The final day of any trip is always full of mixed emotions: joy & relief at successfully completing the mission, excitement for the day of fun with new friends, hope to soon return to family and those we love at home, and heartbreak and the thought of leaving this place & the people that you love so much. It was fairly complex day and we didn’t quite get in all the stops on our original agenda, but we did get to visit a number of really cool sites:
- First was the country site, out in the Gower Peninsula area, where the first Welsh Baptist church was established in 1640. It is built on the site of a pre-Reformation Catholic church by the Trinity Well (a natural spring), and was likely a former ancient Celtic/Druidic site before then.
- Next we visited the Long Cairn & Cathole Cave area where ancient peoples lived and were buried. There is evidence there that the cave system has been inhabited as far back as 10,000 BC, and included skeletal remains from wooly mammoths, wooly rhinos and other ancient species.
- Finally, the Mumbles is a really nice, somewhat touristy, area with Welsh spoon stores, another Joe’s ice cream, pubs, and lots of souvenir shopping. This was our last stop before heading back to Capel Gomer to get our luggage and the journey to Cardiff for our hotel.
After a quick detour back to the Mumbles to retrieve a lost backpack and passport(!), we packed up the cars with all our luggage and headed off to Cardiff. We made another stop at the Toby’s in Cardiff, and enjoyed a carvery and some puddings (desserts) with Derek, Alaw, Gareth, Huw, Tomos, Sophie and Matthew before the final journey to the airport hotel. The “long goodbye” is an understatement when it comes to describing our hugs (and a few tears), but eventually our exhaustion overcame all and our Welsh friends had to head home. After a long week, late nights and emotional days, a 3:30am wake up call is difficult to imagine, but our hotel shuttle left at 4am even though I flight didn’t leave until 6am. We all made it, however, and are happy to be on the way for very long 22 hour travel day.
