A Grand Day Out

.... Not quite to the moon and back though Gromit!

As we get older celebrating birthdays takes on a different feel.   I can't remember the last time I did anything out of the ordinary to mark the day.   Food with family and friends is the norm and very good it is too.   However today I had the chance to break with tradition!   Good friend Francesc (extra pic,) a Spaniard who works as a volunteer on the Talyllyn, invited me for a ride on 'his other railway.'   He also volunteers for the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways and today was one of the options when he would be guard on the Welsh Highland from Porthmadog to Caernarfon.   

The journey takes over two hours each way, so is very much a day trip. The line, opened in 1922, was a financial disaster and closed in 1937.   I walked part of the old trackbed as a student over forty years ago, never dreaming that one day I would travel along it by train.  Serious moves to reopen it began in the early nineties but the completion of a line into the site of the old Main Line station in Caernarfon took until 2011.   It's probably the most spectacular narrow gauge railway in the UK, certainly the longest at 25 miles.   The scenery varies along the route, coastal, pastoral, wooded, ravine, moorland and mountain.   I was gifted a perfect day with sunshine throughout.   First class comfort, good company and along with two other passengers in my carriage who were also celebrating, Happy Birthday was sung!

Jamie helped out by looking after Meg at mine today and after tea we adjourned to the beach at sunset (extra pic) where, with no-one else about, the dogs could run free and we could enjoy the last of the light.   A Grand Day all round.