Schooners and Pots

A Sydney brewpub, where better to stay?

On my first visit to Australia in 2013, Vicky (who'd visited Oz before) and I stayed at Sydney's Macquarie Hotel, a fairly central old style Aussie hotel that had clearly seen better days. We thought we'd nicked an excellent deal for our stay, but as we struggled up a third winding staircase to a tiny odd shaped room in the roof we began to think twice. Jaded and jet-lagged we dumped our heavy suitcases, gasped for air in the heat and tramped quickly down to the bar. Herewith was the other reason we'd picked this spot, it doubled as a brewpub! Yes the offering was limited but it was tasty and cheap, a request for a pint of Paddo brought a hoppy pale ale, the alternatives were a Darlo which was a dark mild and Potts Porter. We settled down to a couple of pints or was it schooners? (See below!) and life took on a rosier glow. This then was the Sydney Brewery, initially called Schwarz Brewery after the founder, and, at that time, an oasis for decent beer in Australia's largest city. The other two breweries in town were the Lord Nelson, another brewpub which is still going strong, and an early incarnation of a James Squire brewpub known as the King Street Brewhouse, which was down on the wharf. Fast forward nine years and the Aussie craft beer season has changed dramatically.

Sydney Brewery has gone from strength to strength, selling the hotel and relocating half a K away they now brew a big range of modern beers and have expanded further afield with a brewery in the Hunter Valley wine region. In fact not only are there now around 800 breweries in Australia utilising some wonderful modern hop varieties but their creative brewers are coming up with imaginative concoctions such as 'Citrus and Rhubarb Custard Sour' and 'Smoked Chilli Black IPA.' This naming of beer is taken to new heights with the Boatrocker Brewers' 'Flux Capacitor' (something to do with time travel) and a pair of beers called 'That's not a Knife' and 'This is a Knife' both brewed by Alice Springs Brewery at 6.5% and 8.5%. Our Christmas beer selection (which we shared) was this powerful double IPA brewed in Brisbane - see the photo - it's not exactly a session beer. We had a tinnie of it but we might just be going down to the brewery bar at some point!

Last parkrun of 2022 was our second on a Pacific island. A few years ago we took a ferry to do the Clover Point parkrun on Vancouver Island off the Canadian coast. Here we drove over a bridge to Bribie Island which is host to the interestingly named SS Koopa Trail parkrun. In the first half of the twentieth century, before the bridge to the island was built, the passenger steamboat SS Koopa called in four days a week to Bribie Island. Trippers from Brisbane then spent a few hours pottering round the island. Meanwhile a goodly crowd of islanders would swarm up the gangplank into the ship's bar and enjoy a schooner or a pot. There were no licensed premises on the island in those days and SS Koopa's arrival was always awaited with eager anticipation. 

The SS Koopa in its heyday!

And here it is, the definitive guide to the beer measures in different Australian states. Or maybe not, the history of Aussie beer volumes is probably a book worth writing. Brewpubs in particular seem to come up with all sorts of alternative glass sizes. And whereas in the UK you'd generally expect to pay half the price of a pint for a half pint measure, here the smaller glasses work out to be more expensive on a pro-rata basis. Furthermore pints are not so popular in Australian pubs presumably because, in hot weather, beer warms up in the glass fairly fast; hence the universal sleeve for your stubbies and tinnies when you're drinking at the barbie!

A World of Running

Over a slippery stile.

Thought I should get back to doing some of those long fell races that I used to enjoy so much. November sees the umpteenth running of the Penmaenmawr Fell Race referred to those in the know as "The Pen." This was my sixth Pen race in 18 years and by far the slowest, in part due to the very wet conditions but also because of a poor route choice half way round which cost me a few minutes - oh and I wasn't really pushing it! It's eleven miles of steady climbing with a long stretch of high altitude bog trotting - what joy! I followed this up with my fourth go at the Cardington Cracker, a tough eight mile race in Shropshire featuring some fearsomely steep climbs. Here's me climbing a stile towards the end, legs almost finished after the endless uphills. I was happy to complete both events and get prizes for being the first over 70 runner (in fact the only over 70 runner!) A week later I was hoping to have a crack at the Sea to Summit, an uphill half marathon along the Offa's Dyke Path starting on the seafront at Prestatyn. Snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures knocked that one on the head as the wise decision was made to call the thing off. 

