Monday 25 September 2017

Beautiful Britain - Betws-y-Coed for the Weekend

Following a really pleasant stop off at Chirk Castle, we arrived at what was to be home for our annual weekend away, catching up with old friends.

We were stopping at a pretty little B&B in Betws-y-Coed called The Courthouse, where all the rooms have some very strange names - we were staying in The Handcuff Room, our friends were in The Interrogation Room!

Considering the weather forecast was pretty dire for the whole weekend we were delighted to arrive to blue skies and sunshine.

The breakfast room was housed in the conservatory on the side, with great views of the river and surrounding countryside.
The Courthouse was in the perfect location for us, tucked away down a nice quiet street, with parking and easy access, well within walking distance, to both the river and the station which were literally just at the bottom of the road.
Early morning is the best time to see the station, as it can get really busy later on. Entering via the back way takes you over the tracks for the children's steam train at the back of the dining car.
The station is a real treat and I lost count of the number of times that we crossed the footbridge!
The view from the top, looking down the track and across the hills was just beautiful ...
The whole of the station is so well looked after and absolutely immaculate ...
With plenty of quirky little features to pique the interest ...
On our first evening we met up with our friends at 'Y Stables', and it was lovely to be able to sit, have a drink and a catch up outside in the evening sun, something we hadn't been expecting to do at all ...
It all felt very continental ...

After a good old catch up we headed to The Gwydyr Hotel for dinner, and very nice it was too ... and only a short walk back to The Courthouse, big bonus!!

Monday 18 September 2017

Beautiful Britain - Chirk Castle NT, Wrexham

Hi there everyone

Once a year we tend to have a weekend away where we meet up with a group of old work friends. We've been doing it for a number of years now and have explored a number of different places including The Peak District, Bridgenorth and Harrogate.

This year we were off to the very lovely Betws-y-Coed in North Wales and we managed to pull in a stop off at Chirk Castle on our way.

Its a National Trust (NT) property, a castle and gardens, in the village of Chirk, not far from Wrexham. The Trust describe the property as ...
"A magnificent medieval fortress of the Welsh Marches"
Chirk is somewhere that we have passed through on a number of times on our way to North Wales, but we'd never had the time to stop before, so we were looking forward to being able to tick another NT property off our list of visits, as well as probably pulling in a nice lunch along the way.

Our approach took us through country lanes and past the very impressive Davies Gates, which were commissioned in 1712 and originally stood near the north face of the castle. They were moved to their current location in 1888, upon the arrival of the railway.

As the weather was a little gloomy and rain was promised, we decided that we would explore the grounds of the castle first and we started off in the kitchen garden.

We were really surprised to see how exposed this garden was, it was right on the side of a hill, with seemingly no real protection from the wind ...
In spite of this, everything seemed to be thriving well, and one of the gardeners confirmed that it didn't really cause any problems. He was picking peas and we couldn't resist a quick sample. Nothing tastes as good as a fresh pea straight from the pod, the raspberries were pretty good too ...
Whilst there was not much in the way of flowers in the kitchen garden there was a really good show of hollyhocks ...
... and the most beautiful amethyst coloured poppies ...
From the kitchen garden we stopped to visit a woodworking exhibition, where there were some amazing carvings on display ...

We then made our way up the path for our first real view of the castle ...
The castle itself is set right on the top of a hill and there is a large expanse of meadow in the front of it, so it was good to be able to stand right back and get the full view ...
The rain was still holding off so we decided to stick with our plan of exploring the gardens, which are to the side of the castle, before heading inside ...
We didn't really know what to expect from the gardens, as they didn't look that big, but we were pleasantly surprised. The planting alongside the castle really showed it off and was a real mixture of formal ...
... and very informal ...

There was a glorious herbaceous border, which was a real treat ...

And, whilst we were a little late for the best display in the rose garden, the views looking back at the castle were definitely worth a look ...
As you can see from the next picture the promised bad weather was drawing in ...
... so we didn't make it all the way down to Hawk House ...
But, as always, there was time for a quick selfie before we headed inside ...
We had a real cosy lunch in the tea room and braved the throngs of children to visit the inside of the castle. There was plenty to see, but I think we would prefer to come back on a bit of a quieter day to have chance to really explore.

