Ever since I moved to Wales 2 years ago I had a quiet wish to climb the highest peak in this country – Snowdon. Last weekend was showing to be a perfect opportunity to fulfil that wish. I was working only till 12 pm and the forecast was for sunshine and high temperatures stretching way into the following week. Getting some good literature, so you know what your are doing, is very advisable.

View from Garnedd Ugain: to the right is Snowdon and to the left is Y Lliwedd with its three peaks ) from left Lliwedd Bach, East peak and West peak. Any similarities with Triglav are strictly coincidental

If you are based in southwest Wales it is a good idea to head up there on the day before you are climbing as the road trip takes you over three hours. There are no motorways or even dual carriageways between the south and north parts of Wales! Instead of going for a more expensive option of a hotel or B&B (the decision to go to Snowdon was make pretty late and the hotel accommodations were either not available or very pricey) I opted for a campsite. The last camping I did was for a skydiving tournament that was held in my “home” DZ in Prečna near Novo mesto a few years back and I was a bit worried I might forget to bring along something essential. Hold that thought.

See the full photo gallery here.

There was a slight snag with camping in this part of Wales. I looked at the weather forecast and the low day temperatures were very, very close to freezing – and I mean 0° or 1°C. This was the forecast for Llanberris. So instead I went for campsites a bit closer to the sea and, of course, the warmth. I found one close to the town of Penrhyndeudraeth called Barcdy. Would recomend it, but it is a bit more pricey then others: it cost £10/person/night for a tent – other campsites were around £6 or £7. The additional problem you might have to contend with is kids – there was a family that came to the camp after me and they put up their tent right next to mine and, you guessed it, had a bunch of very noisy kids with them. Don’t seem to be a big fan of them, but would maybe feel different, if they were mine – and I stress – MAYBE .

Coming back to the issue of forgetting things – by some strange reason I forgot to take my sleeping bag with me – when I returned home on Sunday it was there, sitting on the floor in my bedroom, waiting to be taken along. I put all my camping stuff on one big pile to pack in the car and somehow I missed it. Thank god for sat-navs and Tesco Extra. I found one in Bangor that was open 24/7 and had a good selection of camping gear. The other unpleasant thing that happened was my car. At about 2 or 3 am it decided it is being attacked or stolen and the alarm went off. Now usually I wouldn’t be that upset about it but it was parked just outside the tent about 2 m away from my head with not much soundproofing in-between (if you can consider a tent wall soundproofing, that is).

[umap id="34149" size="t" alignment="left"]The following morning I set of quite early and arrived at the Pen-y-pass car park at about 7am as the parking spaces were just running out. Some trekkers were already returning from the summit! Come to think of it, it might have to do with the parking as there were no parking attendants at that time in the morning. Just a word of warning – bring enough change. The parking is a pay-and-display and it is quite expensive, especially if you are staying longer than 3 or 4 hours as the parking is about £6 and the machine does not take notes. At that time in the morning there is nowhere to get change so you have to bring enough along. I, of course, did not have enough but an angel appeared in a form of another climber who saw my predicament and just gave me the missing three pounds in coins – just like that. I couldn’t believe what happened, I was in shock. I quickly realized I did have a £5 note and I ran after him and caught him on the parking lot just before he set off to the summit, gave him the £5 note and thanked him for about the fifth or sixth time. Really, why should he be out of pocket, I did had the money but just not in coins. See, there are still some nice people going around who will help you when you need it. I don’t know his name but I am sure his good deeds will be rewarded sooner or later.

The trek itself started off on a reasonable steep incline, with the morning sun warming my shoulders. I started on the Pyg track and then turned right on top of the pass to continue on the Crib Goch path. Now I would not recommend this route for beginners or young children – it can be very tricky. The majority of the track runs along the Crib Goch ridge and in some places is only about a metre wide with sheer cliffs on either side. Then you also have to contend with the wind trying to blast you off the cliff. If you have fear of hights then give this route a miss. You also might freeze on that ridge from fear and getting you down could prove to be very tricky. The route is also not recommended as a descend from Snowdon. I was surprised how much climbing was actually involved, much more than I was used to in mountains in Slovenia. This took a toll on my legs and I had to stop a few times, even on the descent, to relive the cramps in my upper legs.