Offa was an early King of Mercia an early middle ages monarch who built an earthwork barrier to keep the Welsh out of England (or was it the other way round?) The Offa's Dyke Path runs southwards for 177 miles from Prestatyn in the north to Chepstow on the Bristol Channel. Our half marathon route ranges over the Clwydian Hills in Denbighshire but what most people are unaware of is that this northern section of the path doesn't follow the line of the ancient Offa's Dyke at all. Some of the remains of the original earthwork can be seen over to the east in Flintshire - if you try to follow that line you'd end up trogging through an industrial estate in Mold. Clearly this would have been not so attractive for visiting tourists and long distance walkers so when the long distance path was mooted some years ago a more scenic line over the Clwydians was decided on.

From a deep and dark December in the Northern hemisphere with its freezing temperatures to the almost tropical midsummer of Brisbane, Australia - what a shock to the system. This was what we encountered at the beginning  of our first trip down under for three years. Even at 7 am, which is the parkrun start time in Queensland, we experienced 22 degrees and sapping humidity. Added to that we took a wrong turn just before we arrived at Warner Lakes parkrun starting 5 minutes late and, being not yet acclimatised to the conditions, I felt I was running through treacle. As with our recent parkrun experiences in Southern Africa we noticed far more parkwalkers than we would normally see in the UK - maybe the weather has something to do with this I would respectfully suggest.

Follow the leader? Not really, the real quickies were well ahead!

 And what did Santa  bring us for Christmas  this year? Two park  runs of course! One on  Christmas Eve and one  on Christmas Day.  Here's me leading the  field at Petrie parkrun a  pleasant there and  back gallop through the  Sweeney Reserve,  named for Thomas  Patrick Sweeney who  lived here in a  ramshackle hut with his  family. They kept emus and kangaroos and had a refreshment kiosk serving fruit and soft drinks. If they'd still been open today they'd have done a roaring trade refreshing thirsty park runners!

Hello back home!

The following day, i.e. Christmas morning, we toed the start line with a couple of hundred other early birds for a parkrun along the Enoggera Creek at Kelvin Grove, Brisbane. A local running club had elected this as their Christmas run and most of the fast first dozen or so finishers were wearing distinctive pink running vests. The course was fairly flat and sheltered by leafy trees some of them containing large colonies of roosting bats with their distinctive pong. Here's a photo of us with our distinctive post race smiles (grimaces?) together with another parkrunner - he explained delightedly to us that he's going to be in the UK in a year's time and is looking forward to a White Christmas - what do you think are the chances of that?

More Irish (and American) Running

International cross country this time, having been selected for Wales in the V70 category we flew over to Dublin. Not that we saw much of Dublin this time round since we caught a shuttle bus straight to our hotel and, the following morning, walked to Santry Park where the event took place. Back on the midday flight the following day. Still it was a good trip enabling us to meet old friends and make new ones. The run was a bit of a blast round Santry Park, no hills, no mud, wind or rain so none of the elements that usually work to my advantage. However I was the first Welsh V70 runner and ahead of all the English runners in the category.

Greetings from America! (Heather in the purple - her favourite colour.)

 And here's a happy trio  of ladies at the Lillee  parkrun in Ann Arbor,  Michigan, USA. Vicky  and Teresa visited from  the UK to introduce  Heather to parkrunning  at her local event. She  was clearly pleased to  be taking part. (Gosh  this sounds like a local  newspaper report  doesn't it!) It was a  scenic course which  involved several  crossings of a lake on a wooden bridge which I guess might be a bit of a hazard on a frosty morning. What fun!

So just by way of highlighting the latest stage of Vicky's international parkrunning career here are her stats for the last 10 events. This lists two runs in Namibia, one in South Africa, one in the US, two in Wales, two in England, one in Northern Ireland and one in the Republic of Ireland. How's that for park globe trotting?

Joburg

Anyone at home?

