Day 8: Park and Ride

Today we continue our stay in Wales. We started off our day with a drive to Snowdonia National Park for a presentation of the area. On the way there we got a glimpse of Harlech Castle, the first one we've seen on our two week stay in the UK. The castle was originally built just off of the waterway, but since the area was drained to establish farms, the water has moved a considerable distance away. The structure of this castle is English in design; Welsh castles are typically smaller. The castle was meant to depict dominance and is still quite ominous.

Continuing our tour of cultural preservation sites, we arrived next at the visitors center of Snowdonia National Park. Here, the Principal Policy Officer, Ifer Gwyn, provided an informative presentation. The park was designated in 1951 and covers an area of 823 square miles. Despite the park's right to approve development in park boundaries, there is a population of about 25,000 people in the park, 65% of which speak Welsh, and there are nearly a thousand preserved buildings. Farming, forestry, and tourism are key to the area's economy and culture, which the park service is dedicated to protecting. The park service even distributes grants to local communities to increase their buy-in to the park's mission and enjoyment of its natural features.

Ifer Gwyn

Unlike national parks in the United States, Snowdonia is not owned by the government. Owners of the land range from farmers to the Forestry Commission. Currently the Harlech Castle is the only World Heritage Site in the park, but the Snowdonia National Park Authority is working with UNESCO to make the surrounding slate mines World Heritage Sites as well, which would better protect them, since they were originally left out of the park borders.

Ffestiniog Railway

After the visitors center we boarded a train on the Ffestiniog Railway. We departed from the harbor side in Porthmadog, arriving in Blaenau Ffestiniog. The train traveled 13.5 miles in about an hour and twenty minutes. This is a narrow gauge railway primarily staffed by volunteers. Our particular train featured a double boiler engine to scale the mountainside. The views were gorgeous ranging from streams and woodland to vast slate quarries.

Slate mine

With a quick lunch behind us, we set out to explore a Welsh slate mine. We learned the slate is metamorphic and how it formed 450 million years ago in a sea bed south of the equator. If it took the same transport we took to get there, it certainly would have been a long trip :-) There are several slate mines here, formed in different episodes. The set of mines here were mined starting in the 1820s. Life expectancy was only 40 years for miners, and family members typically worked a deposit together. After committing to mine a section of the site, miners would open slates in town to get them started- this is the equivalent of a tab that you can charge and then have the costs handled later. Although this didn't make their lives much easier, it was an interesting parallel for us.

Standing at the mouth of the mine we could feel the cool air rushing out. We were able to see the landscape for miles around. It was welcomed after the hike. Although the journey wasn't as easy as yesterday's, the views were well worth it. It featured an adit level for drainage, as seen in the tin mine. Also, the slate was partially processed just outside the mine, but in a variation from the tin process, had a tunnel carved to send the slate through as quickly as possible to the trains below. Supposedly this is an easy hike compared to tomorrow- good that we have a bit of a preview of what is in store for us.


Sponsorship towards the creation of some of the materials for the Study Abroad in the UK trip provided by the Office of Undergraduate of Research.