May 2010

3^rd UK Gathering — 2010

Friday May 21st — Sunday May 23rd 2010

Thirty four Carthagos were at the beautiful Bryn Gloch campsite in May. Twenty seven were from the UK and a further seven joined us from Germany.

The weather was hot and sunny which helped to make it a very special weekend.

The mountain hiking groups enjoyed spectacular views across the Welsh mountains.

Lowdhams and Carthago kindly sponsored a marquee for us to meet in and this was erected on the campsite in the midst of our Carthagos. On the Friday evening we enjoyed a superb barbeque which was provided by Partycooks of Pwllheli.

Saturday a coach collected us from Bryn Gloch and took us into Caernarfon with time to wander around the town and castle and to enjoy a coffee in one of the many cafés in the town. Then, on to Llanberis, a popular tourist town, where the famous Snowdon Mountain Railway starts its ascent. Here we took a trip around Electric Mountain. We had to wear hard hats whilst underground and were issued with rather attractive hair nets to go with the hard hats. See the photo below of Clive modelling the hair net for you! Thank you Clive. Electric Mountain is a huge hydro generating station which is used for emergency back up to the National Grid. The concept and the engineering were most impressive. It was rewarding to see that we can have good news! A quick lunch and back on the coach to Beddgelert. The drive from Llanberis took in some amazing scenery around the foot of Snowdon and the narrow passes were busy with weekend motorists parking in some pretty strange places. In Beddgelert we had time to visit the tea shops and a very fine ice cream parlour. Those with some energy left took the short walk to Gelert’s grave. Gelert was a faithful hound who was killed by his master after being considered guilty of attacking his master’s child. Only after the hound’s death did the master find the real culprit, a wolf, which Gelert had killed to protect the child. The blood on Gelert was that of the wolf not the child. The master was so filled with remorse that the grave/shrine was dedicated to Gelert.

On Saturday evening we enjoyed a curry night, again provided by Partycooks, before the now, traditional quiz. Quiz prizes were kindly donated by ‘VB air suspension’ and ‘Euroliners’. It was a great evening.

Sunday coffee morning had a guest speaker, Oliver Drinkwater, Managing Director of VB Air suspension UK. Oliver gave a very informative talk and the ladies commented that even they found it interesting. We are not sure if this was because air suspension is such an interesting topic or the fact that Oliver is a good looking young man with considerably less years on the clock than most of the Carthago owners!!

Nevertheless, Oliver was besieged with enquiries throughout the weekend and he also considered it a great success.

We would welcome suggestions as to whom you may like to speak at future Gatherings.

Thank you to Nigel and Sonia Wignall who put a great deal of time into making this Gathering a success and also thanks to Kim and John at Bryn Gloch who were extremely helpful and looked after us well.