Heading west to meet up with friends in Wales, we had a couple of days to fill so started in Cambridge to compare the duo of classic university towns. We found Cambridge harder to identify iconic colleges and sites, and it was so busy with hordes of tourists and teenaged educational groups. It was pretty but seemed to lack the central core that we enjoyed in Oxford. Moving onwards, we found another National Trust property to pause for a break – Packwood House, originally a modest farmhouse built in the mid 1500’s, was renovated in the early 1900’s by a wealthy industrialist who decorated it in what he thought a Tudor house should look like, it was well done, not tacky at all, and a lovely garden with Yew trees featured predominantly. When I looked at our route towards Wales, Ludlow was chosen as a suitable halfway point to stop over simply by its location. What a surprise – we marveled at the ancient houses and crooked architecture on our wander through this beautiful town on the river.

Onward, in to Wales, we were taken by the landscape – real mountains, grassy pastures dotted with many, many sheep – we felt that the intensity of the sheep was greater than we’ve seen back in New Zealand. We stopped at pretty Hay-on-Wye for coffee, then into the Brecon Beacons/ Bannau Brycheiniog, a mountainous region and national park in Wales. The road signs are all in Welsh and English, as Welsh is taught in schools and spoken by many. We enjoyed walking trails to find four waterfalls (not very successfully, but a good walk!) and driving over high plateaus with sheep and wild horses roaming freely along the sides of the road, and over the road from time to time, no fences constraining them. The views over the countryside were quite beautiful, but we laugh at how many times we have seen an ice cream truck in the most remote places, often with people lined up to indulge. Once again though, google took us on a “short-cut” down a very dodgy mountain track to get to the main roads below, I’m glad I wasn’t driving, definitely got the pulses racing at times.

We met up with our Kiwi friends in LLandeilo, pre-arranged before we departed NZ, to spend the next few days discovering a very small portion of Wales. It was great to have familiar faces and accents and we enjoyed their company as we travelled, separately but together, to our next destination in Snowdonia. Our intermediate stop was Powis Castle – another gorgeous National Trust property. The inside of the castle was interesting (no photos allowed) but the outside was special. The gardens cascaded down the hill, with colour and formality, and was just beautiful. There were great views back up to the castle and then out over the patchwork countryside.

The rains started just as we left Powis heading into the hills for our drive towards Llanberis, our stop for the next two nights. The countryside was very green, no doubt the rains kept the pastures well watered, but we climbed into rocky terrain – passing through little towns full of walkers braving the rain. We couldn’t believe how many people were out and about, and the number of outdoor clothing and equipment shops – it reminded us a bit of Banff, with the stone houses and the steep rocky mountains. Finally to our destination, a beautiful village on the shores of a small lake. From here we should have been able to view Mt Snowdon, but the rain and mist meant that we could only guess where it was.

The rains eased the following day for our excursion into Caernarfon – to see the castle and explore the region. I hadn’t clicked that this was the castle where a young Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales in 1969 – I remember watching this on TV as a child. The castle walls gave great views of the town, river and estuary beyond, over to Anglesey, which is where we headed to find Llanfairpwllgwyngyll and a walk to Bryn Celli Ddu, a neanderthal burial chamber. Then, to find more waterfalls – after the rains they were thundering. Again, out in the middle of nowhere along one-laned roads, we reach a carparking area, full, and walked in to see the waterfalls along with many others of all ages, families with young kids and teens – everyone seemed to be out exploring. We just can’t get over the sheer number of people everywhere we go, no matter how remote or obscure.

Too soon, it was time to head our separate ways – we had a housesit to get to in mid-Wales, our friends had to get back to London. It had been fun to have kiwi accents and good company catching up. We were all looking forward to our own new adventures.