The travels of Tim and Megan: Great Britain Tour

Day 11: Mold, Wales

Less than an hour south of Liverpool, we had crossed the border into Wales and we stumbled across a little town called Mold. For no reason other than humour, we decided to visit Mold. We parked the car in the main street and walked around the town in glorious warm sunshine, admiring the pretty church, the fun shops and the numerous pubs. We also liked the look of the enormous free carpark, where we could park the spaceship for the night. So we dropped anchor and had a night in Mold. We managed to find a Wetherspoons pub, where we got crazily cheap drinks and dinner and then we retired to the spaceship and slept like babies.

Day 12: Conwy, Wales

As it was a Sunday morning and we did not need to drive far that day, we allowed ourselves a little sleep-in before moving on from Mold. It was 40 minutes' drive across the top of Wales to our destination for the day - Conwy.

Conwy is a small walled town on the north coast of Wales and it is a very popular tourist destination. Conwy Castle and the town walls were built on the instruction of King Edward I between 1283 and 1289, as part of his conquest of Wales. Part of the tourism appeal is Conwy Castle and the town walls, which remain largely intact today, but Conwy is also a lovely seaside town with charming shops and pubs and a pretty little harbour packed with fishing boats.

We arrived in Conwy at around 10.30am and we set about wandering the town centre. Lancaster Square sits in the centre of the wall-enclosed town and it boasts a fine statue of Llywelyn the Great, who was a prince and de facto ruler of Wales for around 40 years. We loved High Street, where almost every shop and building had beautiful flags flying proudly.

We carried on through the town to the waterfront, where we saw the "Smallest House in Great Britain" - another of the tourist attractions. The house, measuring just 3.05m by 1.80m, was inhabited from the 16th century until 1900. Its last resident was a fisherman named Robert Jones, who was forced to move out of the house in 1900 as it was deemed unfit for human habitation.

After a walk around the town walls, which gave us great views of the town centre and castle, we descended to gound level and did a tour of Conwy Castle. The tour was great - the exterior walls of the castle and all of the towers are still completely intact and there was plenty of information about the history of the castle (including a seige by some unhappy Welshmen in 1403). We had great views from the top of the towers.

After the castle visit we were pretty hungry - luckily for us Conwy is also renowned for its brilliant fish n chips. We found a fish n chip restaurant on the main street and got a delicious lunch. We then had a relaxing beer in one of the many pubs, where we caught a little bit of the Formula One race on the big screen. Then our visit of Conwy concluded with a tour of Plas Mawr.

Plas Mawr is a fine Elizabethan house built in 1576 by the Wynn family. It has been extensively refurbished to its original 16th century appearance and it is the finest example of an Elizabethan house in Great Britain. It, too, was really well done and we loved our visit, which was extremely informative thanks to the free audio-guide. The combined ticket for the castle and Plas Mawr visits was only £7 - get in.

Having conquered Conwy, so to speak, we headed to a camping ground about 15 minutes south of Conway at a little town called Llanrwst. We enjoyed a few hours of hot, sunny weather in the late afternoon / evening, meaning that we could do some washing and have dinner outside on the grass. We rounded off the evening with a relaxing stroll through the town of Llanrwst, where we saw a lot of tractors and drunk people and not much else.

Day 13: North Wales

Monday 25 July was a very special day. Not only was it Tim's birthday, but it was also another cracking sunny day on which we didn't have to work. Love it. After checking out of the camping ground, we drove through town, dodging the tractors, which were everywhere. Llanwrst must be some sort of tractor capital of Great Britain. We had been playing the "tractor game" on our travels, where you try to spot tractors before the other person does, and you get 5 points for a moving tractor and 1 point for a stationary tractor. After a 15-minute burst in Llanrwst, we had both doubled our scores and the scorecard read something like: Tim 121, Megan 109. Insane.

Llanrwst's biggest attraction is a lovely old 15th-century cottage, now covered in leaves, that sits on the far side of the river, across the equally charming three-arch stone bridge, Pont Fawr. So we took some photos of the old cottage and then carried on our way, exploring the Snowdonia National Park area of North Wales.

A short distance down the road we came to the town of Betws-y-Coed - no idea how you pronounce that, but it's probably not anything like how it looks. We passed through the town, but stopped just the other side to visit the Swallow Falls waterfall. Thanks to some advice from a friendly Aussie couple who were coming out as we were going in, we managed to both squeeze through the turnstiles, which required a £1 coin for entry. It was the only £1 coin we had and there was nobody at the ticket office and there was nowhere nearby to change money. The waterfall was spectacular (photos below) - well worth a stop if you're ever passing through Betws-y-Coed and wondering how to fill in some time. But take a £1 coin!

We drove on through Snowdonia, including over a beautiful mountain pass with stunning views, until we reached a town called Llanberis, the town where the train to the top of Wales' highest mountain, Mt Snowdon, departs from. We parked the spaceship and toyed with the idea of getting the train to the top of Mt Snowdon, but we simply didn't have the time for the round trip. Instead, we grabbed some rocky road and a drink and sat on a seat down by the lakefront to consume our awesome morning tea. Llanberis offered little other than rocky road and a museum about slate mining, so we pressed on to Caernarfon.

Caernarfon also has a castle and sits on the coast of north Wales, however, we did not find it as pretty as Conwy. We grabbed some lunch in a cafe and then used the internet in the public library before pressing on to Holyhead, at the very north-west tip of Wales, where our ferry to Dublin was departing from, later that night.

We had a few hours to fill in before the ferry left, so we went to the Empire movie theatre to see the final instalment of the Harry Potter movies. The Empire Theatre is brilliant - it is like stepping back in time by 25 years. Three things completely shocked us as we bought our movie tickets - the first thing, which understandably threw us, was that the woman selling the tickets had a full beard. The second thing was that she told us that two adult tickets came to a total of £5. It's about £12 each in London!!! Then finally, she handed us those little old-fashioned paper stubs that say 'Admit One' for our tickets. Brilliant! Then a large popcorn, 600ml coke, slushy and chocolate bar came to £3.90!

The theatre itself was awesome too - it seated about 60 or 70, although at least a third of the seats were broken! We guessed they don't often hit capacity. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would recommend you give the Empire a go if you're ever over that way. We discovered later that Prince William and Kate often visit the Empire Theatre, as they are based in the Anglesey region, near William's Air Force base! After the movie, we grabbed a quick dinner and caught the ferry across to Dublin!