This is a very delayed (*ahem*… six months late.  Oops.) post to share what we got up to in the second half of our mini break in North Wales back in mid-summer.  After a long and intense exam season, I decided to take the girls on a mini break to North Wales for a few days at the end of June to celebrate having made it through the term.  My intention for this little road trip adventure was for it to be an opportunity to explore somewhere new, and to give us all a much-needed change of scenery & the chance for some downtime near the coast.

We stayed in an Airbnb in a little town called Rhos On Sea, which turned out to be the perfect basecamp location for our trip.

You can read about what we got up to during the first half of our mini break in North Wales in Part One, here.

Ready to head off for our mini break in North Wales

Day 3: Saturday

Rhos On Sea // Llandudno

Just like yesterday, we decided to split the day in half, with one activity in the morning, and another in the afternoon.  I’ve learnt over the years that this arrangement is what works best for all of us, giving us the change to decompress and recharge over lunchtime.

RHOS-ON-SEA

Morning:  We stayed local again this morning as the girls wanted a slow start to the day.  The cute little town of Rhos On Sea, where we were staying, was much busier today with it being a weekend.  On our walk along the promenade yesterday we’d spotted a cool looking crazy golf course and wanted to check it out.  It’s a family tradition to play a game of crazy golf whenever and wherever we go on holiday, and our mini break in North Wales was no exception – we couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Quite by chance, and with perfect synchronicity, Rhos Fynach Crazy Golf was, in fact, holding it’s grand re-opening that very day!  Apparently it had been closed for two weeks being refurbished so we were among the first people lucky enough to try out the brand new version.  There were only two other duos there so we pretty much had the entire brightly coloured, 9-hole course to ourselves.  It was a surprisingly challenging one, with tricky to navigate holes that each had a name, such as The Conger Eel, The Squid, The Pirate’s Skull… Mimi was the overall victor with a very respectable score of 30 on a par 28 course.

The golf course was attached to a pub/restaurant of the same name.  We didn’t go in to eat but it looked very welcoming and exactly like the kind of place we’d enjoy, with a menu full of plenty of choices the catered to many tastes and dietary requirements.  We’ll definitely try it out if we ever find ourselves on a mini break on North Wales again.

The holes at Rhos Fynach crazy golf course were not easy!

Such a fun little crazy golf course to play

LLANDUDNO

Afternoon:  Llandudno was top of Lola’s wish list for our mini break in North Wales.  One of her friends visits the town regularly and has regaled her with stories of her time there, so Lola was desperate to see it for herself.  We parked the car easily and then walked towards the seafront, following the long sweeping curve of pastel coloured Victorian houses which flanked one side of the wide promenade.  On the other side, a pebble beach scattered with holidaymakers.  At the far end, a ferris wheel and the famous pier.  It was all very picturesque and pretty, even though it was incredibly busy.  We people-watched as we wandered, pausing momentarily to watch part of a Punch and Judy show on the promenade.  Apparently it’s the fifth generation of same family who perform the show every day, and they still use the original puppets made from driftwood.  It had drawn a huge crowd, but we opted to move on.

We made our way towards Happy Valley Gardens.  Progress was slow as we kept stopping every few metres to take another photo – as we continued to climb the path above the bay, each and every time we rounded a bend, a new, even more spectacular vista was revealed.  Our intended destination was Parisella’s Ice Cream kiosk.  It was so delicious in Conwy yesterday that we wanted needed more.   Lemon curd and blackcurrant Eton Mess for Mimi, triple chocolate and unicorn for Lola, and a classic vanilla cone for Ella were the choices today.

Sugar requirements satisfied, we headed back down again, and squeezed out way onto the pier, only to be immediately swallowed by the black hole that is The Arcade.  We spent what felt like days in there (in reality it was about an hour, I lose all sense of time in those places) trying to win a cuddy toy from the claw grabber machines.  Sadly, we had no luck.  We also realised that the time limit on the car park was almost up, so we called it a day and headed back to the airbnb.

Llandudno’s beach, ferris wheel and pier, with Great Orme in the background

Llandudno Pier

Ice cream at Parisella’s

My girls 🙂

As we drove back, I realised that we’d really needed a whole day to explore Llandudno, rather than just a couple of hours.  We didn’t get to see the town itself and there was a lot that we’d wanted to do there:  the Alice In Wonderland Trail, the Mostyn Gallery, the Homefront Exhibition, Llandudno Museum and Gallery, Haulfre Gardens…  And, of course, Great Orme.

