The Legend of Gelert

Gelert

A short walk south of the village, following the footpath along the banks of the Glaslyn leads to Beddgelert's most famous historical feature; 'Gelert's Grave'.

According to legend, the stone monument in the field marks the resting place of 'Gelert', the faithful hound of the medieval Welsh Prince Llewelyn the Great.

The story, as written on the tombstone reads:

"In the 13th century Llewelyn, prince of North Wales, had a palace at Beddgelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert, ‘The Faithful Hound’, who was unaccountably absent.

On Llewelyn's return the truant, stained and smeared with blood, joyfully sprang to meet his master. The prince alarmed hastened to find his son, and saw the infant's cot empty, the bedclothes and floor covered with blood.

The frantic father plunged his sword into the hound's side, thinking it had killed his heir. The dog's dying yell was answered by a child's cry.

Llewelyn searched and discovered his boy unharmed, but nearby lay the body of a mighty wolf which Gelert had slain. The prince filled with remorse is said never to have smiled again. He buried Gelert here".

http://www.beddgelerttourism.com/gelert/

Wandering in Beddgelert

Harison and I did a little exploring of Beddgelert while Grahame and Elliott were out for the day. The village was so quaint and gorgeous with it's stone buildings. Everything is built out of stone. The tiny roads are lined either side with stone walls. There are stone walls bulit throughtout the hill sides right up high on the hills. Every building is stone,it just looks amazing.

North Wales

We had a wonderful time in North Wales. It is such a stunning place.The boys had a great experience on the film shoot. They started the day in the snow at the summit of Mt Snowdon. Apparently the temperature was -10degrees,so just a wee bit chilly. The reason for being up there was to film brachiopod fossils which are  a type of marine shellfish.

The next destination was to the Sygun Coppermine to film the copper viens and snottites which are according to Wikipedia
 A Snottite, also snoticle, is a microbial mat of single-celled extremophilic bacteria which hang from the walls and ceilings of caves and are similar to small stalactites, but have the consistency of snot.

So not only a great experience but educational as well.

We stayed in the beautiful Sygun Fawr Country House.

A beautiful place to stay and the dining was delicious. The beds were super comfortable and the view spectacular. I highly recommend this place to stay.

The arrival

Winchester

Crofts Castle

Leominster

Salisbury

Hereford

Well here we are in the UK having arrived a week ago on the 23rd. We were all rather sad to be leaving our home at sea as we had such a wonderful time on board. Now the adventure was to begin.

In one week we have seen so many places,sites, castles,cathedrals,medieval cities,manors and pubs that we have forgotten what we have done. Here's a run down on what we remember in no particular order:

New Forest Ponies wandering in the town

New Forest Ponies in New Forest

-New Forest-New Forest ponies roaming where ever they like from the roads to the main streets of the towns the ponies have right of way in this area.
-Winchester a lovely town that has a catherdral
-Salisbury,lovely city and has an enourmous cathedral, here we ran into some passengers from the ship!!
-Romsey another lovely little town
-Stone Henge-we did a drive by as you can get a reasonable look at it from the road
-Wood Henge,not far from Stone henge, we walked around this one
-Avesbury Henge and Manor, totally cool little town built in the henge, fascinating how and why the ancients built these mounded walls, corridors of stone, stone circles,long barrows(where they buried people). The Manor was beautiful and the gardens were superb. This is a more interesting site than Stone Henge and a lot larger
-Watford,to see Allyson and go to the Warner Bros Harry Potter studios
-Bath, amazing,beautiful city. We toured the Roman Baths and saw the city from an open top bus. We stayed with our new friend Dale and her family the night. We enjoyed a great Chinese meal and lovely company
-Glimpsed Windsor castle as we drove down the motorway
- Visited Crofts castle and Barrington Manor
-Thatched cottages,tudor cottages and houses,beautiful catherdrals
-Hereford,where we think is a possibility to live. It has all the things we are looking for except it's quite far from London and Allyson
-Driven down the narrowest two way roads that barely fit one car let alone two. The sides are lined with hedgerows and you cannot see what is coming until you are face to face with it.
-We've dined in very very old pubs and Grahame is loving trying all the English beers he has never seen before
-The greenest grass you have ever seen and just when you think it can't get any greener, we then entered North Wales and stunning green,green,green. The grass is so perfect in the paddocks it looks like lawn,amazing.
-Beautiful and stunning countryside, words cannot describe how stunning the scenery is.
-So many beautiful towns and villages,driving down tiny cobblestoned streets and lanes with amazing shopfronts and buildings

That's just what I can remember off the top of my head.

