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.