Flying into Johannesburg in the late afternoon, the view from the plane is of a huge sprawling city - ten million people live here in the metropolitan area - fortunately for us we're staying at our Mandy's only 20 minutes away from the airport. We're in a suburb called Edenvale and Mandy's place is in a large gated community, my training runs consisted of tortuous routes circling the estate.  Glad of a chance to escape from the Johannesburg suburbs we took a trip out to an area nicknamed the 'Cradle of Humankind' and we went down a hole in the ground. About an hour and a half into the veldt in a not very special area of countryside is a site that contains the largest concentration of remains of early hominids, wow! 

Mrs Pies or Mr Pies - who knows?

 They've found lots of  bits of Australopithecus  Africanus, who were  the predecessors to  Homo Erectus and  Homo Sapiens,  including this young  lady whose skull was  found not too long ago  in the Sterkfontein  Caves where we were  now standing down in  the murky depths of an  underground network.  She was  discovered in  the late  1940's and  identified as  a lady,  she became known as Mrs Pies for some odd reason, however more recent analysis of her teeth, or lack of them, indicates that she might have been a man! Notwithstanding all of this we spent a fascinating hour or so in the cool underground chambers away from the African noonday sun. It seems that part of the reason that there were so many intact bits of skeleton down here was that they belonged to folk who had fallen down some of the many potholes present at the surface of the limestone complex and they'd failed to make it back up. 

Flying tonight!

Despite Johannesburg's bustling residential suburbs and teeming townships and vast industrial estates there are, nonetheless, some good sized parks and we visited the 300 acre Johannesburg Botanical Gardens (now dedicated to Walter Sisulu one of Nelson Mandela's buddies.) And focussing my binoculars on a flurry of activity in a distant group of tall trees I spotted a huge eagle. This was a Verreaux's Eagle one of the largest birds of the prey in the world. My photos were a bit fuzzy so this impressive snapshot is courtesy of Wikipedia. A couple of pairs of Verreaux's Eagles live and breed in the park but sightings are apparently not easy to come by. These birds take sibling rivalry to the ultimate - two eggs are laid and hatched but within days the stronger of the chicks kills its brother or sister!

Hot running!

 Joburg has plenty of  parkruns and Vicky's  sister took us to her  favourite at Gilloolys, a  former farm (owned by  Mr Gillooly) which is  now an attractive and  extensive recreational  park. Event number  248  started at 8 am but  even by then the  temperature had  started to rise, what's  more this is at altitude -  we were getting on for  6000 feet above sea  level - so it was hard work! Nevertheless we sped round and I finished in 23 minutes exactly, beating the existing V70 record by nearly two minutes. 

(Postscript 1: So.....it's well known that elite athletes use altitude training to enhance their performances; well it didn't work for me, on our return to Wales I felt as if I was running through treacle for the following week or so!) 

(Postscript 2: Unfortunately the skull illustrated above is not that of Mrs (or Mr) PIES, it's Mrs (or Mr) PLES the name being derived from 'plesianthropus' which was the initial latin name applied to this poor creature. My mistake, I misread my research source. And by way of additional information the skull was intact until its discovery when it was blown into fragments by a stick of dynamite, the archeologists carefully put it back together again with that endless patience that archaeologists must have.

Under African Skies

A fine pub!

Just what the doctor ordered!

Leaving Ireland we took a flight to Heathrow from Dublin and stayed overnight near Kew Gardens by the Thames. Following a fine beer and food supper at the Express Tavern on Kew Bridge we slept well and enjoyed an early morning jog along the riverbank. Back to Heathrow we relaxed in the lounge and found that Brewdog had brewed a special ale for British Airways to see us on our way. Our journey had, by now, consisted of a train to Holyhead, a ferry to Dublin, a hire car to and from Clonmel, a plane to Heathrow, a tube to Kew and even a bus the following morning to the tube station. We knew that this was going to be the modus operandi for our first week away from home so we travelled light with hand luggage only. We're not going to need warm clothing in Southern Africa are we? Or so we thought!

Plenty of room for expansion!

