Back in 1988 Gwynedd Council, in association with the then British rail, the local bus companies, all the narrow gauge railways and the Youth Hostel Association, offered an even better rover ticket, covering all these modes of transport, together with accomodation in the then fairly extensive Youth Hostel network. My Wife and I then had three small children and thought it would be fun to try out the Family Rover ticket for our summer holidays. To be on the safeside, we drove to North Wales at the Spring bank holiday and camped at Barmouth, to try out the transport system. It worked well, and over a long weekend we went on the Festiniog Railway. Therefore in August of that year we used our Family Rover ticket to visit all the then available narrow gauge railways, as well as lounge on the beaches and fly kites! Because we had to backpack, and use dormitories in some of the Youth Hostels (we stayed at Harlech (now closed), Bala (closed), Corris and Borth), I did not take my Olympus camera, and instead we only used my Wife's small 110 format Kodak camera. As a result, the photographic record of this trip is not as good as it might have been!
Eleven years later and now sans children, it was with some interest, that we saw that Ffestiniog Travel were offering a Rail Rover for North and Mid wales, which also gave free travel on the buses, the Festiniog and Welsh Highland Railways as well as a varied level of discount on all the other preserved railways. Thus armed with 7 day Rovers, my new Digital camera and Canon UCX10 Hi-8 video camera, we set out to Aberdovey on the 30th July to stay at the Cartref Guest House,conveniently situated within sight of the Station. This is a fairly central location, and allowed us to reach Aberystwyth in the south and Caernarvon in the north and thus visit a good proportion of the preserved railways.
By visiting a railway virtually every day, we were able go on the following lines, here recorded by a photo miscellany:
