You are number 2....

The final day started with a hearty breakfast, which was of equally good quality as all the food we had enjoyed in the hotel. Unfortunately it let itself down with the accomodation. If I were a Trip advisor junkie I would have to say the Tanronnen Inn had cold bedrooms, the bath was too narrow for normal sized people and the shower was next to useless. The bed was a small double and Wi-Fi was intermittent. So public areas and service 5 star, accommodation 3 star at best.

Anyway, onto day three. The plan was to drive to Barmouth and do the Cader Idris walk which took in the Victorian gardens and Garb, often referred to as the Barmouth Slabs. The weather was a bit misty and the bodies a bit weary, so that was parked for another day. We decided instead to stroll along the beach, have an ice cream and play tourist.

I had always been keen to visit Barmouth having heard stories of its role as an industrial tourist venue. During the traditional Summer factory shutdowns, thousands of workers from Yorkshire and Lancashire took the train to Barmouth. It is also the closest seaside resort to the West Midlands from where workers would load their charabanc's and make off for their annual break. The North Wales coastal resorts of Prestatyn, Llandudno, Rhyl and Portmadog benefited in the same way.

Barmouth, however, has stood the test of time. It's high street is still tidy, its hotels and guest houses are well presented and there are bars cafe's and bistro's which could grace Brighton or Bournemouth. There were a fair few Midland accents around too, so the links of old are still preserved by all accounts.

We drove back via Lake Bala, utilised by Thomas Telford in his construction,almost, of the Ellesmere Canal which he had planned to link the river Mersey with the Severn at Shrewsbury. It did not quite work but he did leave the Llangollen viaduct as a local legacy.

SWMBO did not fancy a walk over that so it was 'home James' with a wave to Moel Famau as we drove through Loggerheads,  where this mad plan started. Next week is another adventure altogether.

A tale of two saunters

With a major walk planned in June, and a bit of cross country skiing in February, the training programme needed to be upped a notch.

We started off with a pioneering climb up to the top of Moel Famau in North Wales. It's 1800 feet and a fair slog for us. We had about 100 yards visibility when we set off, but only about 50 by the time we got to the top. We stopped at the Jubilee Tour and did not strike out for the trig point. we will save that for another day.

 You can see I am at the top as my finger is in shot!!

Today we tried for something a bit different, a bit nearer home and with local history interest. We yomped up to the top of Bidston Hill, on which stands a windmill, and an observatory. Neither are working any more but that was not always the case. The hill is  281 feet high but full of history.

The windmill has been there since 1685, although the current stone building was erected in 1800 when the wooden ne got blown away. It was very productive as it's high position allowed it to utilise every ounce of wind, but cart owner had a real problem getting up to the top of the hill. The mill is now an educational source and opens to the public one day a month.

The Observatory was built in 1866 when Liverpool Observatory had to relocate due to the expansion of Waterloo Docks. The building was made using the stone mined during the creation of the cellars, the deepest of which (36 feet or 10.97 metres) maintains a constant cool temperature. Over the last 140 years the Observatory has undertaken a diversity of tasks, many of ground-breaking importance.

At the turn of 1929, the Observatory and the Tidal Institute were amalgamated and became the leading authority on tidal predictions. Bidston Observatory was deemed of national importance during the Second World War and predicted the tides for the D-Day landings amongst other things. In 1969, the telescopes housed in the observatory, which were previously used to watch planetary bodies in order to calculate the exact time, were donated to Liverpool museum. The exact time was needed for nautical navigation and was transferred to ships in the dock by the firing of the one o’clock gun; the gun was fired for the last time on the 18th of July 1969.

The Observatory was sold last year and the plans are to turn it into artist studios and a craft centre.....we shall see.

There is also a lighthouse visible behind the domes of the observatory, this was used for navigation purposes until 1919, when the channel nearest to Birkenhead became too silted and shipping was moved North to the Crosby channel.

Bidston Hill was also once home to more than 100 flagpoles. Most were erected between the lighthouse and the windmill but there were a further 8 flagpoles on the other side of the lighthouse which were reserved for the British Admiralty and Excise Services.

In 1763 the signalling station was built near to the location of the modern day lighthouse and functioned using the flagpoles as a complicated early warning system. As merchant ships rounded the Point of Ayr or sailed past Formby Point the ship would be spotted and identified. Flag runners were employed to watch for ships and had 11 minutes to raise the correct company’s flag on the right pole, followed by the correct cargo flag. This enabled supervisors in the docks to ready their work force to unload the ship (and it meant the workers would be paid only for the time they spent working). Each flagpole was 30 ft (9.14 m) tall and made of Baltic Pine.

So that's the end of the history lesson regarding Bidston Hill. We returned home via Flaybrick cemetery but that's one for another day.