 We arrived at the tiny  Walvis Bay Airport, the  second largest in  Namibia, on a sunny  afternoon and drove  into town and to our  small hotel. to find that,  as the day drew to a  close it began to get  quite chilly! So our first  job on day two was to  buy some warm  clothes.  The coast of  Namibia is extremely  dry but  cool due to the influence of the Benguela Current which brings cold water up from the South Atlantic. This major ocean current also brings a rich soup of nutrients from the depths which gives rise to an astonishing ecosystem of fish, birds and mammals. The fishing industry of Walvis Bay has declined somewhat but it's still a major port and a base for those seeking wildlife and the desert scenery. 

All got your suncream?

Early seafarers on their way down the African coast called in here for a breather in the huge natural harbour which  is adjacent to an expansive lagoon which teems with birdlife. Flamingoes are all over the place and they're on most of the local postcards but we also spotted a wide variety  of waders and other seabirds many on holiday from up north, they'll be in Morecambe Bay come our winter. But what really impressed us were the hundreds of thousands of cormorants that we saw sunning themselves - half the world's population must be here!

Gosh that was quick!

 By sheer coincidence  we discovered that    there are parkruns in  Namibia. We  determined this before  we planned our trip so  we arranged to stay  one weekend in Walvis  Bay and the next  weekend in  Swakopmund so that  we could fit in both of  the coastal Namibian  parkruns. Friday night  found us sitting in the  bar in our hotel opposite the parkrun start - we checked the parkrun facebook page - oh heck, the run was cancelled at short notice! No panic though, we drove the 20 odd miles up the coast to Swakopmund, ran the parkrun there and repeated the operation the other way round the following weekend - thankfully the cancellation was for one week only. Here's the finish of the Walvis Bay event - Vicky ran her fastest of the year - hurrah!

Swakopmund is quite a contrast to Walvis Bay. Its German colonial origins are very evident and the architecture has some clear Teutonic influences. The population is a little smaller than that of its neighbour and the town is much more geared up for tourism. We found the perfect place to stay - a hotel with its own brewery, what a pleasant spot it was to stay for a few relaxing days. 

On the outskirts of town is the curiously named Swakopmund Municipal Restcamp. During a short early evening jog I stepped inside the front gate and took a photo of the rows of identical angular guesthouses - there are nearly 200 of them sitting serenely in the desert.  Constructed in the 1950's these were designed as cheap holiday accommodation - you can still hire them out for around £50 a night! And here's the somewhat oblique connection between Wales and Namibia. A few weeks previously we'd stayed in the village of Portmeirion on the North Wales coast which was used as the setting for the 1960's Prisoner TV series. The cottages in 'The Village' housed the various detainees including the central characters. The Prisoner was subject to a remake in 2009 and was filmed in Swakopmund using footage of the remarkable dunescapes - the equivalent of Portmeirion was the restcamp which featured as 'The Village' in the more recent series. How about that!

Before we left we realised we couldn't completely ignore all the touristy stuff and we had a trip down the coast into the desert to ride up and down some of the enormous sand dunes. It's on an impressive scale - to my right in this photo there's a long drop down to the sea of around 100 metres, and yes it was still chilly!

Not here to sunbathe!

Medallion Man

 

Every one's a winner!

 Not quite winners but  this is the silver medal  (70 years) team from  the World  Mountain  Running Champs at  Clonmel in Ireland. The  photo depicts me  (Wales), Alex  (Scotland)  and Ernest  (Northern Ireland). We  were beaten to the gold  medals by a team of  Italians none of whom  were taller than Ernest  so, as you can imagine,  I towered over most of  the field.

She won a tin of coke!

And just to remind you that there are two athletes in the family here's Vicky finishing her second Aquathon of the year at Chester. This particular Aquathon consists of a swim in the River Dee followed by a run around The Meadows which is the open parkland by the riverside. It's a very friendly evening event and I might even be persuaded to give it a go next year - provided someone else does the swim leg first. (The tin of coke is handed to everyone as the finish - it's to neutralise the interesting water of the River Dee!) Then again I can happily cycle - what I need is a Duathlon which is a Triathlon without the swim! Whilst we were swanning around Ireland Vicky ticked off the Clonmel parkrun - I was about to start my mountain race and (there was just enough time) I could have done the parkrun and then sprinted on a few hundred yards in time for the big race, but I took the (sensible?) decision to back off on this ambitious double. Just the sort of thing I'd have attempted a few years ago!!

