All 3 entries tagged Barmouth

Random Flower Pictures

Stuff you can do with just a 200mm telephoto lens, in Will’s garden.

© Nathaniel Ho 2006
Camera: Canon EOS 350D
Lens: Canon EF USM II 55-200mm f4.5-5.6
Date: 17th June 2006
Location: Barmouth, North Wales
Post–processing: levels, cropping

Nathaniel Ho : 03 Mar 2007 16:54 |  Tags: Barmouth Photography |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Seediest Cafe in the British Isles

Camera: Canon EOS 350D
Lens: Canon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6
Filter: Skylight 1A
Date: 17th June 2006
Location: Barmouth, North Wales
Focal Length: 25mm (40mm equivalent)
Shutter: 1/250
Aperture: F/8.0
ISO: 100
Comments: Originally the innocent ‘Carousal’ Cafe in the seaside town of Barmouth. It had its name changed after a lightning bolt knocked off the ‘C’ during a storm in 2004 Barmouth Wikipedia info

Nathaniel Ho : 12 Sep 2006 16:03 |  Tags: Barmouth Funny Photography |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Break in Barmouth

Well, that was another good idea!
Are we in Wales yet?
You’ll know as soon as you can’t read the signs! Bilingual signs are dangerous, because by the time your brain has read and discarded the welsh and begin to read the second line of english, you will have driven into a ditch!

The drive into North Wales was long but interesting. Very twisty and fast, we were following in a long train of cars travelling 55mph avg. which allowed me to see what was coming up next. Then came my worst nightmare, we were approaching a horrific 20% incline uphill behind 2 caravans! And the fact that we were so high up, the engine was powerless due to the starvation of oxygen. This led to some very funny action behind the wheel from yours truly, as I tried to squeeze every ounce of momentum around corners to climb that mountain. But I forgot that what goes up, must come down and eventually we were coming downhill on the other side with too much momentum!

Lotte, John and I had never been to Wales before, and we didn’t know what to expect, so we were knocking it throughout most of the drive through England. But when we crossed the boarder into Central Wales, its pretty valleys surprised us. Eventually with the front tyres and brakes at pretty toasty temperatures we rolled into the seaside town of Barmouth. It has its picturesque high street, and its corny fairground rides and shops. We parked the car by the church, and thus began the mammoth task of getting to Will’s house.
Now the Joneses don’t do things by half, so they have obviously got the house that sits on a mountain higher than anyone else’s! But that makes for great unobstructed view of the sea. (When John woke me up the first morning, didn’t feel like getting up whatsoever, but then he drew the curtains to show the phenomenal view. WHOA!)

The first evening when we arrived, the barbecue was already smoking’ with Mark Irwin at the controls (always someone from the Southern Hemisphere to be in charge of a barbecue). The outdoor pool was unfortunately looking very green. And probably had a pH of 14.0 after Will laced it with excessive amounts of chlorine.

The next morning, Mark, Fran, Matt, Kate and Tom had to leave. So we dropped from 10 to 5. To start the day, John, Lotte and I hopped down to the town to have brekfast in a cute little café called Goodies. (It eventually transpired that we would eat there almost every day!). The day was spent having ice creams on the beach under the bridge, and walking along the promenade, the weather was scorching but the sea breeze provided sufficient relief. By this time we were so relaxed and far away, we had no idea what day of the week it was (Saturday). So the beach front was packed with people.

Sunday was the first day we woke up to a dull sky. Will took us down to the port to hop on a small ferry across the bay to Fairbourne. When we got to the other side, we had missed the Sunday train to the mini golf club. And boy was that fun way for Will to celebrate the end of the US open. By playing with the 3 most talent–challenged newbies.

Handicaps:
John = 40
Nathaniel = 36
Will = something decent

Nevertheless we had a lot of fun. Pushed for time, we stopped for ice cream whilst Will discovered a golf magazine that can only be described as quite “sensual” and will soon be a regular subscriber of it very soon. We got to the train station below whose name has more letters than there are in the alphabet:

And the mini locomotive was scorching at full walking pace to get to the port in time to catch our last ferry back! Choo choo! During the train ride John managed to take this amazing photo when we were overtaken by a horse.

Monday was Will’s “Birthday” which we brought forward by 23 days. Rach made him a Breakfast of Champions (without the champions bit). The weather was dull so, Matt, Rach and I spent the day indoors watching cheesy music videos and dancing 80’s style to them. The arrival of more guests later on made sure the party would be good ‘un. Alistair, Ben, Rich, Jane and Ollie.

And how would we feed the troops? Barbecue. Which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. The charcoal and firelighters had be left out in the garden and got rained on. So I and my fellow barbecue “experts”, Rich and John started to get the fire going… and boy was that difficult. We chose to move it to the porch for proximity reasons but the sea gusts were not kind to seven generations of the Match family. Eventually we had a fire, but it was small, the charcoal wasn’t enough so we threw another bag on. And then we had a mammoth task controlling the fatty flames from engulfing our dinner.

2 years 7 weeks and 4 days later, dinner was served. Rach cooked up a feast and collectively about 7 of us made the sheep birthday cake. Will enjoyed his presents as they involve the risk of severe injury! The rest of the evening was spent digesting whilst watching Team America: World Police, and it turns out that Will knows all the lines as he must have auditioned for the leading parts.

And the next day we returned to England, for the football match, selecting 3rd year projects, packing up and going home. But John, Lotte and I almost didn’t make it, because we made one fateful wrong turning and drove further up into North Wales wasting over an hour… oops. As Lotte said, it was a very nice way to end the academic year (a line we stole twice to write into the guestbook comments), certainly refreshing to live without a computer for a few days. Thanks to Will for giving us a holiday :D

More Pictures

Nathaniel Ho : 21 Jun 2006 17:48 |  Tags: Barmouth Friends General Holiday |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem