Cousins, friends and Landrovers

Today was our first day of our 'Trails and Rails' experience. This was a landrover event organised by a local Landrover and train enthusiast. Geoff had found the event on the net before we came and we had invited Anthony and Patrick to join us on the fun and of course provide the Landrover and the local knowledge to know where we had to meet!

This Minerva was built in Belgium for NATO under licence to Land Rover so is of great interest. The owner had gone the full monty with NATO uniform and coms equipment.

 

We set off at a fast pace and met up at Abergynolwyn.

As in Australia it was a bit like herding cats and it took a while for everyone to meet up and get going.

We started off with Geoff driving so Anthony could drink his coffee. Patrick and I were in the back on little side seats. There were some comments about Geoff driving slowly in the narrow lanes and he was nicknamed Captain Slow.

The day was quite fine and the scenery was just spectacular

Nice shot of our convoy heading for the clouds- Land Rover heaven??

The clouds cleared away revealing the sun shining on Fairbourne

 

The tracks are usually metalled where the wheels go as these are still public roads. They are kept in good condition.

We saw many standing stones and remains of ancient domestic buildings.

 

 

This shows two walls running side by side but clearly not a trackway. I asked if it was a ceremonial path our guide said it was the result of a boundary disputes

Fairbourne has a scaled down steam train ride, we had discount tickets so how could we resist.

 

We went to the Talyllyn railway, the inspiration for Thomas the tank engine.

The Talyllyn Railway (Welsh: Rheilffordd Talyllyn) is a narrow-gauge preserved railway in Wales running for 11.67 km from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1866 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn, and was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain authorised by Act of Parliament to carry passengers using steam haulage. Despite severe under-investment the line remained open, and in 1951 it became the first railway in the world to be preserved as a heritage railway by volunteers.

We had missed the last run for the day so had a look at the museum.

When we got back to Aberdovey there was an enormous afternoon tea as there were old friends of Anthony and Patricks there and their daughters who were Fleur's friends.

When they had left we had a lovely tea. It was the best chicken and leek pie I had ever tasted.

Great day!