Far flung corners of Wales

 

Beating the English!

It's a bit of a trek to Tenby from Prestatyn but I'd been asked to run for the over 65 Wales team in the international 10K versus England. Tenby is a pretty little walled seaside town in the bottom left corner of Wales, the best part of a five hour drive away so we thought we'd make a weekend of it. I hadn't bargained for the fact that on this particular weekend the place would be packed with swimmers, cyclists and runners all competing in a series of events over three days. However we'd booked a very handy AirBNB apartment (just outside the city walls and close to the beach) just far away enough from the noise and bustle of town. The run was fun but tough, I was the fourth Welsh V65 counter but we were comfortably ahead of the English V65 team - I even managed to finish in the first V70 slot - and got a nice medal! 

A 1960's TV series that was ahead of it's time, The Prisoner was vastly different to most of the other humdrum fare that was beamed to us from the three TV channels that we had at the time - and BBC2 had only been going for a few weeks! Each week I eagerly awaited the next episode. The series starred the enigmatic Patrick McGoohan and was set in the Welsh village of Portmeirion which, in the TV programme, was supposed to be in a secret location well away from British shores (there was much speculation that this was somewhere in the Baltic Sea.)

Not in Italy!

 Portmeirion is off the  beaten track    somewhat, it's at the  southern end of  Snowdonia where the  mountains meet the  sea and was developed  into an Italianate  village by the eccentric  Clough Williams  incorporating fragments  of and materials  from  demolished buildings.  It's now a bit of  a  tourist draw but, by being booking in as  paying guests we were able to stay for a  couple of nights and explore the village and  grounds at our leisure after the riff riff had  gone home.

Check Mate!

North Wales Pilgrims Way (Stage 10 Nefyn to Llangwynnad)

Oh dear - slipped again!

 If only I'd seen this  before I set off down  the cliffside. On the OS  map there looked to be  a clear right of way  footpath down to the  beach - Skip and I  would trundle down and  have a pleasant flat  beach run for the first  section of our day's  pilgrimage from Nefyn  westwards. The problem is that this section off coastline is subject to periodic landslips due to the friable nature of the hillside - this photo is from just a few years ago and of course this meant that our long established footpath had been eliminated leaving us scrambling about on a very unstable hillside amidst brambles, etc. Skip was quite discomfited! So back up we went having lost quite some time out of our allotment for the day

Llyn Cliffs!

We managed to drop down onto the next beach and had a pleasant jog along the strand but we were then faced with a climb up to Nefyn Golf Course which must be one of the most exposed courses in Wales. A stiff breeze faced us on the cliff tops and the constant ups and downs as we progressed from inlet to inlet on the narrow paths became somewhat wearing. To add to our troubles a steady fall of rain worked its way through my waterproof top and even Skip lost his usual zip. At our rendezvous some miles further on near Tudweiliog I sat in the car, ate an early lunch and took stock. Vicky very kindly trekked over to the cafe to fetch me a hot cup of tea. Suitably invigorated I decided to press on using the alternative inland route minus Skip. It couldn't get any worse I thought!!

A Picture Postcard Setting!

Porth Towyn is the closest beach to Tudweiliog. I'd been here before but not for 41 years. I'd hitchhiked up in a hot early September following the Isle of Wight Music Festival (highlights included Bob Dylan being booed for his being more electric and less folky than before). I'd been travelling on back roads sleeping at night under hedges in an extra-large fertiliser bag. On arrival I promptly fell asleep on the Towyn beach and woke up with a sore red nose! It certainly wasn't picture postcard weather today as I emerged from the car into the gale and  slogged the last few miles to our AirBnb at Llangwynnad just an hour or so short of the Pilgrims Way endpoint at Aberdaron. We already knew that our ferry to Bardsey Island had been cancelled due to the foul weather so our journey is not yet complete - we fight another day.

North Wales Pilgrims Way (Stage 9 - Clynnog Fawr to Nefyn)

Big church!

