I'm back here bragging about my awsome one week trip to Snowdonia, North Wales. It's a beautiful country, reminded me of my country Nepal, the only difference is that in Nepal we don't have good transportation system like Wales. We hired a cottage and a car and set out for our journey on Saturday. The weather forecast wasn't in our favour. After collecting all our friends we headed for our so called long awaited vacation. Besides the car that we hired had the 'lighter' part not working; that means no SatNav working. Gosh,,it was annoying cause this world is so much dependent on GPRS nowadays. So, the only thing left is to do map reading manually. On the way we saw many accidents and also one car in burning flames (only saw it in movies before). We finally got there by 8pm. The cottage was beautiful and the view of the surrounding was lovely, full of natural beauty. As soon as we got there, my mobile phone was of no use cause there was no network. The cottage was literally in between the bottom of two hills. I chose the converted attic room to share with my sister which had a big see-through glass window on the roof, yeahhh I always wish to sleep watching stars. Sadly none of the stars showed me their faces. :( BTW Strophicus I watched 'The Dreamers' movie that night.
I want to write so many things but if I do it here this blog would end up being a book.
Day 1: Since it was raining whole day and whole night, we decided to go to nearby city Dolgellau. After getting some informations we came back and headed to nearby walking trail, Torrent Walk. It was 1 hour walk on the shore of a river, oh what a dominating sound it had. It was lovely and as well as dangerous cause we could have slipped and fallen straight into the river. I couldn't capture nice phtotos because of rain. First it was all downhill and coming back was all uphill, a good mini exercise to climb Mt. Snowdon. The River was closer and clearer on the way back, it could swallow anything I thought. We were shouting in a loud voice and screaming with hint og happiness, all soaked by that time.
Day 2: The non-stoppage rain was still blocking our way to Mt. Snowdon so we all decided to go to another national park where my friend wanted to visit desperately, Brecon Beacon National Park in South Wales. We thought weather would be little bit nicer there. It took us almost 4 hours drive along narrow roads of Wales (Cymru). When we got to the Dinasour Park in Brecon Beacon, we saw many children. Actually that place was mostly visited by children. We didn't actually go in there thinking that there is nothing exciting for adults and instead we headed to a seaside Aberystwyth. Before that we visited an old Carreg Cennen castle. Well to be honest only the remains of the castle but it was nice. One guy was selling the entry tickets in a small booth, I was surprised to see a guy sitting there in the lonely faraway castle. I flirted with him hehe and he had lovely set of teeth when he smiled. hehe. One side of the castle had normal access but the other side if the castle had heart pounding like a cliff area. On the way back, we saw a beautiful Lake Llyn Brainne. After spending some time in the beach we came back to cottage. Tell you something, it was still raining. We had our meals and watched NCIS and some music.
Day 3: The day when we finally decided to go and climb Mount Snowdon 1085m, the highest peak of Wales, the sole reason for me and my sister to visit Snowdonia. We saw weather forecast saying it'll be better after 10am onwards so we packed our snacks, fruits, energy drink and water bottle to go to Llyanberis (the starting point of the journey). Since my brother suggested we should be careful in driving around the roads there, I was more cautious and was telling my friend as well who was driving. My other friend suggested that we should go up from little bit moderate way and come down through the easy way. I found the idea quite promising. We bought a map and you know what we took a 'SHERPA' bus ride to another place called Pen Y Pass, another starting point. By the time we started our journey it was already 10am but the rain was not stopping at all, infact it started raining even heavier. I set the timer and we