So, that's another NT property off the list. As usual, the gardens were our favourite bit, but its definitely worth stopping off to call in if you get the chance 😀

Tuesday 12 September 2017

Caching on the Haggis Highway - #2

Hi there everyone

I promise that this is the very last post from our week's holiday in Scotland back in June, I can't believe it was quite so long ago.

Image result for geocaching symbolWith everything else we got up to and all of the places that we visited, we didn't have a lot of time for Geocaching, though we did manage spend one day on a bit of a road trip.

When Martin and I visited a couple of years ago we spent a fair amount of time hunting for a series of caches on 'The Haggis Highway' and we wanted to see if we could get a bit further north this time.

We started off by heading towards Tomintoul on the A939, The Old Military Road, and our first real stop was at the viewpoint for Corgarff Castle.
You can just about see the castle there in the distance.

We couldn't quite understand how we'd missed this one on our last trip as we stopped at this viewpoint, but it appears that this cache had been placed after our last visit.
It was a really good multi, where we had to collect information from the inscription on the standing stone to help us work out the co-ordinates for the final find. It was quite a busy little spot, with lots of people pulling in to take in the view, so it took us a while to manage to sign the log, before we were back on our way.
There is a hole bored into the standing stone, which you can look through for an intriguing view of the castle ...
The rusty looking metal sculptures are actually seats, where you can just sit, sheltered from the wind, and take in the view ...
We carried on heading North towards The Lecht Ski Centre for our next stop. This was as far as we had made it on our last visit and it looked very different today. On our last visit the whole area had been sheathed in thick mist ...
It looked just a little bit brighter today ...
I couldn't resist snapping the first signs of Christmas, maybe just a little tacky but hey ...
From The Lecht it was all new ground for us and our next stop was a short distance along The Old Military Road at an old disused manganese mine. 
It was a lovely little spot and yet another place that we would probably have driven straight past if not for Geocaching. We took the short walk out, along the stream, to the old mine and tried to imagine how it would have looked and operated all those years ago.
 
From here we continued our drive into Tomintoul, stopping every now and again to pick up the odd cache along the way.

Image result for the old fire station tomintoul
In Tomintoul we headed straight into The Old Fire Station tea room for a quick refreshment stop, whilst we planned our route back.Image result for the old fire station tomintoul
We decided we would continue north, heading for Glenlivet and then begin to make our way back.

There were caches to be had at regular intervals but we decided that, as time was getting on and we had a good drive back, we would only stop for the odd one or two.

We started with The Soldier's Stone. This is literally a standing stone by the side of the road, with the date 1690 etched into its surface. It marks the site where a soldier fell after the battle of the Haughs of Cromdale in that same year.
This is literally all there is to see, but it is such a fascinating story we are so glad that we managed to stop and have a look.
This skirmish took place during an early period of Jacobite unrest and it was fought on May 1st 1690 under the shadow of Creagan a’Chaise on the other side of the Cromdale Hills. More of a routing than a battle, 400 Highland Clansmen under the leadership of Colonel Cannon were killed or captured by government troops led by Sir Thomas Livingstone. Many of the clansmen fled eastwards over the hills only to collapse later from their wounds.

Our next stop was a very strange one. It was by a small church in the most lovely of spots ... 
... and, though I am sure this next picture may seem pretty gruesome to some, I was kind of morbidly fascinated ...
We could only assume that the mole catcher only got paid if he could prove he'd done his job.

There was nothing at all gruesome about our next stop, which was the Packhorse Bridge at Glenlivet, yes, that Glenlivet of Scottish whisky fame.

This beautiful bridge spans the Livet at Bridgend where the river tumbles through a narrow rocky gorge. The exact age of the bridge is unknown but it is thought to have been built in connection with the nearby Blairfindy castle. Two arches of the bridge now survive, the third having been ripped away by flood waters during the great "Muckle Spate" of 1829 which caused much devastation to Speyside.

This really was the loveliest of spots and was a real delight ...
It was now time for us to begin our long trek home, which we did stopping every now and then to pick up another seven caches along the way.

We'd had another lovely day out exploring, finding interesting local treats, thanks to local cachers who put the effort in to place and maintain caches for others to find. A big thank you from the four of us 😀😀😀😀