There were not many climbers on the Crib Goch path but once you reach the 3m marker stone you joined the rest of climbers from the Pyg and Miners track and there were loads of them on that beautiful day. On this weekend it was like downtown Haverfordwest – full of people. The remainder is a short walk up to the summit walking by the Snowdon railtrack.

The Snowdon Mountain Railway goes right to the top of the Snowdon summit edit Delete caption

The descent on the Miners Track was a bit tedious and still quite stressful on the legs – it is almost completely covered by rock slabs and that does not make a very comfortable walking surface. In other places you have smaller stones and there you have to watch you dont sprain an ancle. There are some nice views of the lakes (see photo gallery) and the end part of the track is very easy – like a walk in a park

At the time of my trek on May 30th the top railway station was closed for renovations and there were no refreshments or toilets available. I was surprised not to see a local entrepreneur selling us drinks and snacks – I remember seeing someone at the top of Triglav and there definitely weren’t as many people on that summit as there were on Snowdon.

Glaslyn lake

Ooops no more. I have received my container back this morning via FedEx. The tracking itself proves why it sometimes makes sense to switch your courier service. As I mentioned in my previous post here and here, I chose DHL to send my container to the U.S. It has a good network here in the UK and since I sent it in November there is an even closer service location right here in Haverfordwest‘s WH Smith shop. But there was a huge delay in the dispatch location in the States delaying the shipment for quite an unreasonable time. FedEx took just 6 days!!!

The container was repaired free of charge which is a big plus for Aerodyne even though there seemed to be a manufacturing fault to which they conceded. At least they fixed the problem and sent the container back to me, again, free of charge.

But there is a problem which I won’t follow-up on. There is a small discrepancy with the logo which was on the flap that had to be replaced.

Before the repair (08-Nov-2008)

After the repair (03-Mar-2009)

The blue colour of the arrow pointing down is not the navy blue colour it was before.

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Tenby harbour with the Quay on left, lifeboat station above it, Castle Hill in the centre top

I have put it off for a long time but a sightee-er to Tenby was well due. The town of Tenby lies on the south Pembrokeshire coast and if leaving from Haverfordwest can take the road across the Cledau bridge or you can, by saving the 75p bridge toll and, depriving the Pembrokeshire County Council , go through Canaston Bridge.

St. Catherine's Island with Castle beach in foreground

I had the privilege to see it on a beautiful sunny July day in 2008. There are a few parking spots close to town but the multi-storey car park is your best bet. See map here. I have been to a few British seaside towns but this beats them all with it delightful charm and lack off cheesy entertainment that so often can be found in the stereotypical British seaside town. As I was born in Portsmouth I feel free to slag it off as an example to my point.

I wanted to take the opportunity and see Caldey island, which is just off the coast from Tenby but at is was a Sunday and the island is de facto run by monks it was closed. All you could take is sightseeing boat trips round the island. I was on the seal safari trip. Besides getting really up close to some curious seals I had the chance to get a first seat view of the Tenby lifeboat being pulled back up into the lifeboat house. For those who are not familiar with the procedure of launching the RNLI lifeboats in Tenby is that they keep the boat completely closed-up in the lifeboat and when an emergency demands the service of the RNLI lifeboat that is quickly released and the boat slides down the slipway and straight into the water.

The new Tenby lifeboat station with the lifeboat in the foreground

The new Tenby lifeboat station

When the mission is finished it then returnes and is pulled back in reverse into the boathouse as seen in the gallery and in the photos above.

Well, its more of an orthopedic course but this makes a better title Thi splace should be about 3 hours from Haverfordwest but ended up over 4 as there was a car accident in somewelshnamedplacewithlotsoflettersandhardlyanyvowels. This was on the A40 ut before and after the accident this was one of the most enjoyable roads to drive on for speeds about 60-70 mph.

Tomorrow I start the two-day course which will hopefully tell a lot about the principles and tecniques of ortopedic surgery. The hotel I’am staying in is quite nice, and looks clean. My window is on the ground floor and is overlooking the lawn with lots of wild rabbits running around it. Cute.

O, I nearly forgot, for those who don’t know, this is Warwickshire – or Shakespeareland. Stratford-upon-Avon is just down the road.

Oh, yes, and this is my first post written exclusevly for this new blog website.

