Thursday : Cloudy then Sunny

Had breakfast outside again today, but we didn't stay out there for long, we have a busy day today.

We had a few castles to see today, in and on the other side of the national park. So again lots of very nice driving through the park and towns with the mountains towering overhead. two towns were especially nice Bets-y-Coed and Beddgelert and all the castles were in very nice locations too. One was a small tower castle called Dolbadarn at the foot of a couple of big mountains. Another much bigger castle called Harlech was positioned atop of a hill with an awesome view out across the ocean.

We headed down to the beach car park to have some lunch and look back up at the castle. Then we had about an hour drive back through the national park passed Dolwyddelan castle, mightily positioned in a huge valley, back through pretty Bets-y-Coed and over to where we would start our afternoon walk.

It was a beautiful walk in huge glacial valley formed by ice thousands of years ago. We were lucky with the timing of this walk, because the sky started to clear up and the valley had loads of bright sun patches shinning down through the clouds onto the mountains and valley grasslands. The walk was one of many starting points to the top of Snowdonia. Our walk was 5-6kms, and took us around a lake and at the base of some mountains that made us feel very small.

After the walk we sat in the sun for a bit before heading back up to the hostel, for a freshen up for dinner. Yum yum pub grub! We had a very nice meal and drinks in the rowen pub which had loads of character.

After dinner we took advantage of the perfect afternoon sunshine and took a short drive into Conwy to watch the sun set over the castle and inlet, then have a nice stroll along the boardwalk to try and work off some of the feed.