all started walking. We saw lovely waterfalls and lakes on the way. Llyn Llydaw was one that we walked past. "Its special significance is that it is one of the most visited lakes in the United Kingdom. Thousands of people every year visit Snowdon and most walk past this lake on the Miners' Track." I also threw a coin and made a wish haha.Then came the hardest part of climb, a steep path, steps and we had walk literally through one of the waterfall. Now the path is all messed up and we had follow our own path in some places. Since there were still many people going up we didn't feel deserted though. I was walking behind my friends to accompany my sister. Now let me explain the main part of this outrageous climbing fever, at one point I felt like I might not make it to the summit. I don't know why I looked down from that point, all I can see was rocks and nothing else. We hear all these accidents about there in news. I was on my four foot ( crawling); I remembered my family and mom's face; she would kill me if she finds out that I took such a risk and involved my sister as well. The thing that was making it worse was weather, our hands and whole body was numb. To tell you the truth, we were all soaked despite wearing raincoats and proper boots. Somehow we got up from there and then came more and more difficult ways. There was one wooden tree with no branches or leaves and the climbers had left coins all over it. Me and my sister also left a coin. Finally we were there on the top. We made it against all odds; all I had in mind was Phill Collins song 'Against all odds'. As soon as we got there , it was raining even heavier and the wind was more powerful. We tried to read the map but it was all soaked up in water. I actually saw how winds blows in the higher places, from down to up. It was fierce enough to blow us back to the same place where we started. I was wearing 'I Love Nepal' t-shirt to mark my country's name on the summit but couldn't do it simply because we couldn't take any photographs. My wish was to post a photo in Facebook with 'I Love Nepal' t-shirt on the summit and tweet in twitter about how exciting it was, but sadly I'll have to do it next time. After having the moment of truth and realising the end of uphill journey, we started climbing down. Since it was the easy route we had no difficulty but it was the longest route of 4.7 miles. We could have easily taken the train and got up there but the adventure wouldn't have been that much. As we got nearer the starting point which is Llyanberis it stopped raining. Arrgghh. We had some hot food and I had to drive back to cottage. We took the longer way with bigger roads touching another coast of Wales, Porthmadog. Everyone was so tired and fell asleep in couch easily. We were still happy that we made it without any injuries and sickness later on. The timer said 4 hours and 10 minutes to complete the whole journey. I was very happy to achieve such pleasure of climbing Mt Snowdon that I could brag about in future hehe. The only hill I climbed was back in Nepal, it's called Nagarjun Hill in Kathamndu of 2128 meters. It took me, my sister and her friends 2.30 hours to reach the top and I still remember the satisfaction I had felt that time. Next time I went was in taxi with family. The main thing is all 5 of us proved that we are 'Proud daughters of Nepal', we can climb hills even without having enough practice. We all had past experience of going to village and climbing hills and crossing rivers. To be fairly honest, this was one of my dream I dreamt last year. FULFILLED.
I realised that not everything is captured by camera or video camcorder, few things are better if you see it yourself and explore through it. The deep blue color of the lake, the dark and hard stone of the hill, the cold and fresh water of the waterfall, the green grasses of the hills, the trees, etc everything was so amazing. I can only explain it in words but couldn't relate in pictures. We saw more sheep and lambs in North Wales than human being. I wondered who do they meet, fall in love and get married to in such a population. Towns are small and houses are far from each other. Anyways we human beings can survive anywhere and everywhere.
Day 3: The day when we finally decided to go and climb Mount Snowdon 1085m, the highest peak of Wales, the sole reason for me and my sister to visit Snowdonia. We saw weather forecast saying it'll be better after 10am onwards so we packed our snacks, fruits, energy drink and water bottle to go to Llyanberis (the starting point of the journey). Since my brother suggested we should be careful in driving around the roads there, I was more cautious and was telling my friend as well who was driving. My other friend suggested that we should go up from little bit moderate way and come down through the easy way. I found the idea quite promising. We bought a map and you know what we took a 'SHERPA' bus ride to another place called Pen Y Pass, another starting point. By the time we started our journey it was already 10am but the rain was not stopping at all, infact it started raining even heavier. I set the timer and we all started walking. We saw lovely waterfalls and lakes on the way. Llyn Llydaw was one that we walked past. "Its special significance is that it is one of the most visited lakes in the United Kingdom. Thousands of people every year visit Snowdon and most walk past this lake on the Miners' Track." I also threw a coin and made a wish haha.Then came the hardest part of climb, a steep path, steps and we had walk literally through one of the waterfall. Now the path is all messed up and we had follow our own path in some places. Since there were still many people going up we didn't feel deserted though. I was walking behind my friends to accompany my sister. Now let me explain the main part of this outrageous climbing fever, at one point I felt like I might not make it to the summit. I don't know why I looked down from that point, all I can see was rocks and nothing else. We hear all these accidents about there in news. I was on my four foot ( crawling); I remembered my family and mom's face; she would kill me if she finds out that I took such a risk and involved my sister as well. The thing that was making it worse was weather, our hands and whole body was numb. To tell you the truth, we were all soaked despite wearing raincoats and proper boots. Somehow we got up from there and then came more and more difficult ways. There was one wooden tree with no branches or leaves and the climbers had left coins all over it. Me and my sister also left a coin. Finally we were there on the top. We made it against all odds; all I had in mind was Phill Collins song 'Against all odds'. As soon as we got there , it was raining even heavier and the wind was more powerful. We tried to read the map but it was all soaked up in water. I actually saw how winds blows in the higher places, from down to up. It was fierce enough to blow us back to the same place where we started. I was wearing 'I Love Nepal' t-shirt to mark my country's name on the summit but couldn't do it simply because we couldn't take any photographs. My wish was to post a photo in Facebook with 'I Love Nepal' t-shirt on the summit and tweet in twitter about how exciting it was, but sadly I'll have to do it next time. After having the moment of truth and realising the end of uphill journey, we started climbing down. Since it was the easy route we had no difficulty but it was the longest route of 4.7 miles. We could have easily taken the train and got up there but the adventure wouldn't have been that much. As we got nearer the starting point which is Llyanberis it stopped raining. Arrgghh. We had some hot food and I had to drive back to cottage. We took the longer way with bigger roads touching another coast of Wales, Porthmadog. Everyone was so tired and fell asleep in couch easily. We were still happy that we made it without any injuries and sickness later on. The timer said 4 hours and 10 minutes to complete the whole journey. I was very happy to achieve such pleasure of climbing Mt Snowdon that I could brag about in future hehe. The only hill I climbed was back in Nepal, it's called Nagarjun Hill in Kathamndu of 2128 meters. It took me, my sister and her friends 2.30 hours to reach the top and I still remember the satisfaction I had felt that time. Next time I went was in taxi with family. The main thing is all 5 of us proved that we are 'Proud daughters of Nepal', we can climb hills even without having enough practice. We all had past experience of going to village and climbing hills and crossing rivers. To be fairly honest, this was one of my dream I dreamt last year. FULFILLED.
I realised that not everything is captured by camera or video camcorder, few things are better if you see it yourself and explore through it. The deep blue color of the lake, the dark and hard stone of the hill, the cold and fresh water of the waterfall, the green grasses of the hills, the trees, etc everything was so amazing. I can only explain it in words but couldn't relate in pictures. We saw more sheep and lambs in North Wales than human being. I wondered who do they meet, fall in love and get married to in such a population. Towns are small and houses are far from each other. Anyways we human beings can survive anywhere and everywhere.
I will continue this in next blog cause its getting longer and longer. Still got Day 4, 5 and 6 left to explain. Till then bye bye, tata, see you, adios, sayonara, astala vista, Feri bhetaula, khudahafis, phir milenge, and so on hahhahaha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowdon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brecon_Beacons
http://www.enchantedtowy.co.uk/llyn_brianne_and_the_upper_towy.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llyn_Llydaw
http://skylinetreks.com/nagarjun-hill-hiking.php (Kathamndu, Nepal)
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| some lake |
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| small but fierce river |
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| mini waterfall |
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| proud of myself :D |
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| celebrating with wine |
hehe lau badhai chha ghumgham gareko ma. summit ma gayera ni no pic? kasto bad tara kei chaina, u have sweet memories and we have these words :D
ReplyDeletehappy u are back safe and sound :) next time try alps and then who knows, sumday everest :D
Hey Rabin, thanks for the comment. ani it wud really have been nicer if i cud take a pic, anyways next time garaula aba. Everest is a big quest, Nepali bhayera ni Everest gayeko chuina. need a lot of money for that though. cheers
ReplyDelete