DAY 83 SATURDAY JUNE 16 CASTLES AND HILLS

The weather was cold (10C max), very wet all day and often windy.  Hard to believe this is summer. We set off from the hotel at 9am and had to ask several people for directions to get to the Park Plaza Hotel where our Roam Wales Tour was to start.  The minibus was 10 minutes late, there was no one else there, and the hotel receptionist knew nothing, so we rang the RW number and found nobody at home and no message bank.  Finally Chris arrived with 3 other passengers and welcomed us to his tour. As soon as we set off the rain poured down and we could see little through fogged up windows.  Chris drove around Cardiff Castle, but did not stop because that was part of another of their tours.  The rain eased enough for us to walk around Castell Coch (the red castle) which was very high, but we did not go in.  Then we went to Caerphilly and bought some jewellery and morning tea in the information centre while we waited for the rain to ease again.  This castle is the second largest in Great Britain and was very interesting to explore. It has a huge moat around it which was overflowing strongly into a drain because of the rain. The great hall was being prepared for a wedding.  The castle was built in the 13thC but the Bute family did huge renovations in the 19thC and most of it is now in good order.  We went next to the Penderyn Distillery, which was built in the Brecon Beacons National Park. This is the only one in Wales and the smallest one in the UK.  The show was wasted on us since none were drinkers but a number of other people joined the tour and they enjoyed the free samples.  We received a souvenir small bottle of whisky instead.  Will be posted home and open to offers.  We spent a few minutes in the National Park Visitors Centre which was home to a million sheep and covered 500 square miles.  Not what we think of as a National Park.  The bushwalk part of the tour was cancelled because of the mud and rain.  We saw some people coming into the Centre soaked after their ramble. Spent 40 minutes in Brecon which is a lovely old village with narrow streets and shops like York. On the way home we stopped near the top of a hill (mountain?) and saw the green pastures across the valley which could have been straight from "How Green Was My Valley".  It stopped raining long enough to appreciate all the little waterfalls and cascade descending from the plateaus above.  That was the positive side to the day's deluge. Chris dropped us at the Maldron Hotel at 6pm and assured us we would be picked up there on Tuesday when we do our second RW tour.  We picked up our laundry from reception on the way in and paid an amount which would have covered the cost of buying new ones.  Wont do that again.

THE RED CASTLE AND THE BLUE-GREEN GORETEX

THE RED, FAIRY TALE CASTLE ON A POSTCARD

CAERPHILLY CASTLE WAS RENOVATED EXCEPT FOR THE LEANING BIT 

IS THIS THE BIGGEST EVER CASTLE MOAT?

BEAUTIFUL SETTING FOR THE WEDDING. SHAME ABOUT THE WEATHER

AERIAL VIEW FROM A POSTCARD

BIG FIREPLACE FOR THE HUGE DINING ROOM

AT TRICIAS IN BRECON A MILKSHAKE IS MADE BY PUTTING RASPBERRY SYRUP  THEN MILK THEN ICECREAM THEN CREAM AND SERVED WITHOUT SHAKING.  IT WAS STIRRED NOT SHAKEN.

THE HILLS WERE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF CASCADES