Let me start off by saying that this was a difficult trip to plan. As we were only hoping to go for a weekend, we were intrigued by places in Wales like Pembrokeshire and Snowdonia. If you google image those areas, you'll know why we wanted to go there. Unfortunately, it proved difficult to get there with the limited amount of time that we had. So literally, it wasn't until 2 weeks before we departed that we actually came up with things to do. Here's how it went:
Because Wales is side by side with England, we decided to take a 3.5 hour bus ride there for only £9 each way. Not too bad! There was 6 of us that went, as you'll see in pictures. We stayed in this beautiful apartment while we there and it was situated pretty central in Cardiff. Our immediate thought when we first stepped into the apartment was that we wanted to stay there longer! Compared to all the small flats we live in in London, this was luxury. After settling in, we went and grabbed something to eat at a pub. We were hoping to find some Welsh dishes to try but as soon as I looked at the menu, I realized it was the exact same menu as the pub beside my office in London. Chain pub, damn. Oh well, it was still good. We then ventured over to a cocktail bar where they had a pianist playing and the bartenders put on a good show for how pricy the drinks were. The rest of the night took off from there, as I am sure you can imagine.
The next morning, we took a 2 hour journey to get to a place called 'Waterfall Country' just on the outside of Brecon Beacons National Park. Now, if you look on a map, Brecon Beacons is HUGE. You can seriously only do a small fraction in one day. We were hoping to do 2 trails that had waterfalls but in the end, only did one...and I'll tell you why. We decided to do the first trail that was closest to the bus stop we got off at. The starting point of the trail was not clearly signposted so we had a hard time finding it. After walking a bit, we finally found it...or at least, thought we found it. We start walking up this hill and none of us really notice that we're not close to a river. It obviously seems now that that was common sense if you want to find a waterfall, but we kept going. Up, up, up, we kept going up this massive hill and we start going into people's farms I'm pretty sure. Something didn't feel right and was beginning to feel like the start of a horror movie. Luckily, we were out in the open so despite us actually going the wrong way, the views were gorgeous. After walking with muddy shoes and basically making it to the peak of the hill, I finally decided to pull out my phone and compare Google maps with my paper map. We were going East when we should have been going West. So we turned around, headed West and kept our ears open for running water. After some time, we finally heard the sound and we headed downhill (of course) to the river. Although we were going the wrong way, it was actually still a lot of fun to find our own pathway to the river and we still saw some great sights. Along the trail, there was one big waterfall but we couldn't get anywhere close to it which was a bummer. At the end of it, there was a miniature one and it wasn't as big as the one back home (Maple Ridge) in our backyard trail. When we had walked all the way back to the other end of the trail, we found the 'real' starting point of the trail, which was only about 15 yards from the one we had started on. Because of winter, the sun was well on its way down so we didn't have time to do the other trail. I'm a bit bummed as well because the other trail has a waterfall from a scene in 'The Dark Knight Rises'. Either way, it was still great to get outdoors and do some hiking. It made me realize how much I haven't explored back home. That night, we went and got some Tapas for dinner (real Welsh, I know) and hung out at the apartment after.
The next day, we went to Cardiff Castle. This was really interesting as it's supposedly 2000 years old! Naturally, we spent quite a bit of time there. So after doing that and getting lunch, it was already time to head back to London. I would certainly love to do Wales again to either see that other waterfall trail, see Pembrokeshire, or Snowdonia.
Well, it's officially 5 weeks until I go back home for the holidays and I am thoroughly excited! I can't believe how quickly the time has gone though. I've been here 5 months now and it's been an absolute blast. I'm heading to Paris in a couple of weeks with my friend Nicole so looking forward to that. I've also booked a trip in February for a week that will go to Prague, Berlin, and Amsterdam. Super excited for that. I've also booked a tour in Scotland in May.
Christmas is coming up and my flatmate hasn't let me forget it. She put up the tree on the weekend while I was away...even after I told her not until December 1st!! Sneaky. London is starting to look more festive and Christmas themed parties are starting to get under way. Like Vancouver, the days here are getting darker earlier and it's getting colder. At this point, I'm used to more rain in Vancouver but locals have told me that this is unusual for London to be this dry. So maybe I should hold my breath.
Next post shouldn't be as long of a wait as this one. I'll be back from Paris on Dec 7th. More pictures on Facebook and Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/125490324@N06/sets/
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