Susan had a houseful in June when her brother and dad arrived for a visit. Unfortunately Susan was working most days, but on her day off they arranged to go for an adventure and visit all the old haunts from when they used to live in Wales when she was a "wee girl".
We set off in her dad's new car up into the hills, with the first stop being Bethesda. This was the first time she had taken me here, and I was intrigued to see the place she grew up in. We drove up the main road, with everyone remarking how much it had all changed. Then we went past her old primary schools and her dad suggested that we might go in (I don't think Susan or Tom were very keen on this idea!) Susan suggested that they take a walk up "the rocks" so we parked the car and walked up a footpath. Apparently when they lived here, the field we were walking through belonged to them, and her dad had a bright idea to keep ostriches on it! Thankfully her mum said no, and it was left as a public access path between the main part of Bethesda and the smaller village of Gerlan. We reached "the rocks" and I was amazed by the view! Right over towards the Penrhyn Slate Quarry! While I admired the view and their dad recovered from the climb, Susan and Tom climbed on the rocks, remarking how much easier it was to get to the top now that they had grown a bit (or a lot in Tom's case!)
Dad suggested that we look at the top falls, so we went a bit across the boggy ground to where the waterfalls were. They remembered the numerous occasions when teenagers would go skinny dipping in the river, BRRRRR!!! Even in June with the sun shining it was still freezing! We followed the river upstream and found a hole in the boundary fence that was supposed to keep the sheep out of the field - apparently some things never change as this was always a problem when they owned the land! We snuck through and spent almost an hour playing by the river, with Tom and dad building a massive dam using the stones, and Susan taking photos of them, me and the wildlife.
After Tom fell in (well, he dropped a foot into the water!), we headed back to the car for a late lunch. Susan's dad is great because he wasn't happy just sitting in a carpark eating his rolls, he wanted a view! So we drove a few miles up Nant Ffrancon to Llyn Ogwen, in the shadow of Tryfan. Here we had a very pleasant lunch watching the climbers scaling the Milestone Buttress at the base of Tryfan.
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