The long journey home

It was 3:pm; I hurried to Llandudno Station, looked for a shop to buy water and snacks for the journey – but there were none. Neither in the station or nearby. Still there was enough time to sort this out when I got to Llandudno Junction … but to my surprise Llandudno Junction has no catering facilities and it’s not exactly conveniently located to the town so I was not able to get my water and snacks there.

It was a hot day. The weather in the days preceding had been kind to me, but I was annoyed that I wasn’t able to prepare myself properly for the long journey that I had to do.

At first all went well, the train hurried along and reached Chester with no problems at all. Again, like the previous day it was nice to just sit back and not think about taking pictures.

Then we were in Wrexham. Fifty minutes later we were still in Wrexham. There had been an incursion onto the line at a level crossing south of the station and the Transport Police were “sorting it out”. The Train Manager broke open a cupboard with water bottles in it. Thanks goodness for that. Without that I think I’d have been in a quite different shape when we eventually arrived in Cardiff some 33mins late. I caught the Rhymney Line train 30mins later than I’d originally booked, but soon Jenny was there at Llanishen station to pick me up and take me home.

All I had to do then was process in excess of 400 images and videos, and remember all I’d done, and construct this series of posts. I hope that someone, somewhere, reads them and gets some enjoyment from them. For me, it’s the only way I know of remembering what I’m doing these days.

Cheers.

Llandudno, the Pier, Great Orme and the Tramway

Great Orme Tramway, Llandudno

It was Friday, the last day of my trip, the sun was shining and I needed some breakfast after a reasonable night’s sleep and a predictably impossible shower! I was going to find a coffee shop for breakfast, but none of them seemed to open until 10:00am so Cafe Nero came to the rescue.

Llandudno Promenade looking east

These two panoramas show the length of the sea front at Llandudno. The one below is a bit of fun as my software is not up to constructing such a shot in perspective – I think there were about 14 individual images stitched together to construct it.

Extreme panoramic view of Llandudo Promenade

So on to the pier, a walk to the end, a visit to Mini Figures for presents, the tram to the summit, more gifts purchased in the shop and then a descent (somewhat scary) to Llandudno for lunch.

The observant amongst you might have noticed that Llandudno has a thing about Alice in Wonderland – not sure why, but the statues were very good. [Update: If you go back to 1861, the eight year old Alice Pleasance Liddell (the real ‘Alice’ in Wonderland) spent the first of many summer holidays in Llandudno. Her holiday home ‘Penmorfa’, was built on Llandudno’s West Shore. The Liddells were close family friends with Charles Dodgson, who wrote the books under his more famous pen-name, Lewis Carroll.]

However, I was not going to do “The Alice Trail”, my objectives for the day were to visit the pier and go up the Great Orme on the council owned Tramway. Which of course I did taking video clips of parts of my descent.

I did however make up for the previous night’s F&C experience by having excellent Cod and Chips at the Fish Tram Cafe beside the Great Orme Tramway station. What was exceptionally outstanding was the pot of tea, with ample hot water, and milk provided for £2.50. That’s a very fair price for a drink, and I think others should follow their lead.

Having started this series of posts with a horrific image of myself. It seems only fitting to end the last post (apart from the Long Journey Home), with another one of me on the top of the Great Orme which I found to be surprisingly flat.

On the summit, Great Orme, Llandudno
Journey’s End?