Ireland and UK Holiday 2015, 29th June

At Tregarth near Bangor in Wales

OK folks, this is train day whether you like trains or not! The options were to ride the narrow gauge trains or try and follow them to get some photos, we decided on the latter. First to Caernarfon to see the Welsh Highland Railway start its journey, then a bit of a short wander around town, and off again on the road that follows the train tracks to catch up with the train, and eventually beating it down to its destination of Portmadog. Once there we waited for the other line Ffestiniog train to come back home and some more photos, then had lunch and waited for the Ffestiniog train to depart. Then wandered back home to start to pack our bags ready for the ferry to Dublin tomorrow.

First the castle at Caernarfon where Prince Charles was crowned or whatever in 1969......



Backing up the loco to the carriages, this one is a rather large Garrat style loco ex South African Railways, the track gauge is a narrow 2 feet........



Naturally we took lots of photos and also videos, but the videos have to wait until I get back to a better computer than this netbook to sort them out.

The train climbs a bit into the mountains (skirts Snowdon) then has a rest for a drink of water.....



From the watering stop it is mostly downhill now so no chuffing happening......



Arriving at Portmadog where it needs to cross the road.......



Portmadog boat harbour, as usual pleasure boats galore, it used to be ships carrying Welsh slate to all over the world.....



Then the Ffestiniog train arrived......



A much smaller and prettier loco of the Fairlie pattern, a push-me-pull-you double ended design......



The builders plate does say 1992 so it is a new old one.

That's all for today and the next task is to try and fit all our junk into the available bags. Tomorrow we drop the car at Holyhead and get the fast ferry back to Dublin.