Wales – Maldo Travels https://www.maldotravels.com Travel - Learn - Share Tue, 26 Apr 2022 02:35:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.maldotravels.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Favicon-Black.png Wales – Maldo Travels https://www.maldotravels.com 32 32 Snowdonia National Park – Snowdon Peak https://www.maldotravels.com/europe/snowdonia-national-park-snowdon-peak/ https://www.maldotravels.com/europe/snowdonia-national-park-snowdon-peak/#respond Sun, 14 Jul 2019 20:52:00 +0000 http://54.211.235.180/?p=7701

From our Airbnb1 in Machynlleth, it was a 1 hour and 30-minute drive to Pen-y-Pass car park which has some trails to Snowdon. We got there at around 8.20 AM but the car park was already full, so we drove another five minutes and found a parking spot off the highway. From here, it was about a 45-minute walk up to the car park where the trails start from. We saw a bus go past when we were parking the car, but they don’t come often since we didn’t see one go by whilst walking. Once at the car park, we decided to go on the Pyg Track since it was the shortest one. The trail was quite busy this weekend since there was a race happening to get to the top of Snowdon. The trail is easy to follow and starts with a gradual ascent. About 30 minutes into the hike, we came across the lakes. The trail at this point is mostly a stone path that’s easy to walk on. The next 40 minutes walking along the lakes, the trail becomes more of a dirt path that can be muddy if it has rained. There are some large rocks at some places that you have to climb over, but nothing too difficult.

When we reached the last lake, the path became a steeper climb and more tiring. We climbed up for about 20 minutes and took some rest. We sat down on some rocks enjoying the view of the valley and lakes we had gone past. We then continued another 20 minutes climbing over the clouds. We reached the ridge from where you can continue to some of the Snowdon peaks. The steam train also passes through here and we saw it go past. Since it was cloudy, we couldn’t see any of the landscape from here and decided to head back down. The way back took us 2 and a half hours rather than the 3 hours it took us to head up. At the car park, we had some food at the cafe before taking a bus back down to where we parked the car.

]]> https://www.maldotravels.com/europe/snowdonia-national-park-snowdon-peak/feed/ 0 Conwy Castle and Aber Falls https://www.maldotravels.com/europe/conwy-castle-and-aber-falls/ https://www.maldotravels.com/europe/conwy-castle-and-aber-falls/#respond Sat, 13 Jul 2019 18:28:35 +0000 http://54.211.235.180/?p=7589

From London, we rented a car and left at around 8.15 AM. The drive took about 5 hours with a quick stop for breakfast on a service stop off the motorway. When we reached the walled town of Conwy, it was around 1.15 PM and there were no more spaces at the main castle car park. We drove a little further in and found another car park which was about a 5-minute walk from Conwy Castle. The ticket office is next to the main car park and entrance tickets cost 10.40 GBP2 each. You then cross a small bridge to get to the main castle gate. The castle ruins have been well preserved, especially the 8 towers. You can climb the towers and walk around the castle walls. From the tall towers, you’ll get views of the town, river, and Snowdonia National Park which surrounds the fortress. There are several information panels around describing the original purpose of specific areas of the castle. It took us about an hour to explore the castle before heading to the town for some lunch.

After lunch, we headed to Aber Falls and it’s a 20-minute drive to the car park. There is then a trail leading to Aber Falls which is fairly straightforward to follow. It took us about 45-minutes to get there and we took some rest at some rocks near the falls. We then crossed the stream to get a view from the other side. There’s a bridge further down the path to cross but you can also cross using the rocks on the stream. Some rocks are slippery so cross with caution. You can get fairly close but be prepared to get wet from the spray of the falls. After taking some pictures, we continued down a trail for about 15 minutes arriving at another set of falls. We read up beforehand that this trail circuits back to the car park, but looking at the map it looked a lot longer and it was already 5.30 PM. So we decided to turn around and walk back since we had a 2-hour drive to our Airbnb3 in Machynlleth.

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