Monday 2 September – A castle, an archaeologist and a clean slate.

The sun was shining this morning, but that was not to last for long – it rained on and off all day; not heavy, just annoying.  Our first stop was at the ruins of Dolwyddelan Castle, reached by a long walk up a winding path.  It was built in 1210 by Llewellyn the Great to control a strategic passage through the mountainous region of his kingdom.  It fell to Edward I in 1283.  Not much of it is left now – it sits alone, inhabited only by sheep and other creatures who get to enjoy the stunning mountain views.

We continued our drive to Blaenau Ffestiniog, once the slate capital of the world and producing 90% of the slate in the United Kingdom.  The industry still dominates the landscape; as we approached we passed mountains of slate waste, as about 90% of the mineral mined is rejected and ends up as waste (although some of it is now being ground to a fine paste and being used in such diverse products as lipstick and toothpaste).

We had a leisurely stroll through this interesting little town and John achieved one of his ambitions for this trip, to locate “Brynofferen”, the childhood home of Welsh archaeologist Rhys Jones, who migrated to Australia 1963 and contributed so much to the developing field of research into Aboriginal history and culture, particularly in Tasmania.  He was also part of the archaeological team that uncovered 65,000-year-old “Mungo Man” at Lake Mungo in south-western NSW in 1969.  We were welcomed into the home by its current owners, Dafydd and Eleri Jones (Jones is a very popular name in this part of the world), both about 90, and we had a lovely chat for about half an hour, as well as taking some photographs including of the banister that Rhys Jones slid down as a boy.

After lunch in the town we headed a short distance out to the Llechwedd Slate Mine for a guided tour 500 feet down - with a mean temperature of seven degrees.  It has been mined since the mid-19^th century and the tour included audio-visual recreations of working life in the mine as we walked through several of the hundreds of separate chambers, as well as demonstrations of the tools and techniques used for the demanding and onerous task of separating the large blocks of slate from the chamber walls.  The tour ended with a dramatic and entertaining light and sound show in the largest chamber – most impressive.  After ascending back to the top in the funicular we made our way back “home” after a most enjoyable but undemanding day, passing a number of technicolour sheep on the way.