First of all, I apologize for my tardiness with this blog, yesterday was a long day.
As the developing pattern is beginning to state, Monday thru Wednesday of last week were pretty uneventful. Went to class, planned a few weekend trip, ate, slept, read. Enough on that.
Our trip for last weekend was scheduled to take us a wee bit under 11 hours by bus. I don’t know if any of you have ever travelled extended distances by bus, but let me tell you, we were not looking forward to it. Regardless, we showed up to the bus station in Hull around 915 am, prepared for our 10 am departure. As always, the bus arrived a few minutes prior to our departure time, we boarded, and settled in. In fear of boring you into blog induced coma, I will not go into much detail about this ride. However, I will mention that unlike our previous trips (i.e. to Scotland) where the scenery was majestic and awe inspiring, the vast majority of this journey was dull. It was only when we had crossed the country lines between England and Wales that there was much of anything to look at, and even then, dark was quickly falling upon us, thus the excitement was short lived.
We were dropped off directly outside the Pembroke Castle at 845 pm, signalling the end of our “to Wales” ride. So there we were, it was nighttime, and the town was silent. This was something we really weren’t used to since all of our previous trips had been to bigger cities where the nights were lively and bustling- you could say it was a pleasant change (for now). I knew we had to walk east down main street, so, we headed the direction which I felt was correct and began to look for the golden “78″ house number nailed to a door. The walk was surprisingly short- we had arrived at the Beech House Bed and Breakfast before 9 pm.
I rang the doorbell, no answer. Great, we travelled all this way and we couldn’t even get into our accomodation. Well, I’m glad to say that wasn’t the case, and soon the proprietor of the establishment, Anne, greeted us at the door. Anne was probably around 60 years old, several inches shorter than I, and sporting a red overcoat and glasses. She spoke with a thick Welsh accent, which we fortunately could understand. She immediatley showed us inside, and we were amazed at what we had encountered. If you’ll recall, in our previous excursions, we had always stayed in hostels. Hostels are fine, in terms of they offer a place to sleep that is safe, fairly comfortable, and occasionally even offer a free breakfast of toast and cereal. Pretty much the bare necessities and cheap- good enough for us. Well, the Beech House was not a hostel, it was a bed and breakfast. I had stumbled upon it while doing some research on Pembroke and it seemed like a decent place for the same price as the hostels we had been staying in. Upon stepping inside the front door, I instantly realized it was much better then “decent.” This was Anne’s home, she had spent years decorating and caring for the property, and it was incredibly evident. First things first, we were given a tour of the b & b. Directly to the left when walking thru the front door was the pool room. Dressed in blue, this room offered guests free games of pool, a vast literary collection, and records to listen to. Across the hall was the sitting room with a welcomed long lost friend, a tv with cable. Next to the upstairs. We were given two bedrooms for the night. The whole place had a homey ambiance, which is hard to describe. For pictures, check out my shutterfly page- I highly recommend it.
We had yet to eat dinner, so we headed back out to grab a bite to eat. Unfortunately, there was only one place open at 9 o’clock at night, a kebab and pizza place. The food was moderate, and the clientel was less than welcoming. Still, it was good to finally have something to eat.
After our meal, we went back to the b & b and turned into the night.
The nest morning we arose around 8am, breakfast was served at 830. Caitlin and Emily beat me downstairs and were already eating when I made my way to the dining room, which we hadn’t seen last night and was equally impressive as the rest of the house. Upon entering, I looked at my options: fruit, cereal, milk, and juice. Pretty standard. Shortly after I had gathered some corn flakes and juice, Anne brought in some tea and coffee. I was satisfied, but Anne quickly asked, “Everyone for bacon and eggs?” Of course we were, after all it had been awhile since we had had a hot breakfast. We waited paciently as Anne prepared our meals in the kitchen. When she walked in with our plates, we were silenced. It was much more than we had expected. We were being treated to a traditional English breakfast: tea, coffee, toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomato, and baked beans. It was delicious, but weird. I wasn’s used to having tomatoes, mushrooms, and baked beans for breakfast. Take a guess and see if you can figure out who out of me, Cait, and Emily was the only one to finish it all and then some……. You were probably wrong: Caitlin. Whoda thunk it?
With full stomachs, we were off to sight see. The main attraction for the day was the Pembroke Castle, where we had been dropped off the night before. Along the way to the castle, we stopped in a few shops and browsed for a while, looking at all the traditional Welsh items.
The castle was pretty cool. Unlike the Edinburgh Castle, it hadn’t been modernized and had far less people visiting. While visiting, we were allowed to climb up steps in the towers, walk across bridges, and pretty much explore any area that wasn’t chained off. I actually liked this much more than the Edinburgh Castle, which surprised me. One of my favorite parts was climbing to the top of the Great Tower, 101 stone steps straight upwards. The vantage point at the top gave you a great look at the town of Pembroke and all the castle facilities. Perhaps my next favorite part was the castle cave, which was situated underground. This had been a home to people from the prehistoric period all the way until the castle had been abandoned. All in all, it was a very entertaining 2 hours.
The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around town and eventually decided it was time to eat, the time was 3 pm. At 3 pm in Pembroke, you are lucky to find food. Yet again, we only found one place that was open. Yet again, the food was moderate. However, in scouring the area to find somewhere to eat we did discover a decent place that started serving at 7, so we decided to attend their facilities later that night.
Once we had eaten, we headed back to the b & b to relax for a few hours before going to get a real meal.