 The population of  Clynnog Fawr is round    about 1000. So what's  a big church like this  doing here? We've  seen cathedrals not  much bigger than this.  Well it was a rather    important staging post  for the medieval Welsh  pilgrims on their way to  Bardsey  Island. The  church is dedicated to  St Beuno   who lived here and there's a holy well just outside town where the pilgrims could bathe their sore feet.

Well, well, well!

And here's the well itself which I found on my way out of the village. This is one of a number of Welsh holy wells ascribed or dedicated to Beuno, maybe he had connections at Dwr Cymru. The signboard explains that the waters of this well are a cure for epileptic children and in medieval times folk would bring their affected offspring from miles around and fling them into the icy water. I can see how this might work perhaps! (My trusty rucksac has also found it's way into the picture to prove I was there!) From here it's a fairly direct route parallel to the main road before dropping down into Trefor where Skip and then I faced the big climb up towards the three summits of Yr Eifl. Our path upwards was clearly centuries old and has been used by pilgrims, quarry workers and shepherds over the years. It was a clear calm day and, away from the traffic noise, we began to relax and enjoy the far reaching views down the length of the Lleyn peninsula. Our route widened out into a track along which granite was transported from the high quarries down to the sea at Nant Gwrtheryn which is the modern name for Porth Nant.

Not my photo but I think this is a stunning snap of a quite extraordinary location, the former isolated village of Porth Nant which was the export outlet for vast quantities of granite setts quarried further up the hill in the 19th and 20th centuries. These cobbles for the roads of Manchester, Liverpool and further afield were chiselled to size in the quarries and then transported down a zig-zag winding track (known as the Screw!) to the coast;  they were then loaded into steamers which carried their cargos up the Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal to the newly built Coronation Streets and Penny Lanes of the late 19th century. Though very isolated Porth Nant was a thriving community, however after the second world war, tarmac became the road surface of choice and the cobble industry declined. The village was gradually abandoned and the dwellings fell into disrepair. However a forward thinking GP from Manchester, whose mother was Welsh speaking, had practised in North Wales and developed a strong Welsh affiliation to the extent that he set about reviving the village - it's now a busy residential Welsh Language centre, a new tarmacked (!) road enables vehicles to descent the steep tour down and the ruined buildings have been restored for accommodation for the students. It's a lovely spot and Skip and I were delighted to see the wonderful views as we wound our way down the 'Screw'.  

Little church!

We had a good look at the harbour and imagined the tramp steamers loading up their cargos of cobblestones and then proceeded on and upwards on the coastal path, the only other route out of Nant Gwtheryn which follows a cliff top route for a few miles. Having started the day by St Beuno's Church in Clynnog Fawr, we finished several hours later in Nefyn and, on the way down at Pistyll we were pleased to see yet another St Beuno's Church. This one is a much smaller building, apparently this is where Beuno went when he wanted a bit of peace and quiet. It's in a lovely spot overlooking the sea and, I learnt that it had a thatched roof until the 20th century, although all the photos I found depicted its current slate roof. A more recent claim to fame is that the churchyard contains the grave of Rupert Davies who played Inspector Maigret in the 1960's TV series. 

We're getting closer to the end of the pilgrimage, the historical links are more frequent and we seem to be moving further away from civilisation and the 21st century. Running away from the present perhaps? Well why not!

North Wales Pilgrims Way (Stage 8 - Waunfawr to Clynnog Fawr)

Any more fares please?

In London the buses are red, in Cardiff the buses are orange and but in Waunfawr the local bus company, Whiteways, painted their buses white of course! Here's a Whiteways double decker in Caernarfon some years ago. It must be some years ago because the Hepworths shop in the background would have disappeared over twenty years ago (because the clothing chain changed its name to Next) and Waenfawr (see the destination indicator on the front of the bus) changed its name to Waunfawr in the 1990's (thanks to the insistence of the Welsh Language Society.)

It was a fine bright morning for the next leg of our pilgrimage, Skip and I tootled past the Welsh Highland Railway station at Waunfawr, climbed up by Moel Smytho, and headed on mountain footpaths across the broad hillside under the shadow of Mynydd Mawr and on towards Y Fron.

The blue lagoon!