Great Orme is an impressive headland that towers behind the town, which is nestled in snugly at it’s base.  The views from the summit are, according to those who have climbed it, spectacular.  There are three options to get to the top:  a Victorian tramway; a cable car (which you catch from Happy Valley Gardens); or you can walk up.  I’d have liked to have tried all three, but sadly, we didn’t have time for any of them.  We’ll save it for our next mini break in North Wales instead.

You can’t go for a long weekend away by the sea without having fish and chips for dinner at least once!  I’d asked our airbnb hosts for their recommendations, and they suggested Frydays.  It is easily one of the best fish and chip meals we’ve ever had – hot, tasty, fresh, and the chips were perfect – not too soggy, just enough crispy bits.  10/10 recommend.

Fish and chips from Frydays. Delicious!

We’d planned an earlyish night – the fresh sea air had worn us all out, and we wanted to be up early for one final adventure before checking out and driving home.  However, at 10pm Mimi got a nosebleed.  This in itself isn’t that unusual – she struggles with terrible hayfever and it had been flaring up a lot during our trip.  However, the nosebleed didn’t stop.  After half an hour I called the Welsh equivalent of 111.  By the time we got through to someone, it had been gushing (no exaggeration – we went through two full toilet rolls and entire box of tissues) for an hour and a half.  They told us to go straight to the nearest A&E department, which, thankfully, was only about a 20 minute drive away.  We all bundled into the car – I needed Ella to navigate for me and didn’t want to leave Lola on her own – and arrived just after midnight.

The car park was relatively empty, and I was hopeful that it might be a fairly speedy trip even thought it was a Saturday night.  However, as the automatic doors slid open, we were faced with absolute carnage – people lying on the floor in the entrance hallway, every seat in the waiting room taken, noise levels through the roof.  We tentatively approached the reception desk, and were told it was an 8 and a 1/2 hour wait to be seen by the triage nurse.  That was an immediate no from me – I could have driven us home and gone to our local A&E where we live in a quarter of that time.  But then the lady behind the desk realised that Mimi was only 16 years old, so she ushered us through to the paediatric department, which, thankfully, was much quieter.  We were seen within minutes, she had her nose cauterised there and then (she was so brave!), and after waiting for an hour to make sure there was no more bleeding, we were free to go.  I drove back to the airbnb and we all fell into bed at 2.30am, utterly exhausted.

Day 4:  Sunday (travelling home)

Our original hopes for this morning had been to go and see wild seals at Angel Bay – another recommendation from our airbnb hosts which the girls and I were all excited about.  However, after only four hours of sleep, and knowing that I had a long-ish drive ahead of me, we figured it would be more sensible just to get on the road.  So, somewhat reluctantly, we packed up our stuff, made sure the airbnb was clean and tidy, and headed back home.

We will most definitely be spending more time in this little area in North Wales – there’s still so much on our original wish list that we didn’t even get close to doing, including:

• Bodnant Gardens
• Welsh Mountain Zoo
• Colwyn Bay beach
• Angel bay (wild seals!)
• Watch a sunset over the sea
• Climb Bryn Euryn
• Great Orme

Our mini break has given us a fantastic introduction to Wales in general and I’m now keen to explore some other parts of the country too.  I’ve promised Mimi that she and I will climb Snowdon together one day.  The Pembrokeshire coast and Tenby looks beautiful, as does Mumbles (which, honestly, I kind of want to visit purely for the name!) and the Gower Peninsula. Apparently there are also numerous places where you can see puffins, which is a long-held dream of mine.  I’m sure there are many other stunning places that Wales has to offer as well.  Time to get planning…

If you have any suggestions for unmissable paces to visit and things to see & do in Wales, please do leave them as a comment below.

In the meantime, here is a little vlog of our trip.  It’s been a while since I did one of these and I’ve already re-watched it so many times.  I love these little keepsakes of our adventures together, they’re so special to me.  I hope you enjoy watching it too and that you get a taste of what you could get up to if you ever go for your own mini break in North Wales one day.