Wales YHA

I've always wanted to try out a youth hostel and when a friend of mine mentioned that she used her Tesco vouchers to pay for it I decided we would do it so I cashed my vouchers in only to find I whad to book for 3 nights which was a bit of a downer becasue that ade it a lot more expensive and of course you can't get the discounts with YHA when using tesco vouchers! Ah well they sat in my drawer for a while then I found out my lovely friend Becky was soon to be moving house from Wales to Scotland (even further away!) and decided I would use the vouchers to take the girls to see her and her lovely 2 girls.

We organised it for a weekend when she would be around and I would combine it with a stop off in Manchester to my friend Jen. I took a bit of time over choosing the right hostel that was close enough to Bangor where Becky lived. The Hostel was called Llanberis near the lake Llyn Cwellyn very close to Snowdon and it looked very picturesque.


We set off to Manchester on Thursday and spent the day at Manchester Museum which was fascinating a real insight into the history of the fabric industry in Manchester.

I did find it interesting what different fabrics were made from the girls just liked feeling them! I was amazed that PVC and Acrylic comes from the petroleum industry. Its good to know how fabric is made and I must say I prefer all the materials that are natural and that was before I knew.

There were lots of hands on stuff the girls got to have a go at plaiting with huge ropes and feel lots of different textures. There was a replica of a mill to show what it would have been like to work with all the big industrial looms. Very dangerous!



 There was a lot of information about the trading of fabric across the world and the importing of silks and new patterns from Africa.




In the modern part we got to put our faces up on a sculpture of plasma screens which was great fun

The museum is well worth a visit we stayed the whole day and were the last to leave! We went from there to stay with my lovely friend Jen and equally lovely hubby Tim who cooked us a fab meal especially for my vegetarian tastes. Charlie their dog is loved by my kids he is sooo gentle and just like a big kid himself. When the kids went to bed we stayed up chatting till late catching up. I met Jen in America in 1995 and we hit it off straight away. Ever since we've taken it turns to stay over every couple of months and we have had some wild times. More sedate now the children are with me but still great reminiscing and catching up on all the latest happenings in our lives, I absolutely love my chats with Jen we have been known to have 2hour phone calls when we go too long without a visit!
The next day we had a walk to Jen's local park then it was time for us to head to Wales. We headed straight for Beckys house in Bangor just getting there in time for tea!

5 girls together for a sleepover they loved it!

The next day Becky took us to their local theme park Greenwood which was just great for under 8's with lots of fun activities

 The girls got on so well we hadn't seen Becky's eldest since I looked after her when she was a baby I think Blossom was only a few months old.








 The kids were good at the archery I even had a go and was pretty good at it too!










There was a great area set up for den building in the woods

There was even a roller coaster - the only eco one in the world powered by the people carrier that you get in to get to it. It was like a pulley system as we went down in the carriage the roller coaster went up past us then we ran from the bottom of the hill to get into the coaster which had enough energy and momentum to go flying down the hill. It was great only slightly knackering running up to it each time which we did about 20 times!!

 My favourite was the huge dry sledging slope it was really fast and yes adults could go on it!!

It was a really lovely day they were inseparable by the end and there were a few tears when we came to say goodbye.
We headed off to our Youth Hostel and I was not disappointed it was beautiful.This was the lake at the bottom of the hill from the Hostel. We explored the village of LLanberis nearby and it was very quaint.

 The views from our window were stunning Snowdon not far away. The room had two bunk beds in so we chose beds and proceeded to check out bed lights and other important stuff.


Then the girls took to what they do best covering the floor with toys and playing!

 
The dining hall was nice and there was a huge kitchen to make your own food in so I did that one night then had their meal on another then a meal out. They had a deal in the hostel of kids eat free with each adult meal so it didn't cost much to feed us and it was good food.

I had all breakfast and lunch stuff with me so we self catered mostly and it worked well.

The next day we went to conquer Snowdon! there it is in the clouds in the middle and there it stayed for most of our walk towards it and in my better judgemnet moment I decided we would have to return another day as I didn't feel prepared enough for mist coming down on us! The kids I think were relieved as we had walked a fair way towards it and it didn't seem any closer and they were pretty tired.

 It was a fun walk and quite a steady slope so I think a couple more years and we could do it.

As we got back to the car the sun was shining so we drove up to llandudno a beautiful seaside town that reminds me of Whitby. We had a lovely play on the beach and a little paddle in the cold water before heading home.















Another reason why we came to Wales was to replace a bear that S had lost that had been bought in Wales the last time we visited. So we returned to Conwy castle on our way home the next day to see if we could find another Lucy bear. Unfortunately we couldn't find one the same so we had a quick run along the battlements before setting off to Chester Zoo.




In true ranger style with B driving... watch out animals here we come!!

 The Rhino is such a dinosaurish creature you can imagine a triceratops when you look at them.

The zoo was really well set out all the animals had lots of space and unlike some zoo's we have been to the animals looked happy.

The girls were so excited seeing these animals up close although I prefer animals to be free in their native habitat it is so wonderful to be able to see them which we wouldn't be able to if there weren't zoos

This was a really fun bit where the girls could go through underground tunnels then pop up and be in the Mongoose habitat! The Mongoose scuttled past them which made them all laugh.

Then we went into the Jurassic bit with quite realistic moving dinosaurs! we had to go through several times as the girls got less frightened but still wanted to scare themselves silly with the Trex at the end!

The girls loved all the animals my favourites are always the apes and here they have a really good enclosure which is surrounded by water so we are quite far away from them. It felt a nice way to do it so they hardly noticed us and looked very natural. We watched them for a while eating veg and walking around occasionaly climbing and swinging on their rope trees. Its quite a weird feeling watching as I always feel they are so close to us in behaviour it often feels more wrong for these animals to be in captivity. I have to say though the Orang utan enclosure was the best I have ever seen, we walked through a sound proofed area with small viewing windows to look at them, they had an indoor and outdoor bit and they carried on doing their orang utan things without ever bothering about us watching whereas whenever I have seen these majestic creatures before they have been sitting looking sad and just staring at visitors staring back!

Not here they were swinging about having a great time playing on all the equipment it was great to watch.

 Turtles can grow huge! and apparently so can kids!










Funny moment when J tried to get on an elephant statue that was very slippy, she did end up on it but the wrong way round. How we laughed hehe!

 We would have loved to try it on the real thing but all we could do was watch in awe as these massive beasts with all the strength and power gently picked up sticks to have a little scratch!

 It was an amazing day and we enjoyed it sooo much.
Lots of the animals were endangered and some like the African painted dog are extinct in the wild. The programmes the zoo is running to protect animals is brilliant so I felt good to have helped them continue with my entry fee.

 http://www.chesterzoo.org/