Sorry for the delay all, but I am
very glad to bring you the first of a multi-parter trip report!
backontrack's railway musings: the trip to Wales
Exposition time: my sister turns 18 soon, and she is going to Paris when that happens with her godmother and Mum. That leaves Dad and I on our own for a couple of days. We knew we had to go somewhere ourselves - perhaps during half term? Well, our trip actually got postponed due to both of us being affected by a cold-based lurgy (probably a cold), but we planned a date for the first weekend we could have. We would have to pre-pack our bags, then Mum would pick me up from school and we would meet Dad at the station, who would have made his own way up from work. Then, we'd get the first fast train to London.
And so it was that on a Friday (a week before two days ago), I was taxiing down from school to meet Dad. Mum had our bags with us and had also packed some food, which was great of her. And so we bid her farewell, and entered the station. No time to buy a paper, as soon our train to St Pancras arrived. And we were off!
Hang on, no we weren't. We were delayed outside the station. Some of the punters were placing bets on whether it was a cow or a sheep. I thought it was probably a
pig-sheep hybrid. We were soon underway nevertheless, though it was a worry I could have done without.
We arrived at St Pancras only slightly late, and, by way of a shortcut through Somers Town, soon at Euston (thanks
yorkie!). Now we had a choice. We could either:
a) wait in the main concourse for our train to show up and then leg it down to the platform
or
b) look at RealTimeTrains, and then coolly stroll down to the platform
RealTimeTrains isn't infallible. It's given me the wrong platform before (although that was 0/1 at King's Cross, so not catastrophic). We hedged our bets and went for it.
Success! Our train was there! We soon found out which carriage was partly unreserved (it was 'c' for, erm, carriage), and found the only unreserved table on the train. We were pretty chuffed, I have to tell you.
But
wait. In all of this, I haven't told you where we were going yet! Well, here we go:
I've never been to Wales. Dad grew up in Wales, but he had never been to Gwynedd or Anglesey. And, for some reason, we both decided to go there. I'm very glad we did. You see, when Edward I's conquest of Wales, he built many grand castles around Snowdonia, which was where most of the Princes of Wales hailed from. You can see some of these at Flint, Denbigh and Rhuddlan, but the four grandest (Caernarfon, Conwy, Beaumaris and Harlech) make up a world heritage site along with the walls of the first two towns. Now Harlech was a bit distant for us this time - but what about the other three? Since Dixe Wills'
univocal ode to Conwy, I'd always wanted to pay it a visit. And Caernarfon Castle must be at the top of anyone's castling wish list. Both Dad and I love going to castles - cathedrals are also a bonus. It's a shared interest of ours. I've liked castles for as long as I can remember, I think - maybe passing Clifford's Tower whenever I went into town had something to do with it.
So there we were, on a Super Voyager (
fishquinn screams) heading towards Llandudno Junction, where we would walk across the bridge to Conwy, where we were staying. We passed the beautiful scenery of intu Watford, and soon arrived at the historic walled city of Milton Keynes. Pressing my face against the window, I could almost see Snowdonia.
Next stop = Nuneaton. Then Stafford. Then Crewe. We were getting closer. Just past the sprawling metropolis of Tarporley now. Waverton. Chester. We were delayed by about 5 minutes just before Chester, but now we had arrived. Soon I would be in Wales.
And so it was, somewhere near Saltney, that I arrived in Cymru for the first time. We stayed close to the River Dee, passing through Sandycroft, Shotton, Connah’s Quay…here the Dee widened into a full-blown estuary. We made our first stop in Wales at Flint (Y Fflint), the site of one of Edward I’s great castles. Now through Bagillt. We passed Holywell (Treffynnon), site of St Winefride’s Well, a popular site of pilgrimage, somewhere to the west. Glan-y-Don. Mostyn. Ffynnongroyw.
Our next stop was at Prestatyn (why, is it sticking out?). Here we could see a long line of streetlights to the left, indicating that a main road was year. There’s a massive station sign at Prestatyn - perhaps to prevent any confusion with its more famous neighbour down the coast.
Soon, we were at Rhyl (Y Rhyll). Here the station’s platforms were busier than those at Flint or Prestatyn. The noticeboards were illuminated, and on them I could see a large advert for the Llangollen Railway. That felt ironic. Dad often called Llandudno Junction ‘Llangollen Junction’ by mistake on the trip.
Soon we were off again, through Kinmel Bay, Towyn, Llanddulas and Abergele. The town of Old Colwyn is built on a hill (or, at least that’s how it looked), and this looks over its Siamese-twin town of Colwyn Bay from this very height of loftiness. The station at Colwyn Bay (that’s Bae Colwyn for the uninitiated) looked welcoming, with its warm-looking red-brick buildings festooned with local childrens’ paintings of seagulls and similar things, and its red-painted wooden plantpot trains.
We turned inland and headed through Mochdre. I packed up Great British Railway Journeys - I was watching the Llanrwst to Porthmadog episode - and thought about my first breath of Welsh air. In no time at all I would plant my foot for the first time on Welsh soil. This would be shortly followed, I gathered, by my other foot, though the exact order would remain to be seen. These formalities didn’t appeal to me. Instead, when we arrived at Llandudno Junction, I was more than happy just to be there, in Cymru.
Stepping out of the station at Cyffordd/Gyffordd Junction (normally it’s the former, but sometimes it
mutates, like the contents of a
Baguette World) (just joking about
Baguette World), I noticed a kind of wetness hanging in the air that I hadn’t fully experienced since I lived in York. York does seem have an inherent moistness in the air sometimes, although this may well just be fancy. But there was still something fondly familiar about the damp grey pavements strewn with slicked-down leaves…at least we’d missed the rain. Just as well too, as we nearly got lost in the labyrinthine maze (or mazish labyrinth) of roundabouts that can be found to the east of Cyffordd Llandudno. The reason for these, I guessed, might be because it wanted to copy Conwy’s grand castle with something much
more impressive. Or it may well have been to send an imperialistic message to Deganwy, whose doughty denizens and Llandudno-sandwiched locals were once protected by its own castle (til this was destroyed and replaced with the newer one across the Afon Conwy). At day, you can see the strange humpbacked hills that the fortification stood on, and you can’t help feeling that it would have been quite majestic.
But Castell Conwy makes you easily feel glad of this. Eventually we blundered our way over the bridge and were rewarded, father and son alike, with a beautiful view of the castle illuminated in red. It definitely provides a majestic entrance to any World Heritage Site, no less such a
stop of joy. No photos came out however, so you will have to make do with your imagination. Or, even better, come here yourself! It’s definitely worth the wild Welsh weather, and, yes
fishquinn, it
is possible without using Voyagers.
Soon we arrived at our hotel for the night and, after a beer and J2O respectively (you can tell for yourself who had which), and after finalising our plans for the next day, we were snoozing away, wondering what Wales had in store for us tomorrow.
And it didn’t disappoint.
Not by about a million miles.
More to follow.
-backontrack
).
Mind you, it's even better with a 57-hauled set of MK2s!
There are a couple more parts like it to come.
