to South Africa! Navigated the Dubai airport with no worries :) Although I did almost miss the plane....

After travelling for a fair number of hours I was quite tired so I opted to lay out on the tiles and snooze while waiting for the plane to leave to Johannesburg. Amazingly, the tiles were fairly comfortable :) They must have been because I was almost asleep when I rolled over and noticed there was no one in the waiting lounge. Prompt freak out resulted in me running to the air hostesses telling them I was still coming!! Crazy business this travelling. Needless to say, I did, fortunately, make the flight. Phew.... needed a coffee after all of that!

It was fantastic to be greeted by familiar faces on the other end!! I'm having a blast. Yep, the family was right. I do love South Africa.