Torin’s Thoughts on Plas Tan y Bwlch
Plas Tan Y Bwlch is a massive Victorian palace or, in Welsh, Plas. It is situated in Gwynedd, a small county in Wales. The Plas was owned by a rich Welsh slate-seller called William Edward Oakley. He earned his money by owning mines that sold roof slate all over the world. It even sold as far as Melbourne in Australia and New York in America! The Plas’s walls were made of great stone bricks and the interior was made of delicate brown oak. The Plas has many rooms and windows. In the centre of the Plas there is a grand staircase, made of yet more, delicate oak.
When William Edward Oakley died, his son got all the money – he spent it foolishly and left the house, so unfortunately it started to rot. Luckily his sister restored and made it the way it is now.
The Plas’s gardens are huge, for as far as you can see you see was owned by William Oakley. They are beautiful.
We all love the house and we will definitely miss it.
Henry C and Alex E and Their Views About Our Walk on Snowdon
Today, Monday, we visited Snowdon. We walked all the way up to the highest lake, Llyn Glaslyn, and all the back again.
The coach journey was about 45 minutes from the Plas (Palace). We arrived at Pen y Pass where we started our walk on the miners tram way.
It was called the miners tram way because in the Victorian era the tram ways were used to let the miners get the mine. They knew where to mine because wherever there was Quartz there was a precious metal in this case Copper. We walked past the entrance to the mine but we were not allowed to go inside because it could be very unstable.
Mr Williams (our tour guide) showed us a type of moss called Star moss. He gave us a couple of strands and told us to put it in our pockets and when he said we should take it out we did. The moss had shrivelled up because it wanted water. When we got to Llyn Glaslyn Mr Williams filled a pot of water and told us to put it in it and we left it for a couple of minutes and it restored its life.
Tomorrow we are visiting Caernarfon Castle and the weather is looking up!
Jess and Rosie – Walk on Snowdon
Today we walked half way around Mount Snowdon. Altogether we walked 6 miles! It was 20°+ so it made it harder getting up steep hills.
We started hiking at 11:00am where the paths were quite easy. As we went on it got harder and more challenging. Every now and then we would stop and Mr Williams would give us information about the place where we had stopped places like, the miner’s cottages.
After 45 minutes, roughly, we had reached Llyn (lake) Teyrn. It was a small lake compared to the others. We stopped for a bit, sitting over the lake Mr Williams showed us Star moss and told us to put it in our pocket until we were told to take it out.
Next we carried on to the second lake, Llyn llydaw, we saw a massive difference in size from the last one. Mr Williams then told us about the miners that had to walk the whole 6 miles, we were doing, every day except Sunday!
About an hour later we reached the final lake, Llyn Glaslyn. Llyn Glaslyn is the highest lake in Wales. We were all very hot and bothered so Mr Mills let us go and have a dip. Some played skimmers which was great fun!
We then did the whole journey back and we think we’ll all have a good, long kip tonight!