Right now we are in far North Wales in a most stunning wee little  village called Beddgelert. It's part of the Snowdonia National Park. We are here on an amazing opportunity. Grahame and Elliott are working as assistants on a film shoot for a documentary. I know this sounds crazy as we have only been in country 7 days.
The ship turned out to be a great networking opportunity. We met Dale (as mentioned earlier), she is a TV film producer and to cut a long story short she offered this to Grahame as she knew he is looking for work. Although this gig is voluntary the type of work is something that Grahame is interested in doing, that is location organisation,safety and security (basically). So here we are. We have been put up in a beautiful 400 year old stone cottage perched on the side of a hill with a most glorious view. Right now Grahame and Elliott are up at the summit of the mountain and then into a copper mine with the production team filming what will hopefully be Precious Planet. A doco series about the earths precious metals,gems etc etc.

Beddgelert,North Wales

Beddgelert

We also met another couple who, Neil, coincidently happens to have a film production company that produces Tv commercials. His wife,Debs is a jewellery designer. Neil has offered Harison do to a screen test as Harison wants to be an actor. It would be great fun for Harison to have a go and learn about the production side of the indusrty. We are catching up with them in West London next week sometime.

So it's a bit of a 180 degree turn for us Butlers. It's been amazing meeting the people we have. There are more but that can wait 'till later, don't want to sound too much of a name dropper.

We will be in Milton Keynes for 4 days this long weekend. We are going to a wedding, the son of friends we met in Malaysia when we lived there. Stefan and Allyson went to school together so that's how we know them. Grahame was part of a school expedition that Stefan participated in when they climbed one of the highest peaks in Malaysia. Stefan credits Grahame for getting the team up the mountain.

Romsey

Milton Keynes is also on the possibility list of places to live. Grahame has been there before. So once Ellz, Haz and I have looked at it we'll see if it's still on the list.

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury

Avesbury Henge

Avesbury Henge

Roman Baths

Bath

Bath

Ponta Delgada

Ponta Delgada Azores

Today we arrived in the stunning waters of the Azores. The Azores is a group of Islands off the coast of Portugal and are officially Portuguese.  On arriving we were greeted with vistas of green rollings hills as the backdrop and quaint European style architecture next to the water. We were off the ship early to take advantage of the sun shine as apparently the weather here is very changeable. Lucky for us though the whole day was superb weather wise. The sun shone and it was about 16 deg c, perfect weather for strolling around. All the roads are cobbled stone and the buildings are european looking with fancy doors ,window shutters,Juliette balconies and the doors open right onto the street.

We found a park that the boys could explore and kept them entertained them for two hours. The park was built in 1861 and had an old fort,tunnels,grottos,hidden paths and dungeons for the boys to get lost in. And it had free WiFi so we were able to skype Timothy and talk to him properly for the first time since we left Australia.

We then headed to the local mall  in fact it’s the only mall on the island and had a brief look around. We checked out the food court as we were a little hungry. What struck me was that everything was made to order and each food outlet was impeccably clean. Coffee only comes in a china cup, no take away coffee cups here, harks back to the good ol’ days. Coffee was about $2 AU. No super-sized coffees just a normal size coffee cup.

We didn’t look at the shops although Harison had a quick look in a pet shop. Next we headed to yet another park that had beautiful gardens and trees from all over the world. The boy love running around the parks and hiding in the giant bamboo or trying to clim the roots of giant Moreton Bay fig trees. I love that even though they are teenagers they are still young enough to play like kids in a park and prefer that to being inside. After covering every square inch of the park we walked back through the town to the ship. By this time it was 2.15pm.  After a quick stop at that ship to dump our things we didn’t need we the headed out again  to take an hour long bus tour . By now the clouds had started to come in but it still hadn’t rained and we really hoped it wouldn’t rain as we were seated in an open top bus. The tour was a great way to see things we wouldn’t have time to walk to.

