Saturday, August 22, 2009

New South Welshmen in Wales






















We arrived in Cardiff, Wales, on Thursday & spent the day looking around Cardiff Castle (not much to see) & Millennium Stadium. The tour of Millennium stadium was good although a little disappointing as they had the turf up & were setting up for the U2 concert Saturday night so was a little hard to picture it in its full rugby glory. Later in the afternoon we headed to Cardiff Bay for a coffee - once again it was nice but not fantastic. I guess it comes down to the fact that despite being a capital city it's still relatively small & you really can't compare it to the likes of Sydney or London.
Friday we headed across to the west coast of Wales, stopping in at Caerphilly Castle and then Tenby along the way. Tenby was pretty although one of the biggest tourist traps we saw in Wales. Set on the hill overlooking the beach & ocean it was so packed with tourists they actually shut off the town centre to traffic during the day to allow the tourists to spill onto the streets. The view was pretty although the wind was freezing (seems it was just us who thought so - the Welsh were walking around in shorts & thongs, and still swimming in the water - for us it was like the middle of winter!).
Friday night we spent with a farmer near Pembroke & had a great look around his farm which included everything from cropping, dairy, potatoes, lamb fattening & a little bit of real estate. They had just started digging potatoes they day we arrived & were about halfway through the wheat harvest (averaging 70bags - really quite depressing). The wheat harvesting didn't quite seem the same as at home - it was so wet the header & chaser bin were leaving 10inch ruts in the ground and there was no dust to be seen. Before leaving Saturday we also managed to touring their local potato processing/packing plant which was great to see.
Saturday night we headed a little further north to stay with another scholar & really enjoyed our time looking around his sheep and national trust property. The views here were just spectacular - lush green hills dotted with sheep - its amazing what 80inches of rainfall a year can do!

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