Saturday March 30th 2013 - Confusion, Llandudno, and a cable car ride

The normal twice-yearly custom of putting the clocks forward or back by an hour doesn't normally confuse me; I've lived with it all my life and I'm used to it, but then again this practise doesn't often coincide with the Easter weekend and certainly never when I'm camping, but just for once the three things conspired to totally befuddle my brain.

I very often find that on a long bank holiday weekend my days take on a different meaning and it feels like it's permanently Sunday; throw Good Friday into the mix which, when I'm camping, feels like Saturday, and I sometimes have to think which day is actually which. Add to that the clocks going forward by one hour late on Saturday night and you have a recipe for total confusion.

So, I woke that morning (Saturday) to the first rays of sunshine on the tent, and not wanting to get up straight away I turned the tv on to watch one of my favourite weekend programmes - except it wasn't on, and no matter which channel I tried nothing was the same as listed in the tv magazine. Then it finally dawned on me; thinking that the previous night was Saturday I'd altered the time on my phone when I went to bed so that when I woke that morning it would be the right time allowing for the hour going forwards overnight - except my thinking was twenty four hours in front and it was now still only Saturday and not Sunday as I thought! No wonder the tv programmes didn't tally - convinced it was Sunday I'd been looking at the wrong page in the magazine!

When I did finally get my brain into gear I fed the dogs and took them for their first walk of the day then made some coffee and toast while I thought about where to go when I went out. Llandudno was only a short drive down the coast and as I hadn't managed to get there on previous occasions while staying at Manorafon I thought I may as well take advantage of the current good weather and spend some time looking round there. With the dogs safely ensconced in the back of the van and their water bottle topped up I set off, and half an hour later arrived at the north shore promenade in Llandudno.

My first stop though was round on the west shore at the other side of the peninsula as there was something I wanted to look for. I remembered holidaying at Llandudno with my parents when I was only about seven years old and seeing a statue of the white rabbit from 'Alice In Wonderland', commemorating the author Lewis Carroll's dubious connection with the town and the little girl who was the inspiration for his stories, and I wanted to see if it was still there. I was destined to be disappointed however - the statue should have been there, on a stone plinth in the centre of a small ornamental pond, but it had been removed during what was obviously refurbishment work on the promenade garden. So with no white rabbit to photograph I walked right along to the far end of the promenade and back, but this being the much quieter side of Llandudno there was nothing much of interest to see, so with just one shot of the bay I returned to the van and drove back round to the much busier north shore.

It took a while to find somewhere to park along the promenade and I drove from one end to the other twice before I managed to find a space, then with a ticket duly stuck in the windscreen I clipped the leads on the dogs and set off to explore. The promenade looked very much how I remembered it from when I was a child, with rows of attractively-fronted hotels and guest houses broken by the occasional side street, and gardens which in summer would look very pretty with their bright flowers and plants. A walk down one of the side streets took me to the main shopping area and I spent a while browsing in various shop windows before returning to the promenade.

A stroll along the Victorian pier followed, then curious to know what, if anything, was at the top of the Great Orme headland I decided to go up there. I didn't really feel like walking all the way up though as it was a long steep climb; I could have gone back to get the van and driven up but as they allowed dogs on the cable car ride I decided that was the way to go. It wasn't cheap but it was an experience, especially as it was very windy and the cable car was swaying about; it was even windier up at the top though and in spite of the sunshine it was also very cold.

A large white building housed a cafe, bar, visitor centre and a couple of gift shops, and other than the car park and tram station there didn't seem to be much else there. The views were good though, with the snow covered Snowdonia hills to the east and Anglesey across the sea to the west; if I'd had my binoculars I would have even been able to see the camp site I stay on when I'm there. Unfortunately the sun was in the wrong direction for any decent photos and it was far too cold to linger for long, so as the cafe allowed dogs I went in for a coffee to get warmed up, then made my way back to the cable car station. The swaying motion on the way down was, if anything, slightly worse than on the way up though it didn't bother me and it certainly didn't bother the dogs; Sophie lay quietly on the floor of the car while Sugar stood up on the seat beside me and I got a couple of great shots of her looking at the view.

Back on terra ferma (the firmer the ground the less the terror!) I decided to pay a visit to some people I knew who had a hotel just off the promenade but when I got there it was to find that they themselves were away on holiday, and as there was nowhere else I wanted to go to just then I made my way back to the van and set off back to the camp site, where the rest of the day was spent relaxing with my book. I knew I hadn't explored Llandudno to its full extent that day but later on in the season when it's warmer and not as windy I'll certainly make a return visit and hopefully get many more photos.