Baltic Trip - Day Five - In search of slate
Woke up very early this morning, seriously early, even for me. I can only guess that it was the insomnia kicking in. I got up, typed for a bit and went back to bed, but to no avail. I finally got up at about 4 and messed about on the computer for a bit. Chris got up at six and was raring to go.
This morning it was a long walk about the sand. The town is built of a tide plain (I don’t know the exactly term, but half of the time, there was ocean in front of it and the other half, there are these huge sand flats. The sand is very compact and easy to walk upon, nothing like the beaches I am used to. We walked about a mile down to the point and looked back upon Portamadog. Then we turned around and came back by the forest path. Only one other group was out and the teen accompanying them did not look happy.
It was breakfast in the dining room, this time I was smart and just had a cold breakfast of cereal, juice, fruit and yogurt - oh, and the toast in the toast rack Beanie likes. Then we hit the road to try and find air for the tires. There is a warning light on and we didn’t want to drive until we checked them. We went to the Shell station and was finally able to get to the air pumps. They operate a little differently here. Here you program the amount of air you want in each tire, use the compressor and it chimes when it reaches that. It took us nearly ten minutes to figure that out!
On the way out, we stopped at the Castle to make dinner reservations for the hotel only to find out that the dining room was booked solid (because of a Tauk tour), so we ended up at the castle again - darn that luckJ
That accomplished, we went in search of the Llechwedd Slate Caverns. It took us find them and we finally had to stop and ask for directions from a human as the slate caverns weren’t in the Tom Tom. We found it without incident and were told we had to wait until 12 for the next tram down into the cavern. We did a little shopping, got some ice cream (a 99 ) and then went back to the car to wait - we had about 90 minutes. I dozed while Chris messed with the TomTom.
At noon, we got in the queue and got ready for our trip down into the cavern. It was pretty cool down there and I was happy we’d brought sweaters along. I’m sure others were envying us them. The tour was self guided and told the story of a young boy(12) and his father. It was mostly the story behind this particular mine as opposed to a history of slating mining, but I came away with the impression that it was a brutal life that ended quickly. Standing there in the dark, I couldn’t imagine working down there 12 hours a day with only candles for light. It was (and still is) a hard existence, although easier now because of modern machinery.
After that, we headed over to their canteen for some lunch. Chris had a bowl of chili and a pasty (meat and potatoes). I had a very good chicken curry over chips (fries). The rice wasn’t ready and I thought it would be fun to try. It was great!
After that, we drove back to the hotel for an afternoon of napping, reading, and relaxing - I could get into this. And no sheep were killed, no stone walls were scraped, and no peds were taken out. A very successful drive indeed!
At 5, Chris headed up to the Prisoner shop to pick up his black with white piping blazer. He looks very nice in it and he’s very happy. Did he need it? No. Did he really want it? Yes.
At 6:20, it was time to saddle up again and head back to the castle for dinner. This time we decided that we were going to eat outside. It was very warm. About half way through drinks, part of the next day’s wedding group arrived - 35 in all. It was actually good as there was a couple from America down at the end of the patio and I was shocked at how loud and obnoxious they were. I was embarrassed to be an American at that point. They were trying to be so worldly and impress another gentleman, British, I think.
But let’s talk about fun stuff - the food.
Today I had a confit duck leg over a bed of lettuce and a sauce of butternut squash as a starter. For dinner, I had pork with kale stir fried with bacon, sauté d leeks.
Chris had a salmon and shrimp platter - I’m shocked as he hates salmon - and he finished every bite. For dinner he had steak (I’m impressed - his first one in a week), mashed potatoes, baked tomatoes and beans. For dessert, he ordered the lemon trio again.
We went back to the room and I turned in to read. He went for a long walk and then came back to read. It was a lovely and fairly laid back day.
Tomorrow, we will pack up and get ready to be shifted to a cottage and get ready to tackle the Snowdon mountains!