Scenery On The Way Home

We had a really good trip to Wales, but for now its back home until the next one!

Bar-B-Que

When we arrived back at the cottage we decided to make use of the bar-b-que area. Dad is an excellent bar-b-que chef, so we gave him the honour!!

Plenty of burgers, sausages and chinese chicken went round and we all just about ate the lot!

Andy had bought me an interactive DVD 'You Say, We Pay' with the presenters Richard & Judy. It was absolutely hilarious! Basically you get into teams and one of you faces away from the screen. Objects or famous faces come up on the screen and the other person has to describe or mime what it is within a limited amount of time. Some of the guesses were just great, for some reason Dave would initially come out with 'Seahorse' for everything!

We had loads of fun and ended up playing it for hours!

Dad and Dave

Pwllheli Day 2

Holly above and Spike, Chewy and Ozzy

My dad rang and said that he and my brother would like to come down for day with his dogs. Brilliant, he can do a bar-b-que!!

Dad and my brother Dave arrived and we told them the choice of beaches to choose from and it was decided that we would return to Pwllheli.

Pwllheli did have the best beach in our opinion.

My dad's dogs Holly and Ozzy went crazy when we got to the beach, straight into the water and engulfed by a wave! Holly is usually very quiet on a walk and just trots along beside you, but today she was chasing the ball in and out of the water. Neither of them were too sure about swimming though and left that to Spike and Chewy. You could see that Ozzy really wanted to, but he obviously didn't feel confident enough. It didn't matter, all four dogs were having a great time!

Pwllheli

We next arrived in Pwllheli. Both of us have been here before as we have friends here, a few very good footballers who Andy would like to move to Shrewsbury!

We weren't here visiting them though as most of them would probably have been working anyway. Again, we look for the beach.

In Pwllheli, dogs have to keep to the left of the beach, which suited us as we practically had it to ourselves! We really like this beach as it has lovely sand and the sea is just right for the dogs to go swimming, it wasn't rough either.

Before we left, we stopped off at a nearby pub and sat out on the pavement on the only chairs, we felt a bit odd as it wasn't a beer garden and we must have looked a bit random! The sun was shining though and we were in need of a drink and a sit down.

The dogs are extremely friendly and always manage to gain a fan base wherever we take them. They love the attention and got quite a bit lying on the pavement.

Criccieth

Next stop was Criccieth, a pretty looking town in my opinion. As you approach the town, you can't miss Criccieth Castle which stands high above the town on a hill.

We choose the beach to the right of the castle, which is a pebble beach.

This beach was better as the sea went just deep enough near the shore for the dogs to swim. The sea was quite rough and the dogs seemed a bit wary about going in. Retrieving the tennis ball was too much of a temptation though and they were soon in! We were careful not to throw the ball too far in as neither of us fancied having to fish the dogs out! As this was a pebble beach it made it awkward for the dogs to walk, but there was a wooden barrier with concrete dividing the beach up and we managed to get the dogs to jump up on it, which made it easier for them.

Black Rock Sands

Instead of trying to walk there ( like we nearly did by accident!) we drove to a beach called Black Rock Sands. You can drive your car straight onto the sand. The sand dunes particularly get a special scientific interest. When the tide is out there are an abundance of rock pools and caverns to explore. The name is not exactly accurate as the rock face is multi-coloured!

The tide was out when we arrived and fortunately not very busy, maybe because it was very windy.

This beach wasn't really that ideal for the dogs as they would have had to go out very far into the sea to be able to swim. Swimming is good for Chewy as he has a problem with his front leg joints.

We stayed a while anyway.

Coastal Walk

We went up and down the hills following the paths. It was quite tiring, but we were enjoying ourselves, so we kept going. There were a few steep bits on the path and several times we turned and chose a different path, we weren't quite sure if it was too steep for us or the dogs! Better safe than sorry I suppose!

The path that we had chosen ended up taking us through a caravan park called Greenacres, where Andy used to go for holidays when he was young. Walking through Greenacres, we realised we had walked quite far, we were almost at Black Rock Sands. We walked out of the park and followed the road until we came to another path that led back into the hills. Before we carried on though, we took a well deserved break!

