Travelog for: Gwen Jolie

We said farewell to Charlie B. today.

We had some apple pies.

Have a safe journey little mouse.

It's party time! It is Captain Caramel's birthday.

There's a candle on the cake.

After the cake, we played with these balloons!

On our way home, we went via Magna, an industrial science museum set in an old steelworks near Rotherham/Sheffield.
There were 4 zones. The first zone we went to was Water.

A whirlpool exhibit.
Next, we went to Fire.

This is a fire tornado.

Lighting isn't that good for photographs with the fire tornado.

Next stop was Air. This is a musical exhibit with tubes and things.

The exhibit can be quite noisy.

We then went for a game of Air hockey.

The air blows through holes in the table and lifts up the puck ever so slightly.

This is a frequency exhibit with little polystyrene balls bouncing.

This is a different frequency.

Before going on to the final area, we caught some of the Big Melt show, a reconstruction of how they made steel. This is the arc furnace.

We went to the final area, Earth. The set up is quarrying "rocks" and these get picked up by the children and taken somewhere by wheelbarrow before going on conveyor belts and distributed either back to the "quarry" or to a chute.

Can you see the "rocks" on the conveyor belt?

We've already said goodbye to Pippi, regit brown, Captain Caramel and Baconella.
Mummy, is this a new visitor?

Let's open it up.

I hope he can squeeze through this hole.

Yes! he's free. Hello, my name is Gwen Jolie, nice to meet you Frankie_Blue

Today, Royal Mail issued some nice stamps and my mummy went out and bought some.

Do you like them?

Today, mummy got two parcels in the post

I wonder who our new visitors will be!

The new visitors are Belka and my brother, Rendolph

Some of the toys are going away on their travels tomorrow, so we thought we'd have a game of Cluedo playing in teams

However, we spent far too much time chatting instead of concentrating on the game and we all drew the 8th clock leaving the crime unsolved.

we went out GeoCaching.

The first two we found are part of a series. This is exciting stuff, looking for the treasure. Which stump/tree is it hiding under?

Then, after a nice afternoon cuppa, we found a third.

Mummy isn't putting in latitude and longitude co-ordinates for this as these caches we found are scattered around.

Mummy took us to the allotment today.

This is a young broad bean plant. The weevils have been out munching and making notches in the leaves.

They've even been nibbling on the pea leaves.

This rhubarb plant is throwing up a flower stem. We'd better chop it so it doesn't waste resources on it. Perhaps we can have some rhubarb stems later and make a pie.

After the allotment, we went Geocaching

We found this one in Aberdesach.

Today, we are going on the train.

This is first class.

Here, we are at Dinas station. When the Welsh Highland Railway was being rebuilt, Dinas was the HQ. There are work trains and carriages, and engines in need of repair.

The railway meets the River Gwyrfai several times along its route.

There's quite a bit of water in the river.

There are fields alongside the railway, this one has horses.

We are coming into Betws Garmon. Can you see the bell in the church tower?

It is a long train. Can you see the steam engine at the other end?

This is Cwellyn, a reservoir supplying water to parts of north Wales.

We had to wait for the train coming in the other direction to stop at Rhyd Ddu before we could continue. The train is also steam-hauled.

They've got a first class carriage, but the one we're in was unveiled by the Queen in 2010 after refurbishment.

The carriage is called Glaslyn, after another river this railway meets.

We are off for the second half of the journey. This section was opened last year, and then not all the way to Porthmadog.

There's the River Glaslyn.

Here we are coming into Porthmadog. The river is the Glaslyn here too, the estuary.

The river is the Glaslyn here too

The Glaslyn estuary. And now, we have arrived in Porthmadog. It is time to run for the bus to take us back home before school closes for the day.

We are having a nice game of Settlers of Catan.

A nice day for an afternoon out at Hunstanton.

There's a crazy golf course.

There's The Wash Monster, an amphibious vehicle that now takes people on tours of the coast and seal island.

The promenade was busy.

We grabbed a nice cuppa in the cafe in the sea-life centre.

Ooo, look at all these Easter Eggs and bunnies.

We've come to Gullivers Kingdom in Matlock Bath.

Mummy took me on the lazy river ride.

Mummy went on this ship ride earlier.