Two out of Three Peaks16/7/2023
Hiya guys! 😄 Firstly I wanted to thank visitors and friends for the warm welcome. It's been so lovely to re-connect with the community and meet new people. Great to see it's still live & kicking. 😊 Since the last update, the website is now looking a lot more fleshed out. I have made adjustments to the site layout to make it wider and the logo / nav is moved to the right instead of floating inside the banner. Everything looks more spacious to me.
Site updates
New Tutorial section with 4 tutorials (2 old / 1 re-written / 1 new)
+1 Render
+3 200 x 200 avatars
+4 400 x 400 avatars
+7 Affiliates: Nelson from A Glimpsed Horizon, My from Aurora Veil, Nise from The Flamboyant, Tiffany from Love is Zero, Ran from A Random Website, Rach from Sea Love, Karen from Snow Drops
+1 Link exchange: Pim from Moonstar
About section is now complete with tabs: The Site, The Owner, Terms of Use and Link Exchanges
Pagination functionality
Dropdown filtering now available for Avatars & Renders using Tags from Contentful
Post pages for Blog articles with Disqus
Cbox now moved to "Live Chat" window that animates open on click in the bottom right corner
Icons had issues loading sometimes so replaced Font Awesome with my own SVG sprite
Future to do updates
More tutorials
Google Analytics click events for preview / download links
Rebuild site with Nuxt(?) for better SEO / fix URL routing
Finish WIP web template for Vizune.com
Story time
Since my last update I went camping for 3 nights in Snowdonia, Wales in the last week of June (intentionally arranged before the school summer holidays). The weather was so unpredictable to plan around. If you look it up online three days before it would say "Gonna be bloody lovely out there, cracking the flags!" and then a day later it will say "Actually, turns out it's raining! Sod's luck eh?" which is what happened to me.
It was raining the first day but only slight spitting which I can manage. I had loads of Travel plan pins on my Google map and spotted that we were close to one of the attractions on the way to the campsite. The check-in for the camping spot was 2-10pm and we ended up having a couple of hours to spare so we stopped at Rhaeadr Ewynnol Swallow Falls Waterfall. It was £2 entry per person but luckily you could pay by card. It was stunning with barriers and benches to sit under the trees.
Then I noticed another spot just around the corner. Ty Hyll (Ugly House) tea room. I really enjoyed reading about the history of the building. The cottage is a legend and mystery, they don't know when it was first built but the first recorded people living there was 1900. Locals have different stories including it may have been a robber's hideout in the 15th century. We had some Welsh cakes and Bara Brith (traditional Welsh tea bread) with a pot of tea 😋
The gusts were relentless when we arrived at the Llyn Gwynant Campsite and it was a mission trying to put the tent up but absolutely worth it. I was in awe being surrounded by mountains and right next to the lake. The campsite had great facilities, they even served handmade pizzas from 6-8pm every day.
The second day was the worst weather rain-wise. However we were determined to at least do something rather than mope around in our tent. We explored the ins-and-outs of Harlech Castle and got absolutely soaked in the process 😂 Some tips if you ever visit Harlech. Don't bother with the car park and cafe near the castle. There's a car park with tons of spacing which has a path to the beach that we went to after. You'll need to walk back to the castle but at least you've got a space with much less hassle. The cafe next to the castle is rammed with people but there's actually a cafe just 2 seconds away that only had 2 of people inside 😆 We retreated into that cafe until the rain settled and then went down the "The World's steepest street" (well was the world's steepest street until 2019 it got beaten by New Zealand) and checked out the beach before heading back.
Day 3 was the main event, Snowdon mountain, and the weather was glorious 🌞 We started the trek at 10:22am and reached the top about 1:50pm (but I was stopping a lot to take photos and videos so could've got the quicker if I wanted to 😝). There are 6 different routes to get to the top and we took the Llanberis path which is the easiest but longest. The views are stunning and they even had a train service to the summit which is great for families and elderly. Snowdon mountain is very popular among hikers in the UK, so much so there is a queue to get to the summit. Once you've reached the summit, they actually have a cafe, gift shop and toilets.
Last year I went camping in the Lake District and climbed Scafell Pike (tallest mountain in England) and next year I plan on climbing Ben Nevis (the tallest mountain in Scotland. Altogether these mountains are called "The Three Peaks" and there is a well known challenge where some people try to climb all three within the same day. I'm never going to try that and content with doing each a year apart 😝 People have told me Ben Nevis is actually the easiest just very cold and Scafell is the hardest because of the relentless rough terrain and unclear paths (seriously, it was like Mordor! 😖) so that's put my mind at ease because it's the tallest of all three.