As we then left the wild upland spaces we began to encounter a landscape defined by the slate quarrying industry of the Nantlle valley. Virtually all of the quarries are now closed; however to get a real sense of the enormous extent of the industry requires a walk (or run in our case) through the vast area covered in spoil tips and ruins of pump houses and workshops heading down to Talysarn and Penygroes. Here's one of the flooded quarries above Y Fron, in this case coloured a brilliant blue thanks to mineral salts in the water, the fence between us and the cliff edge didn't seem very robust! There's a white buoy on the surface of the water (the Prisoner comes to mind!) and I think that's a crow flying overhead - the beak looks a bit small for a Raven. Or maybe it was a drone shaped like a bird, I couldn't hang around to find out because we were on a mission.

The UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites makes for interesting reading, included as might be expected are the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge and Venice and its lagoons, there are National Parks and archaeological sites aplenty and some sites have been delisted for various reasons (e.g. Liverpool). But there are less obvious choices on the list such as the Bikini Atoll Nuclear Test Site, the Fray Bentos Industrial Landscape in Uruguay and our current whereabouts, the Slate Landscape of North West Wales! This action photo is from the huge Dorothea Quarry in its heyday, the buildings are all gone apart from the Cornish Beam Engine House at the fore front of the picture, a solitary reminder of the thriving industry that once provided abundant employment.

It would take days to thoroughly explore this area and the map below shows the vast area covered by the quarry workings which are criss crossed by footpaths and old railway lines. We jogged down from the top right of the map skirting the northern edge of the biggest flooded pit shown and by the entrance to Tal y Sarn Hall into the village itself where huge quantities of slate were loaded onto the main freight line to Caernarfon to be shipped around the world.

Fancy a drop?

Nowadays Talysarn seems quite a sleepy place, on a warm May afternoon I spotted little traffic and just a couple of pedestrians,  surely a contrast to a century ago when it was a hive of industry. The old train station is the site of a bus terminal and the railway line out of town has been replaced with a by-pass. However new industries are springing up - look at this - a Welsh vineyard between Talysarn and Penygroes! Thousands of vines and apple trees have recently been planted for the production of wine, cider and apple juice - this includes 700 trees bearing the rare Bardsey Apple a rediscovered variety probably the survivor of trees planted by monks on Bardsey Island a thousand years ago.  Alas we had no time to stop and sip and stare and we carried on the remainder of our jaunt from Penygroes to Clynnog Fawr which was, by contrast, through rolling farmland. Two consecutive days of long running had tired us out and we needed to rest and recuperate.

North Wales Pilgrims' Way (Stage 7 Bangor to Waunfawr)

Cathedrals usually come a bit bigger than this!

Well isn't it funny how time slips away!    After a few weeks of cross country, half marathoning and Borders Leagueing I finally got back to getting moving again running along the Pilgrims' way. And guess what? There are now leaves on the trees and I'm wearing shorts. Vicky dropped me off where I left off previously and I shuffled into Bangor - here's the comparatively modest cathedral. This is dedicated to St Deiniol. Deiniol is a name that I was already familiar with as there was a young footballer named Deiniol Graham who was one of Alex Ferguson's rising stars at Manchester United. He was going well until he broke his arm and never played again for United. I suspect he lives somewhere round here (in the Prestatyn area) as he recently got a mention in the local newspaper in relation to a motoring offence! Apparently the reason that the cathedral has such a short stubby tower is that the locals didn't want it to be visible from the sea - at the time Viking raiders were on the prowl looking for booty and it didn't pay to advertise your presence! Just after I took this photo I was hailed unexpectedly in the middle of Bangor by our friend Lynne plus daughter and friend who had also come over from Prestatyn to walk a section of the Pilgrims Way. 

We'll walk down the avenue till we're there!

They'd selected a fairly gentle start to their day as in the early stages out of Bangor, after an initial climb, the trail then follows Lon Las Ogwen which is a lovely cycle route built on the old Penrhyn Quarry railway line. For about 4 miles Skip and I followed this fine avenue of maturing trees feeling strong on this pleasant morning.

