Roads, Rain and Rellies

Day Twenty – Wales to Liverpool

The weather raised a wry smile this morning when we got up. We were leaving Wales and the weather looked better than it had since we arrived. Not much we could do about it though so we got ourselves packed up, ate what food we had left and hit the road almost bang on 10:00am. We hoped to reach the family in Formby, just outside Liverpool by mid afternoon.

Before we left Jenni took some photos of the cottage for posterity...

Our first stop was only a few minutes away in Beddgelert to see Gelert's Grave. The story of Gelert the Faithful Hound is supposedly made up, largely to aid tourism but it doesn't make it any less entertaining. If you read the inscription in the photo of the plaque you'll get the idea of what they say happened. The "grave" itself is quite pleasant and the walk along the river to reach it equally worth the effort. There is also a neat modern statue of a wolfhound in an old crofter's cottage nearby.

Our next stop was Swallow Falls just outside Betws-y-coed. The kids had enough of walking about and Jenni and I went down to see the falls on our own. At least here we got something form the recent rain as the falls were flowing fast and furious. You can hear them from the road despite the traffic. The weather had started to close in (as usual!) but even so it was bright enough too see the falls clearly and take plenty of photos. It was only a 15 minute stop but well worth the effort.

From there we drove up to the coast at Llandudno and then right (after another small detour) towards Liverpool. Motorways are not my favourite thing in the world but after doing 50mph at best for a week, usually round blind corners with oncoming mad locals and crazy-ass parking I was very happy indeed. 70mph dual carriageway in a straight line does have its advantages after all! Lunch was in a roadside diner, called somewhat enigmatically the "Diner Fifty 5" and pretty reasonable fare. I got a decent cuppa which made up for the milk being off back at the cottage. Is there anything more uncivilised that your first cuppa at 11:30am on holidays???

The drive from the Welsh border to Formby, just North of Liverpool was pretty uneventful and the weather didn't get too bad so the traffic moved quite well. Given it was a Saturday I was quite happy with that. We parked up at Wyn, Gareth and Rebecca's place at about 2:30pm. The rest of the day was spent catching up and enjoying a decent home cooked meal.

So where are we now?

Not sure what we're doing tomorrow with the family. The weather migth have some say as usual I guess.

Cheers,

Millsy