Steve The Wandering Aussie

Travel blog by Steve Baird

2023/07/14. Wales. Day 1The ships tannoy startled us awake at 4.30 this morning as we drifted into Liverpool port. As it’s high summer here it had been daylight for at least an hour, as it was still light as it was when we went to bed last night at 11pm.Disembarking and cruising through the near deserted streets of Liverpool was easy. Seeing the empty and vandalized buildings through the port area and onto departing roads through the city was not quite as pleasant. Some beautiful historic architecture simply ignored to dereliction. Not my country, not my place to judge.

Crossing the border into Wales we first stopped at at Gweych Castle as it appeared on our left hand side. A gargantuan edifice built overlooking the Irish Sea by some bloody Englishman centuries ago. It was closed. Naturally.
We carried on to our destination. Caernarfon Castle close to the Anglesea peninsula.
We arrived at Caernarfon (Carnarvan ) Castle at 10am, both tired and desperately in need of a battle nap but no luck there so it was coffee to the rescue and a castle tour. Arresting in its magnitude, it had been perfectly designed for purpose. Store rooms and cisterns and battlements and ramparts and an imposing wall encircling the rest of the city. Easily the most striking and stately castle I’ve seen to date. And I’ve seen Windsor and Edinburgh. Big statement.
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The afternoon took us to Conwy castle and my last statement now has a twin. Both built by Edward and designed to intimidate the locals. Probably successful but guess who’s dead and guess who owns the castles now? Oh, I love poetic justice.
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Sadly the phone service cut out as the sky turned purple and the rain bucketed down so I couldn’t fulfill my role as ‘roving Aussie reporter’ for ‘Live with Neve’
We made our way to tonight BNB , ate a small pie for dinner and slept from 7pm to 7am. I guess we were tired.
Enough for today. Stay well.

Steve Baird

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