Deadly serious

After a cool 12 days with perhaps a little more rain than we wanted it was a shock to come home to a heat wave. The train journey home was the fastest and easiest of all our journeys. The only pain was the slightly overcrowded London train, probably of those rushing to the tropical heat of the south east. I'm just grateful we never had heat like this on our holiday. However, one thing the south east does seem to have in abundance is wonderful cloud formations. The two in the foreground here looked like a horse rolling on its back and a kid splashing in a bath tub - it beats the grey wash that can engulf northern England. Anyway, after 12 regular trains, 5 steam trains, 1 speed boat, 1 rowing boat, 2 buses, 2 coaches, 3 taxis, 1 mountain gondola, 1 chair lift, 1 high rope bridge, 1 zip wire, 3 mountain ranges, 1 peak, 5 rooms and two pairs of worn walking boots, it's back to work for me and off to Spain for K for her third holiday this year. If she ever tells me she doesn'...

The 12 mile journey back to Bangor again took 50 minutes as the bus meandered through every street in the area. The rain was coming down heavy which forced us to wear our waterproofs and thermal layers and so exaggerate the discomfort of a very sickly journey. K went a deep shade of red and spent the journey slung over the hand rail.

After 12 cooked breakfasts in a row we both struggled to fake a smile on our last morning. These guest houses are so determined to push a fry-up on you that it's difficult to refuse and if you do they look insulted and you worry what they'll leave in your tea. I compromised with a rather sad looking anaemic plate of scrambled eggs. K had cereal and toast and a mountain of butter. The table next to us had two perfect families of 2.4 children shovelling bacon and eggs into their mouths.

On the way back from the quary we visited a derelict 13th century slate keep that overlooks the lake around Llanberis. It had another series of tiny steps that once again we only managed half way. We then took a few final snaps of the valley. The sky was now a clear blue and the sun low bringing out a whole rainbow of colours in the mountains that even I could appreciate, even if I couldn't name. Two days wasn't much but the weather has been fantastic and we also reached the peak making it the most successful of our three destinations. Snowdonia was the most touristy but also the most accessible. The area, despite the tourism, has retained its natural charm and hasn't been scarred by the usual tackiness of a popular destination. I would loved to have walked to the peak but I think our visit was a success nonetheless.

After returning to our room for a bit more emergency dentistry, because K's filling had fallen out again, we climbed up some of the slate mountain left at the quarry. The path we were on was a very steep track up which slate trains were once winched. We got halfway, passing through a derelict winch house before we had to give up because the slate steps were becoming more loose and slippery. K picked up a few small pieces of slate to bring home.

Today's main activity was a climbing course, for both of us. Katarina did so well braving a series of very high ropes, zip line and free falling swing, completing a course that some much older had backed out from. Katarina was the youngest and I was the oldest. Unfortunately cameras weren't very practical so no photographic evidence. There were eight of us in the group led by a professional instructor. We were always connected to safety ropes. Somehow I ended up always going first. In this photo it is the course furthest away and highest up, not the nearby kids course.

You'd have to be blind to miss all the slate around Llanberis so it was embarassing only to realise after visiting the slate museum that this local area has been completely shaped by the industry for centuries. 3000 men were once employed at this quarry at its peak but it was closed in 1969 devastating the whole community. We visited the museum in the morning shortly before our second activity.