Now, at 7pm on Friday night, we went to the restaurant we had found earlier that day. Fortunately, the food was more than moderate. I chose moraccan lamb, which was ok, and the girls each had grilled scallops, which they were thoroughly impressed with.
Mouse was scheduled to arrive later that night, so we burnt some time playing pool and watching tv waiting for him to show up. He did show up, but only after getting off the bus at the wrong stop in the wrong town and walked 4 miles to get to the b & b. Yes, that’s a true story.
The next morning we were yet again treated to the huge English breakfast. This time, however, we were joined by a couple from Cambridge who had arrived the prior evening. We spent an hour or so talking to them about our lives back home and theirs in the UK. Very interesting.
Off to our next stop we were. A bus called the Coastal Cruiser was leaving Pembroke at 10 am to go to the coast. This bus had about 15 stops, and you could pay to ride all day, getting on and off as you pleased. Anne highly recommended this as a way to see the coast of Wales, and since she hadn’t led us astray thus far, we decided to go for it. She said we should definitely go to Freshwater West, so that was the plan.
We boarded the bus, which was actually more of a large van and headed towards the coast. To put it lightly, the ride was very rough. It was bumpy, curvey, and constant stop and go. As the trip progressed, I noticed Mouse’s color begin to drain from his face. For his sake, I suggested we get off at the first stop, West Angle Beach, rather than Freshwater West, which was another 20 minutes away. The scenary was gorgeous so all were in agreement. We spent the next hour or so walking on the small beach and seeing how far we could climb out onto the rocks which extended out into the sea. The water was very clear and blue, the sun was out, it was a good day thus far. West Angle Beach is part of the Pembrokeshire National Park, which is also made up of the Coastal Walk National Park. Considering we wouldn’t be good travellers if we stuck to one spot, so we just started to walk. After walking for about a mile, we looked ahead, and only saw industrial areas, so we turned back, we prefered to see nature instead of smoke stacks. So, one mile out, one mile back to West Angle beach. We stopped for ice cream at a small cafe on the beach and looked at a sign to see where the next area would be for a bus stop. In the opposite direction of our original hike was Freshwater West, pretty convenient since that is where Anne told us to head. However, this hike was 5.5 miles. Hmm. It was 1230, the next bus left Freshwater West at 238, giving us 2 hours and 8 minutes to walk less than 6 miles. Not bad right? After all, we all walk fast and could probably bust out one mile every 12-15 minutes. My estimation, however, did not take into effect the terrain of the hike. More on that later. With my seemingly undisputable math skills proving we would make it on time with a good half hour for relaxing, we began. At first all was well. We walked along the cliffs of Wales, seeing the ocean on one side, and farms with cows, horses, and sheep on the other. It was a beautiful layout and the tense feelings which were evidently prevalent at the onset were now fading. This changed quickly. We came to our first hill. When I say hill, I mean 150-200 yards STRAIGHT down on a path that was literaly 18 inches wide, 6 inches deep, and carved into the grasses of the cliff areas. We made it down without too much trouble, but then had to go up- herein lies the problem. The walk up was on the same type of path, zig zagging up the face of the hill. By the time we scaled the mountain-esk face, we were a bit tired. The remaining 4.5 miles were like this (hence the name of my blog). By the end of it, Mouse and I were 100 yards in front of the girls, none of us were friends anymore, and our only focus was getting to the bus. When we finally made it to the beach, it was an amazing sight. Too bad we didn’t get to relax and take it all in. We arrived at the bus stop at 235, 3 minutes early. The girls arrived at 240, we held the bus for them. The bus ride home started silent, but we soon realized what we had just accomplished and the stress subsided and we were friends again.
When we got back to Pembroke, Mouse and I went to the Castle Store for a bit while the girls headed to the b & b. Mouse and I got back to the b & b about 15 minutes after they had, and by that time, Cait was already in the shower and Emily was passed out in bed. The rest of the day pretty much consisted of recovering, which was fine, we all needed it.
That night we yet again spent an hour or so trying to find the only restaurant that was open in the entire town. We succeeded… eventually.
We departed Pembroke at 7am on a bus towards Hull. Yet again, the ride was fairly uneventful, except for when we arrived to Birmingham, where we were supposed to have a 40 minute lay over to catch our next bus. Due to delays, we actually had an hour and 45 minute lay over, and when you’ve been on a bus all day and still have 4 hours to go, doesn’t really sit well. But it was all worth it, because in this bus station we saw the single most crazy person I have ever seen. I say person, because I honestly don’t know if this person was a man or woman. They were wearing female clothes and had a kind of female face with make up, so we will say woman. She had eyelashes that were at least 3 inches long, had glitter and “showtime” makeup all over her face, lips that clearly had way too much cologen, and was holding a big silver trophy and a hula hoop. Oh yea, did I mention she was vigorously arguing with herself the whole time we were there. I could give my opinion of who she was or where she came from, but I think I will let you have this taste tid bit to mold as you wish. You’re welcome.
We eventually made it back to Hull, and that’s where I sit now. Classes are done for the week as it is now 630 on Tuesday night, and we leave for our next vacation tomorrow night at 7 from the Hull docks. We are experimenting with a new mode of transportation: the ferry. We will leave at 7 tomorrow night and get to Bruges, Belgium at 9 the next morning. It should be fun.
Pictures are up at codyspicts.shutterfly.com so go take a look.
That’s all for now, check in next week to see how many Belgian waffles Caitlin can eat in one sitting. Any guesses?
Cheerio.
