Wales

This past weekend I traveled to the western coast of Wales, north of Haverfordwest, and spent the weekend at an adventure lodge called 'Preseli Venture.'  I departed from London midday on Friday and arrived in Wales late Friday evening.  We were served dinner when we arrived (the trip was all inclusive, except alcohol of course), and everyone started to get to know each other.  I only knew one other person on the trip, but all the students were Arcadia study abroad students in some way shape or form.  The first night was pretty laid back a group of us played jenga (some pretty heated games of jenga as well).  Eventually, however, some people thought it would be cool to walk to the beach from the lodge, about a mile, IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT. It was so dark.  While the walk ended in a failure after we trudged a half mile on muddy terrain, there was one thing that I enjoyed.  STARS.  I had forgotten how awesome it was to see millions of stars in the night sky.  In London, I don't even notice them, they don't exist, but in the middle-of-nowhere, Wales they do exist and it was breathtaking.  It reminded me of lying on the dock at Lake Placid just looking at the stars.  Good memories.

The next morning after breakfast I was scheduled to go hiking.  Since I didn't really plan on doing much hiking in London, I wasn't exactly prepared for this.  I ended up hiking in jeans and indoor soccer shoes, but it wasn't a too strenuous or tough hike.  It was beautiful though. The sun was shining bright, and the path followed the right along the coastline where Wales meets the Irish sea.  To one side was the blue/green ocean and to the other side were infinite rolling hills of green.  This reminded me of Ireland.  We walked along the cliffs that just seem to explode out of the clear water, past pebbly beaches and eventually back to the lodge where we relaxed before lunch.  I passed the time by reading a book about kayaking (an event I would be partaking in tomorrow).

After lunch, it was time for a little coasteering!  It's kind of a mix of hiking and climbing on the coastline, where the water meets the land.  We prepared by suiting up in cold water wetsuits, wetsuit vests and shorts,  cold water socks, life vests (buoyancy aids, as the brits call them), and helmets.  Eventually I looked something like this...

Coasteering was brilliant.  A once in a lifetime oppurtunity.  We swam into caves, climbed along rocks, jumped off cliffs and got really cold.  The water was freezing, but it was a great time.  Our guides were fantastic as well.  Steve was a quirky, fun adventure nut who kept having us eat the local plants and sea creatures and enjoyed power lunging.

(Steve lunging, i'm in the white helmet)

After coasteering, we warmed up, drove back to the lodge, showered, ate dinner, some people got HAMMERED (not me), and went to bed.  Next morning, my last day, was sea kayaking. We wore a smaller wetsuit for this, and a cool windbreaker that looked like it was from the 80s. REAL HIP!  Kayaking was cold, but not nearly as cold as coasteering, because you didn't need to get wet if you didn't really want to.  We went over the basics in a lagoon before we went out venturing fourth.  We kayaked along the coast, went in some caves, saw a gigantic seal, had a hot chocolate break and battled the wind and waves on our adventure.  This was another thing I never thought I would be able to do in my lifetime, and I am grateful I was given the chance to do things like this.  

After returning to the lodge, we packed up, said our goodbyes to the staff (they were great, each one of them, so much fun) and made our way to the train station.  We had to take a bus to Swansea because the train union was on strike, but made it back to London around 930.  With plenty of time to write my paper that was due monday night, hehe.

link for the pictures posted by the lodge:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=288448&id=45235119669

Thanks for reading!