This was a great opportunity for me and Skip to get well ahead of the girls and we galloped along at a brisk pace. Leaving the old railway line we found ourselves at Pandy Farm, a large circular enclosure with farmhouse. This aerial photo shows what it looked like at one stage but it's rather overgrown now. If you imagine this as a clockface, Skip and I were having a breather in the stream by the trees at about twenty past; refreshed we carried on but made a serious error. About a mile further on I realised I'd left his lead by the stream. We trudged back to be met by Lynne and Co who'd caught us up! So retracing our steps we went up and up through the forest, onto the open moorland and over into the valley where sit Llyn Padarn and the busy town of Llanberis.

All the villages we've been coming through possess at least one chapel, churches though are thin on the ground which is very much a reflection of the former strength of non-conformist religion in this part of Wales. Nevertheless just before we reached Llanberis we found a rather grand church rather by accident. Here's Christ Church in the small village of Deiniolen (pop. 2,000) overlooking the lake. Coming off the mountain trail I'd lost my bearings for a minute or two, Deiniolen is riddled with public footpaths, a legacy of the slate industry, so it's easy to take the wrong route. A lofty church spire beckoned us however and we ran down a narrow path at the back of the cemetery and took this snapshot. Looks a bit more imposing than Bangor Cathedral I think,  although it's not an old church, it was built in 1857. In other words it doesn't have much in the way of pilgrimage connections! 

And so we continued down to Llanberis, past the railway station where a nice looking steam train puffed to a halt disgorging its load of tourists and round the bottom of the lake into town. A familiar  voice from behind us announced the arrival of Matthew on his bike. Matthew is an old running friend who lives not too far away and it was a nice surprise to bump into him and have a brief chat. Glad of the few minutes respite we set off on the final tough leg of the day's journey up and over to Waunfawr. That final track seemed to go on forever - 32K of yomping had certainly taken it's toll on our legs

Canal Dreams

 

Not exactly spaghetti junction!

Criss crossing England, and to a lesser extent the rest of the UK, is a huge network of canals unseen by the vast majority of the population. The bulk of the main cross country links are still in good condition but many are disused and abandoned, built over by housing estates or grazed by farm animals. In some cases there are heroic restoration projects underway and long forgotten routes are being reopened. The grandaddy of British canals is undoubtedly the Grand Union Canal which stretches from London northwards to Birmingham in the West Midlands and Leicester in the East Midlands. With a total length of nearly 300 miles this is a lot of canal! Here's a photo I took of the junction of the Grand Union with the Oxford Canal in Northamptonshire whilst enjoying an early morning jog along the towpath. Yes it looks very peaceful and idyllic but just around the corner is a hive of activity with dozens of canal boats laid up for the winter or under repair in the marinas. Other boats have paused for a while on their journey across the country. The vast majority of traffic consists of pleasure barges in contrast to the industrial cargos transported in vast quantities two and three hundred years ago. canal side 

One thing common to all canal boats is that they're narrow and many of the locks and tunnels on the older canals can only accommodate barges up to seven feet wide. In fact many of the 30,000 plus boats on the canal network have been converted from commercial barges. The canal side industry today consists of boat hire and boat repair companies but also enterprises, such as tea rooms and ancient pubs now catering for the touring folk - here's the Gongoozler's Rest Cafe near Braunston at the junction of the Oxford and Grand Union. So what's a Gongoozler you might ask! You'll just have to look it up as I'm not saying.

We were in Northamptonshire for a big family wedding and, as our AirBnb accommodation was close to the canal system we were able to show our overseas visitors some of the very photogenic sights to be seen during a canalside walk. Here's the Admiral Nelson pub where we had a fine meal and the next couple of photos are from our very pleasant walk home in the gathering dusk.

Looking for buns!

The final snapshot for this blog post is from Abingdon-on-Thames. This is where ten of us wedding guests joined up post wedding to clear heads and enjoy a jolly jaunt on the riverbank by running in the Saturday morning parkrun. We explored the town on the previous evening and found ourselves by the Abingdon Country Hall a rather grand building in baroque style built in 1683. It looks fairly sedate here (8 pm on a Friday evening here) but on special days once every few years (e.g. Royal Jubilees) a throng of local townsfolk gather outside the hall hoping to catch one of the several thousand fruit buns thrown down by the town officials - a tradition that dates back to the coronation of George III in 1761!