A Wales of a Good Time, Part 1

Monday, July 2, 2018
For our first day is South Wales, David is taking us up to Brecon Beacons National Park.

 We started at the Brecon Mountain Railway for a ride on the Steam Train.

 The station waiting room has been restored

 A look through the rail car

 Wonderful scenery along the way

 The No. 2 was built by Baldwin of Philadelphia, PA in 1930. It spent its working life hauling limestone near Port Elizabeth in South Africa. In 1974 it ran away driver-less and after travelling some miles it left the track and was wrecked.  It is a 4-6-2 tender locomotive weighing 47 tons. It is a beautiful restoration.

 Then it was on to the town of Brecon for lunch at the local pub along the River Usk.

 That's Brecon Castle in the distance.  It was built in the 11th century, fell into ruins and then purchased and partially renovated by the Morgan family in 1809. (More about them later). It is currently a hotel and wedding venue.

Our next stop was to be at the National Show Caves, a public cavern along the lines of Carlsbad Caverns. However we arrived at 3:15 and the last entrance was at 3.  So we moved on to our final destination, Henrhyrd Falls. Used in many movies, but due to the current drought like conditions in this area, very little water is flowing. Those two little people are me and my cousin David.

When leaving we followed David's SatNav in his car, which took us on some really little roads, through someones farm and onto the dirt road in the forest.  It was quite the adventure.