island hippy: Wales

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Wales

Mum, Dad, Holly, Nel, Sandy and I stayed in a cottage on the outskirts of a village a couple of miles outide of Hay-on-Wye in the Brecon Beacons.

As well as trying some local restaurants, we also ate at the cottage and barbecued some sheep ...

Sitting under a statue of Henry VII on the gable end of the Cheese Market in Hay-on-Wye enjoying ice creams from Shepherds. Based in an Edwardian shop facing the castle, Shepherds makes ice creams using sheep milk; the gooseberry and elderflower ice cream was delicious!

Visiting the Thursday morning farmers market in Hay ...

and visiting the many bookshops in Hay ...

On the afternoon we arrived, Dad, Nel, Sandy and I walked for an hour to the Blue Boar pub in Hay-on-Wye. Due to some rather suspect map reading we found ourselves scrambling up an extremely steep, muddy hillside at one point.

Walking through a graveyard we came across this grave belonging to an RAF serviceman killed during WWI in Wales.

We finally reached the pub where Holly and Mum were already discovering the joys of Black Fox.

The following day saw us don hiking boots once again for a five-hour walk from the cottage to the beginning of the Black mountains (and back again) ...

On the next day we traded boots for canoes and spent a leisurely few hours paddling ten miles down the Wye ...

Halfway down the river, at Whitney on Wye, we met Mum & Dad (who chickened out of negotiating the whitewater rapids) for a beery pub lunch at the Boat Inn. Terrible food and service. Beautiful weather though.