Ireland and UK Holiday 2015, 28th June To Tregarth near Bangor in Wales
On the road again, this time on the A5 from Telford to Wales, first sightseeing at the free Welsh National Slate Museum, a preserved slate factory with most of the equipment still intact. They had a complete workshop, from making their own timber sleepers for the narrow gauge slate railways, through to repairing their own steam engines and casting steel to make necessary wheels and bits and pieces for the railway and the slate machinery. Then on again to Tregarth about 6 miles from Bangor for two nights homestay. First before we left Telford, found a nice Morgan 3 wheeler in the car park......
 A cake and coffee stop in Wales at Betws-y-coed and in front of the shop is a metal rooster......  On the railway station platform behind those shops is a rhino filled with bottle tops......  Across from the real railway station is a miniature steam railway.......  On the road again and a bit of scenery at Capel Curig.....  And over another mountain pass next to the road we get this sort of scenery......   On into slate mining country, the grey hill opposite is all the maybe 90% rubbish discarded from slate gathering......  Next to the Welsh National Slate Museum......  There was a demonstration of how to split the slates.....  View of the foundry area and the casting floor, they even made their own steel framed windows.......  Machinery everywhere and all powered from those overhead shafts.....  They have 1/8 mile of shafts and all originally powered by this ridiculously large water wheel (over 50 feet diameter and made in 1870), in a very confined space and needed the distorting fisheye lens to try and get an impression of it........  Behind the car park is the inclined railway that delivered the slate wagons down to factory level, only one section rebuilt, a few more are above this......  Naturally there's a little tourist train running through the area and along the lake nearby......  After all that we went on to Tregarth where we are staying for two nights, view from our window........  That's all for now, must sit down and decide what we are doing tomorrow. |