Last weekend I did what I wanted to do for a long while – to actually skydive in the UK. I’ve been putting it off for a long time, lately mostly due to the weather we have been having. Last weekend the weather was OK, no flu lingering in the background and no lameness in any of the legs
The Skydive London dropzone is situated about 3 hours drive away from Haverfordwest, adjacent to the town of Swindon. Being used to relatively small dropzones in Slovenia I was surprised that the DZ which bares the name of the nation’s capital is smaller than most of the DZs in Slovenia. But that is not relatively a bad thing. The environment is very friendly, everybody knows each other by their first name and there is no large scale manifests to have to battle with. The only real drawback for me, as a skydiver, is the focus on tandems which means you probably have to wait a while to get a seat on the next lift.

I heard from some skydivers, that the DZ only has an Airvan and that it takes about 20 minutes to get to 12,000 feet – I must be pretty unspoilt as I though the flight was relatively fast and comfortable. My last high altitude jump was in the Antonov-2 which needs about 30 minutes to get to 3,000 metres and you usually have the opportunity to enjoy diesel fumes and turbulance (with all due respect to our lovely Fata). In fact the Airvan very much reminded me of the Canguro airplane although the two planes are quite different from each other.

I made two jumps and unfortunately the second did not end with a very great landing. Just metres from starting the second stage flare I dropped what felt like about half a meter which resulted in me landing on my knees and not my feet. Ouch! I still have a lot to learn about landing in zero-wind conditions
It definitely is my fault as the parachute is quite stable and forgiving to my mistakes so you should deduct from this that it is NOT “idiot proof”. The good thing I found about the parachute is that I am slowly getting the hang on the packing. Not long ago, in Prečna, the packing was a nightmare and the only respite came from the last pack of the day, when the increased evening humidity helped with wrangling with the still relatively new parachute material of my Atair Dragon 170.

Razmere v hiši, kjer živim trenutno, so bile malo preveč »zanimive« in še ponavljajoči se kiksi lastnika (landlorda) so mi šli že pošteno na živce. V lokalnem časopisu sem že nekaj tednov iskal morebitno novo lokacijo in si jih tudi nekaj ogledal. Na koncu pa mi je bilo še najbolj všeč stanovanje v čisto novi hiši nedaleč od kraja, kjer trenutno živim.

Ponujeno mi je bilo ali stanovanje v pritličju ali stanovanje v 1. nadstropju. Zaradi lepšega razgleda (oz razgleda sploh) in boljše razporeditve prostorov, sem si izbral zgornje stanovanje. Je dvosobno (oz. po britansko »enospalnično«). Najemnina je seveda nekoliko višja sedaj, a kaj je to za veterinarsko plačo – ne pozabit, da so veterinarji tu razmeroma dobro plačani, pa čeprav sem trenutno na »začetniški« plači.

Pa še nekaj o stanovanju. Nahaja se v kraju oz. urbani vasici Johnston, ki sodi pod Haverfordwest. Nahaja se okoli 50m stran od prometne ceste A4076, ki povezuje mesti Milford Haven in Haverfordwest. Od slednjega je oddaljeno okoli 5km in do službe rabim okoli 5 minut, če je promet redek. Jeseni, ko se spet začne šola, zna biti precej drugače, na kar so me opozorili sodelavci, ki se redno vozijo v službo iz te smeri. Bom pač moral poiskat kakšen obvoz ali pa se odkidat pol ure prej.

Tale prispevek je čisto zares in žal pokaže tudi razliko med veterino v Sloveniji in Veliki Britaniji. Klinika, v kateri delam, že nekaj časa išče nadomestilo za veterinarko, ki bo šla v kratkem na porodniški dopust. Objavljali smo oglase v veterinarskih oglasnikih, kot je npr. “Veterinary record” in imeli celo neko dekle na razgovoru a se za službo žal ni prijavil nihče.

Res, da je Haverfordwest oz. Wales v celoti bolj stran od dogajanja a tu le ni tako slabo. Ampak očitno se le pozna pomanjkanje veterinarjev v tej državi in nam zato še do danes ni uspelo dobiti novega človeka.
In čisto zares so me spraševali, če poznam koga, ki bi prišel iz Slovenije delat na našo kliniko – bi ga/jo bili zelo veseli.

Torej, če si veterinar in te zanima delo v tujini, se lahko prijaviš

Več podatkov lahko dobiš na spletni strani klinike.