The reason the countryside is so green is due to the high humidity and high rainfall even though the average temperature is only 19 deg c all year. The country side is gorgeous.

At 4pm we had finished the tour and Grahame wanted to try a local beer so next stop was a cafe . By 4.45pm we were back at the ship. It was a wonderful day here and the town is beautiful. What I liked about Ponta Delgada was that the Mall housed the fancy shops, the brands, the advertising. The local shops were in the buldings that lined the streets but just in random places. Not shop after shop after shop. The shops were tiny and quaint and there were no glary advertising or big signs. It was just lovely, old fashioned almost, the way it should be.

We all really enjoyed this port of call. Our last sadly before we head to South Hampton.

Antigua

Antigua, West Indies

What a gorgeous day we’ve had today.  The ship docked in a great location, a bit like Sydney Harbour with everything just off the gangway. It was very busy as another cruise ship was in town too. We were off the ship rather early and headed to the beach. We are one of those families that like to “find” our way to our chosen destination. Most people get a taxi or bus but not us. We walk for miles to experience the character of the town. Antigua is very charming in a scruffy kind of way. As we walked the streets heading to the beach the locals were friendly and helpful with directions. 

Some of the areas were quite run down and rather untidy with an accumulation of rubbish. The housing often being tiny and I mean  teeny tiny little weather board shacks, some just plonked on top of concrete blocks looking like they’d blow over in a strong wind. We wandered through some dubious looking areas and questioning Grahame’s judgement on the tourist beach we were supposed to be heading too. None the less beyond the disheveled and ramshackle streets a beautiful almost deserted beach was beckoning. Gorgeous clear blue waters and soft white sands. The boys and I stripped to our togs and dived in. Apart from a few locals, some horse and would you believe some cows, we had the beach to ourselves. It was well worth the long hot walk. Even though there was no snorkeling the boys enjoyed swimming for a few hours. We managed to get a taxi ride back as one has just dropped off some other tourists.

We came back to our home on the sea for lunch before heading out to explore the local town. It was lovely and charming as I said . The cricket was also on England verses West Indies which quite a few passengers went to. With two ships in town the bars and cafes were doing a roaring trade and the WiFi almost impossible to use. A really lovely day that ticked all the boxes on what we wanted to do here. Off to the Azores tonight which is off the coast of Portugal.

Panama Canal

PANAMA CANAL

Today we were up at 5.30am for the approach into the Panama Canal. It was a beautiful early morning and we saw the sunrise over the ocean and the stunning view of Panama City. The harbour was busy with all the ships waiting to take their turn. Only 2 can go through the canals locks at a time and only in the same direction. The cost for the ship to transit through today is 250,000 British pounds !!!!!

The transit took all day and was very slow. A  (Panamanian)pilot has to hop on board and take control of the ship. It’s hard to explain but in short the ship travels along with tugs at the ready on a specific course. Then the ship goes up through 3 locks in a space just wide enough for a ship of this size to get through. The ship is guide by mechanical “mules’ through the locks. This takes quite some time. Once through then it sails through a water way of lakes and manmade canals. Then another 3 locks to take it back down to sea level at the Atlantic end. At the beginning of our journey through the canal the scenery looked  like roads works on the banks of the canal. On one side of the canal there is enormous construction going on to build another canal and lock. So for a part of the journey the scenery was very ordinairey. Further through the canal  we saw beautiful  Panamanian jungle. It was picturesque and we saw monkeys but no crocodiles, lots of birds and colourful trees. That was after we elbowed the Poms out of the way to get a look. I think the whole ship was on decks today. It was very quite inside. It was a fascinating look at an engineering achievement. The whole canal operates today as it did when it was built back in 1913 and looks exactly the same.

It was a long day today but a good one and now we are headed to Antigua in the Caribbean.

These images are not mine but it gives you a look at what it looks like from different parts of the canal.