Easter in Wales (Cymru)

OK, so I went on another Haggis tour and I have officially decided that Haggis has me hooked. I had an absolute blast and now know that my first tour wasn't good by accident. Our tour guide was Gary - he did lots of crazy things and you will see a pic of him further down. I also met a great group of peeps, one Australian, one Canadian and another South African will also introduce you later but let's start with the tour shall we.

First off I shall start with the Severn River which divides England and Wales so you can stand on the bridge with one foot in England and one foot in Wales. So there I am in two countries at the same time. Who would have guessed that I was that talented? ;)

Took photo's of the signs on either side of the bridge - the english one is easy enough to read but the welsh one not so much. Did you know that roughly 20% of the population speak welsh as a 1st or 2nd language - I would have thought that it sounds low but apparently out of all the Celtic languages, Welsh is used most.

We then headed off to Tintern Abbey, a monastry that was destroyed by King Henry the 8th when he had a fall out with the church. It was really pretty and almost calming and peaceful - not sure how a building could give me that feeling but it really felt like a place of comfort.

We were then whisked off to Caerphilly (Caerffily) by our wonderful driver John. Caerphilly is known for its cheese and apparently also has a high number of teenage pregnancies due to an increase in the "Chav" population. Caerphilly Castle is pretty cool and we stopped here for lunch. Lunch in Caerphilly was especially good cos that is when Al and I met Donna, Steve and Thalia, but most importantly it was while I was here that I recieved a VERY exciting sms from Mark and Jen. Mark and Jen are engaged. YAY!!!

Then through the Brecon Beacons and off to Pen-y-fan forest. We went for a short walk through the forest which Gary claims gives a sort of Lord of the Rings feeling - I personally think he just wanted an excuse to show off his Gollum/Smiegel impersonation. He was pretty good I must admit so I decided to take a photo.

I on the other hand was reminded of the Eastern Transvaal family trips that we did when I was a wee child. These were not exactly like the waterfalls I was used to - a bit too small, but they were still very pretty.

Still on our first dayand now on our way to the hostel for the evening, or so we thought. The bus drove into a ditch and no mobile reception. Luckily a car drove past and said they would organise a truck to pull us out. While waiting we had to get ourselves out of the bus but the door is on the left and as you can see that made it un-usable so we got to use the emergency exit. When I first heard the news I thought we were gonna be breaking the back window but we just used a door in the back on the right. :(
The cops came to supervise our wait and suggested we walk to Usk(the nearest town with a pub) and wait for the bus to come pick us up. The walk was supposed to take only 40 min but an hour later we were still walking with no pub in sight. The pub landed up being an hour and a half but on the way I stopped for a photo with the daffodils which is one of Wales emblems. They have three emblems - the dragon, daffodils and can you believe it leeks.

Finally we arrived in Abergavenny where we stopped for dinner, party and sleep. Earlier in the day Gary asked if Allan was traveling alone so he said no I am here with Heather. I think Gary misunderstood and we landed up with a private room with just the two of us. Was really funny but I felt bad so I "broke up" with Allan the next day and told Gary that we were not actually a couple. We still had our own beds though.

BIG party!! The pub/hostel that we were staying in had a disco going was quite fun and we just went crazy.

Day 2 - We had a wonderful little picnic with a stunning view of Clwedog Resevoir. When I say we I mean Donna, Steve, Allan and myself and when I say picnic I mean wine and strawberries. We didn't stay long so we only had time for a little bit of wine and then we were off again. Was still pretty cool though.

Steve, Donna and Allan getting ready for the treat. ;)

Wales has LOTS of sheep and to be totally honest they are nothing that wonderful but the little lambs are just too adorable - so wanted to take one home. Yeah I know first the bunnies at Cliveden and now the lambs - I just can't help myself.

Steve is trying to sneak up on one of the sheep so that he could touch it ...

... it ran away. :(
Al and I with Snowdon in the back ground. Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales at 1085m.

Our sleep over on day 2 was in Caernarfon - this is a very Welsh area and about 80% of the people here speak Welsh. Below is a pic of Caernarfon Castle and you can also see the floating restaurant where we went for dinner.

Allan, myself, Donna, Thalia and Steve all with glasses that had cartoon characters on them - apparently they didn't have normal glasses. After dinner we went for drinks and the locals were a bit off untill they realised that we were foreigners and not English. We had a couple of drinks and played "I have never". At midnight we sang happy birthday to Thalia and then left after last rounds.

Day 3 - first stop was at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch this town has the longest name in the world and no I don't know how to pronounce it. Apparently the phoenetic pronounciation is LLan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-queern-drob-ooll-llandus-ilio-gogo-goch. Dunno if that helps you all but it didn't help me.

Stuck in traffic Gary tried to entertain us with fake singing he later had an air guitar competition with one of the other passengers - at least he kept us enterteined.

Last stop was Stratford-Upon-Avon and this is the birthplace of Shakespear - didn't really stay long enough to see much here there were also far too many people, was horribly busy.

Good Friday

Good Friday and we decided to go to Lower Marsh Market by Waterloo. We found it but it kinda wasn't happening. So we decided to go to Borough Market instead and that we would walk there cos the weather was lovely. We passed lots of fun stuff to see during our REALLY long walk but my favourite is depicted in colour below. We past this guy offering free HUGS.

I just had to take a picture and he was quite happy to pose for me. We watched for a bit to see if anyone gave him a hug and they did, to which he proceeded to hand the paper over to the next person. the next guy got a hug almost immediately and then this poor dude was back. So....

... I went to give him a hug. Hey anything that is free is always good. ;)

In this photo you can see the guy in the back getting ready to take over the roll over holding the sign again. And of course there I am walking back laughing at myself.

SA Dinner Party

Finally introducing you all to the other SA teachers at Eastbrook. We all have to put up with the kids but PD has been putting up with them all for the longest - about 3 years I think. We all went to PD's placeto celebrate holidays and even though he is the only man amongst us all he is the one who cooked the dinner. It was absolutely amazing, we had stuffed peppers for starters, roast chick and veg and salad for main and cheesecake and Thornton's fudge for dessert. WOW! Three cheers for PD.

Here are the rest of us, Mireille, Me, Nicky, Mariette and Jannie. I don't know if those names are spelt correctly but you get the idea. Good meal, good wine, good night.

Cliveden

Cliveden is basically a REALLY old house on a REALLY big property, it is the third house built on the proprty the previous two burnt down way back when - the firemen could not get there fast enough (fire "trucks" weren't that fast in those days). For those of you who are interested in the famous rich people of the day, this was the house that the Astors lived in - I had never heard of them untill my visit. Once again I am probably just revealing my ignorance.

This is a picture of the house - we only got to see two rooms in the house because it is now being used as a hotel. A VERY expensive hotel - we were told that the cheapest price is about £290 per person per night and that does not include breakfast. Try multiplying that by R14.

This is the view from the back patio - WOW! It is really beautiful, the property borders the River Thames and the gardens can be explored all over but only if you have the whole day and walk ALOT.

This little thing is part of the gardens its on the bank of a little pond with BIG fish - everything seems big in this place. Colleen and I posing nicely to add to the scenery - one day maybe my garden will be this big. ;)

Picture of a really cool tree with a really cool trunk or trunks. I don't know but it is really funky.

The "garden" is so big that we actually saw some wild life namely deer and bunnies. The bunnies were REALLY cute and actually kinda tame considering they didn't run away while we were taking pics. Wish I could have brought one home with me.

All in all this was a very relaxing and enjoyable day - fresh air and sunshine (yes sunshine) with some exercise and good scenery.