Snowdon and Anderton Lift

Over the past couple of days the weather has been cold and rainy so we have not been up to much. Been to Llangollen to do the laundry and purchase coal and wood, nipped into Oswestry and generally pottered.

On Wednesday the weather despite being bitterly cold was very sunny and we took, what may be the last opportunity of the season to take the train up Snowdon. This mountain is the highest in Wales and is located within Snowdonia National Park.

The summit is at an altitude of 1085 meters above sea level and on clear days you can see Ireland, Scotland, England and The Isle of Man. The views were fantastic despite being very cold. There was even snow on the ground. We took the train both up and down. A few years ago, we did walk up (from the half way station) and down to the bottom, however, my knees were a lot younger then, so this time we decided to “let the train take the strain” The train starts from Llanberis and is a narrow gauge rack and pinion mountain railway (based on Swiss technology) and is over 100 years old. The locomotives are steam or diesel and push the carriages up the mountain. Once at the top the train waits for 30 minutes before heading back down. Which gives just enough time to climb a few steps to the top and have a cup of tea in the new café on the summit.

After we descended we took a walk around the lake just near the base of the mountain and found ourselves in a slate museum where we stopped for a welcome coffee and shelter from the cold. The museum spoke about this history of slate mining and the different roles and tasks involved. The museum even had houses to show the changing décor of miners houses through history ending in 1969. It was fascinating and I was very interested in a water wheel which powered the tools. A marvellous peace of engineering. This waterwheel is the largest working wheel in mainland Britain. 50 foot or so in diameter and 5 foot wide and was constructed in 1870.

(Picutres: View from Snowdon (you can just see in the first one a fluttering of snow) and the water wheel)

Thursday saw another bright day and after a slow morning we drove to the Anderton Boat lift. I was pleased to visit something related to the canal and secretly very happy that my boat was not going on the River Weaver, it is so big and daunting compared to the canals. The lift, which is the first of its kind, links the River with the Trent and Mersey Canal It was built in 1875 and used until 1983. After lots of fundraising and campaigning restoration started in 2001 and opened in 2002 with a visitors centre.

We did a little boat trip on the lift, basically starting at the bottom and ending at the top. Unfortunately the lift did not work to plan for our trip and we were stuck on the lift for about 30 minutes. It seems the computer lifted the lift too high which in turn would not allow the barrier to open. We had to wait for the computer to recalibrate before being able to set sail with me being once again thankful that I was not on our little boat and wondering why they needed to use computers to operated it when it worked well fora centry without them.

Picutres show the lift on the bottom one you can see the 2 levels. The river at the bottom and the canal at the top. So a boat from the bottom would drive into the lift and it would raise to the top just under the white hut.