Snowdon and Snowdonia

Snowdon is the highest peak in the UK, apparently.  It is in Wales.  This is a little village just a few miles away from the start of the trails.

After over an hour of waiting to get to the beginning of the trail at the car park (the lot was full, along with several parking spaces until we were about 3 miles away), we started the journey.

There were several .. big hills ... on the way to the peak.  We hiked along one side of them for a while before our trail crossed over to the other side.  (Both sides were equally light, so neither could be classified as "crossing over to the dark side".)  The trail was basically big rocks forming stairs.

The view on the cross over bit. It was so beautiful!  So, so very different than anything I've seen in the UK.

There is a very small figure in blue, I think, at about the middle point of the left side.  That is Martin.

Martin and Sarah, enjoying a breather.

This is looking back toward the beginning of the trail.  If you look down by the lake, you can see the "easy" trail .. which is basically just a nice walk until you get to the mountain, then it's STRAIGHT up!  We did the more gradual climb, which is up, then up, then up, then meets up with the "easy" trail and goes straight up.

Just before the peak.  Sarah was a champ! We'd just got out of the straight up bit.

This is the man made peak at the top.  I thought it was pretty pointless and refused to go to the top.  I only wanted to go to the top of what NATURE had made.

Enjoying our cheesy cobs at the top. 

Sarah, Martin, Me, and Ash at the top!  Yay for us!

And then we climbed back down.

These were abandoned/ repossessed houses in Liverpool.  The entire street was boarded up except one house, which did not have such cool paintings in it's windows.  Credit crunch hits Liverpool!

A Super Surprise Adventure around a park, whose name I can't remember

Ashley was really excited about the lake and the ducks!

... because who wouldn't be!

Ashley tried for ages to get the picture of the evil yellow-eyed duck. Poor duck.

When we got to the other side of the lake, we discovered (though we obviously weren't the first, since there is a brick wall there) a secret garden.  Apparently the entire area was a retreat for the wealthy during the Victorian period.

Ruins of an abbey, which was, again, later used for a Victorian get-away location.

This is part of the abbey, recreated for the tourists.  The food is plastic.  If it was real, I still wouldn't have eaten it.  The monks used to copy down sacred texts in this area.  There were all sorts of monk extremists in this particular abbey.

Looking for the toilet.  Or just going to the top level. The upper level was in a much newer style.

Ash outside the upper level.  There is a picture of an English Victorian prince with his entourage in this very spot, minus the fencing and the little boy.

Ash thought this was the funniest sign ever!

A deer in the forest.

Sherwood Forest Adventure

Here we are in Sherwood Forest (Ashley is there, too. I promise).

The visitor's center has all sorts of fun things, like this.  Ash threatened a plastic model of the Sheriff of Nottingham .. and almost knocked it over.  I have no evidence of this.

(I did not know that we were doing a nice picture.)

This is the Old Oak.  Legend has it that Robin Hood hid in this very tree (cannot be proved) and that it was the meeting place for the other outlaws.  It's a huge tree!  It's also held up by scaffolding.

Close up of the Old Oak .. with it's door and window. It's actually hollow.

Another gnarled tree.