Llangollen Railway

We had a bit of a disturbed night sleep on Monday night due to very heavy rain and a very noisy helicopter buzzing around at about 1.30am, he seemed to drone on forever.

So what to do on a really crappy, rainy day......go for a ride on a steam train of course! So - anoraks on and Ian-Allen trainspotters book in hand, away we went.

They had one steam train running today, we caught the 1.00pm return to Carrog.  It was packed with pensioners on an outing so we had a nice chat with some Cornish retirees in our compartment.

 

When we arrived at Carrog rather than catching the train straight back we would go for a walk (in the rain) and catch the 16.00 train back to llangollen.

It was bloody miserable - and there was nothing to see (apart from the amazing view of the river, but we couldn't look at that for 2 hours!) ... so nothing for it but go to the only pub in the village, The Grouse.

Poor Sam was soaked and shivering - he has very thin fur and suffers when he gets wet, so Elaine wrapped him up in her coat and he soon dried out.

It actually stopped raining  for our walk back to the station ...

 

We virtually had the train to ourselves on the way back ...

Sammy loves the slow trains !

Interesting hotel and restaurant by the river ...

... and finally back to Llangollen 

 

A final picture of the river with the railway station right next to it, most spectacular ...

We had a cuppa in a cute tea house in the main street of Llangollen before returning back to the boat.  We decided to stay in tonight as the weather was so dodgy, yet as I write this at 20.40 its beautiful sunshine!  I hope it's sunny tomorrow as we retrace our steps back down the canal.