@birminghammail SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2015 BIRMINGHAM MAIL 19 TRAVEL

NEED TO KNOW ■■Adrian Caffery was a guest of Attractions Of Snow- donia. A return ticket from to Rhyd Du on the costs £23.60 per adult. A day ticket on the costs £21.50 for adults. One child (3-15) travels free with each paying adult. Additional children travel ap- proximately half price. ■■Victorian Santa trains run in December. Call 01766 516024 or visit festrail.co.uk ■■For more details about Gwynfryn Farm visit gwynfrynfarm.co.uk. ■■For more about what to see and do in go to attractionsofsnowdonia.com ■■The Ffestiniog Railway Little wonders of A Snowdonia break and a well-equipped gym. But what really made Cerys’s stay (and ours) was just the ticket was a morning tour of the organic dairy farm. for ADRIAN After watching the cows being milked, she helped feed the rabbits, CAFFERY goats, pigs, ducks and the horse. She also bottle-fed the lambs and even t was full steam ahead collected eggs from the hens. It was on a journey back in real education for her. time during our long The delightful cottages, sleeping weekend in Snowdonia. between four and eight, are all The Caffery clan furnished to a high standard and the Ispent both the Saturday farming family provided us with a and the Sunday enjoying very warm welcome. the Welsh national park’s Our final day in Snowdonia was magnificent scenery from the sunny so it would have been a crime gleaming carriages of two great not to take the kids to one of the ■■Cilgeraint house overlooking Abersoch beach little railways. First up was the The Lleyn Peninsula’s fine beaches. We Welsh Highland Railway, a 25-mile ■■Cerys bottle feeds chose Abersoch, a short drive from track between station lambs at Gwynfryn Farm Pwllheli. (a stone’s throw from the historic which was known as “the town that National Park, and since 2014 they We unfurled our beach rug castle) on the north coast and roofed the world”. have been sharing a new-look beneath an extraordinary house Porthmadog on the west coast. When the sturdy Welsh ponies terminus at Porthmadog. that’s burrowed into the headland, Jayne, Cerys (four), baby Owen assumed Gelert had killed his baby could no longer keep up with the With up to two dozen trains with a living grass roof, floor to and I travelled in modern comfort, son and thrust his sword through demand for the slate, the world’s first coming and going each day, Harbour ceiling glazing and wrap-around although passengers can ride in a him in a furious rage. narrow gauge steam engines were Station is now the busiest narrow terraces. lovingly restored 1894 carriage for In fact, the blood had been spilled introduced in 1863. gauge station in the world (the Previously dubbed “the James an authentic taste of travel on the in a fight to the death between Gelert Two years later, the railway railway holds more records than Bond house”, the property was original Welsh Highland. and a savage wolf. The infant was became the first in the world to start Usain Bolt!). likened by TV comedian Jason To cope with some of the UK’s safe and well... but Llywelyn never passenger operations for intrepid Nestled between the two lines, Manford to the house of comic steepest and longest gradients, the smiled again. travellers and has this year been the old goods shed is now a pub book hero Iron Man when he saw it railway uses Beyer-Garratts – the celebrating its 150th anniversary. and restaurant, with a terrace / beer advertised for sale. most powerful narrow gauge steam With time against us, we disem- Two of the original steam locomo- garden and is a great place and He tweeted: “I found Iron Man’s engines that you’ll see anywhere in barked at the halfway point, Rhyd tives are still in use. It is also the only admire the views across the bay to house in Abersoch! It’s out of my the world. Ddu station, at the start of one of the railway to employ Double Fairlie Harlech Castle. price range but I figured if we Our train chugged through the popular paths up Mount Snowdon, locos – push me, pull you engines – Our home for the weekend was clubbed together, we could all have it remote Aberglaslyn Pass and slowed and jumped straight on a returning which have a chimney at each end. Gwynfryn Farm, an organic farm for a couple of hours each!” to a walking pace so we could train. Our train stopped at a handful on the beautiful Lleyn Peninsula, The award-winning house, called appreciate the landscape, voted the The following day it was all aboard of picture perfect stations, some only one-and-a-half miles from the Cilgeraint, was on the market for most beautiful in Britain. the Ffestiniog Railway, originally with no road access, all of which town of Pwllheli, 14 miles west of £3.5m but price was reduced to The pleasant village of laid in the 1830s to carry quarried seemed a million miles from the 21st Porthmadog. £2,950,000 after Manford’s jibe, is a popular stop along the route. slate from the mountains at Blaenau century, giving us a glimpse of a less Despite only having just 13 which had attracted attracted 14,000 On an earlier visit to Snowdonia we Ffestiniog to the sea at Porthmadog. hurried age. cottages, our four-year-old daughter ‘likes’. had enjoyed its cafes, pubs, shops With a 700ft descent, long trains of At Tan-y-Bwlch stop, nestled in a found more to keep her entertained But with views from every and riverside walks. We also visited slate-filled wagons used the power small wooded valley, there’s a play than if we’d been staying at a Haven room across Cardigan Bay to the the (so-called) final resting place of of gravity to travel the 13 miles to area next to the outdoor terrace of or Pontins resort. For starters, there mountains of Snowdonia, and the Gelert (Beddgelert means ‘Gelert’s the harbour, which was once packed the licensed cafe. A nature trail leads was the indoor pool, the trampoline, area’s countless attractions on your grave’), a faithful hound slain by his with three-masted schooners. off from here. the toy tractors, the playground, the doorstep, £3m sounds like a snip to master Prince Llywelyn. After the slate was unloaded, Together, the Welsh Highland soft play area, the air hockey table me After finding blood on an empty horses dragged the empty wagons and the Ffestiniog railways form a and the tennis court. There’s also a Now, let’s check those lottery cot, the story goes, the prince back up to the quarries at Ffestiniog, 40-mile route across the Snowdonia Playstation, giant chess, a pool table numbers.