The top image here is the Fairy Glen, near Betws-y-Coed, North Wales. This is probably one of the most photographed locations in North Wales, but despite this, I will certainly be paying my 50p to go back down there again, perhaps near midday when the sun is shining directly down the steep gorge and lighting up the autumn leaves…
This evening we went up Snowdon. On mountain bikes. This involves a 2 hour ride/push to the summit, followed by a bone-shaking 25 minute decent back to Llanberis and a pint.
The new summit cafe is really taking shape now. People often comment that in demolishing the previous eyesore that was the 1960’s cafe from the summit of Snowdon, there was the opportunity to return the summit of our highest mountain to its natural state. Every year though, this hill gets busier. At the weekends there can be a queue to stand on the summit platform even when the train is closed.
Although this bustling summit feels at odds with the relative freedom of the rest of Snowdonia, in the wider context, Europe’s mountains are scatted with are cable cars, funicular railways and high alpine cafes. These cafes often offer wonderful local food and impressive views. In this tradition, one beautiful piece of modern architecture on our most trafficked Welsh summit doesn’t seem one too many to me. Maybe now it will become the exciting mountain experience for the masses it always should have been. Let’s just hope when it’s completed, that the chef is as good as the architect…
Canadian Cove Stiffee Bike & Goodbye lens
The guts of my ‘pub’ lens were sprawled alarmingly over the bottom a bag this morning – it didn’t survive the party the night before. I thought perhaps that a good whack back in place might have sorted it, but if you click on the larger version of this image, the lens may not be quite right? Time for a new pub lens. Canon make [these] light-weight plastic, almost disposable, 50mm pub lenses with really good optics and a street price a fraction of the cost of a proper lens. That’s why they are safe to take in the pub.