This new path took us on a bit of a short cut as we came out at the top of Borth y Gest by a school. We walked through the village with its lovely colourful houses and made our way back to Porthmadog.

When we arrived back, we realised that our 15 minute walk had actually been a 2 hour hike! We went straight to the pub!

The dogs were exhausted and so were we, my legs were aching the next day!!

Spike, Chewy and Coco

Borth y Gest

We got up quite early and thought that we would try the 15 minute walk to some sandy coves in Borth y Gest, that had been recommended in the visitors book.

The walk wasn't that hard, along the harbour, up a slight hill and then down into Borth y Gest. We walked through the village and over a coastal hill where we could see the sandy cove.

It wasn't very busy, just a few with a couple of dogs. We chose a spot and threw the tennis ball into the sea for Spike and Chewy. The dogs love the sea and were soon soaked through!

It wasn't long before we were joined by a friendly lady and her chocolate labrador, Coco.

Coco's owner was quite surprised at how friendly Spike and Chewy are to other dogs and how good they are in sharing their toys. I had no real explanation, its just how they've always been.

Coco and her owner stayed with us quite a while.

After they had left, we decided to explore further and picked a path leading up along the coast.

Wandering Around

After unpacking, we decided to just take a short wander around and get our bearings. We weren't going to be doing much on our arrival.

Porthmadog developed through the slate trade and is still considered a young town as it is not yet 200 years old. The Harbour itself came about between 1821-1825. In the 1870’s, approximately over a thousand vessels used the harbour in any one year and in 1873 over 116,000 tons of Blaenau Ffestiniog slate left Porthmadog to be transported to different places all over the world.

The coming of the Cambrian railway in 1867 opened up the area to tourists but there was a decline in local shipping and the export of slate.

Our Harbour View

Our Cottage

We arrived in Porthmadog on 21/05/07 at 15.30 after a 2 hour drive, which was pretty good going seen as though we stopped on the way for lunch.
It didn't take us long to find our cottage, Limekiln Cottage. Our first impressions were good, the cottage looked lovely, everything was neat and tidy from the outside. The inside didn't disappoint either, the dining room was quite large with a table to seat 6, the lounge was cosy with sofa's to also seat 6, we had a television with Sky and DVD player (we did hope not to use those much!). The kitchen was very well equipped, everything you could have needed. The patio doors in the kitchen led out into an outdoor breakfast area. There were 3 bedrooms, one with a four poster bed, the second with two single beds and the third with bunkbeds. There were 2 bathrooms, the first with toilet, sink and a jacuzzi bath and the second bathroom with toilet, sink and a singing and all dancing computerised shower! Basically, the shower had a built in radio (which also had a connection to play an ipod through) a steam room and the water could either come out of a normal shower head, a drencher or you could sit on the seat and have the water come out of massaging nozzles. We didn't explore all the possibilities as we really didn't have the time!

The view from the cottage was great, it did look over the harbour, but not as much as we were expecting to see of the harbour and next door was a friendly, quiet local pub called the Tafarn Pencei Cafe Bar, which did great cheeseburgers!!

There was a terrace to the front of the cottage and to the left was a bar-b-que area.

On arrival, champagne and chocolates and doggy treats were left for us and the dogs. The champagne didn't last long!

We stayed at Limekiln Cottage, Hoeseasons. From 21/05/07 - 25/05/07 we paid £378 all inclusive. (that did include a pet supplement).

Porthmadog, Wales

We've arrived home today from our short break in Porthmadog. We had a great time and I think the dogs had an even better time than us! There has been plenty of hiking up and down the coastal paths, lots of swimming (only the dogs, the water was too cold for us!), eating and drinking! Steph's dad and brother came to visit on one of the days and joined us with their dogs on the beach. We travelled to several beaches in the area, Borth-y-Gest, Criccieth and Pwllheli.

We'll tell you more in the coming days with pictures included.

While we were away, a friend of ours managed to get us tickets to watch Shrewsbury at Wembley tomorrow in the play off final for Division 1!