Beddgelert

Distance: 5 miles
Weather: cloudy with rain showers, som
Campers: happy

This week has been a Grand Family Camping Holiday in North Wales, and we joined them for the weekend - our "big tent" looking very petite compared to our neighbours' tents on site. This was the last time we used our Robens Granite.

On Saturday afternoon, after a spot of shopping and pizza for lunch, we went for a family walk around Beddgelert. Due to the weather (wet) it was at first decided we would just have a walk down to see Gelert's Grave, but then it cleared a little so we carried on. We waited by the railway to see a steam train on the Welsh Highland Railway pass and then made our way along the Afon Glaslyn. The riverside path south of Beddgelert is rocky and in some places quite exposed over the fast flowing water and close to the rapids below. My young nephew, in his new walking boots, thought this bit was awesome. I would concur.

At Pont Aberglaslyn we turned away from the river, under a railway bridge and up over Cwm Bychan. The track was a little boggy in places, my feet (in my Asics) got a little wet crossing a boggy patch and my nephew's feet and his new walking boots, got very wet and muddy indeed when he "tripped" and ended up knee deep in a boggy puddle.

At the top of the ridge, we made our way down a quite steep slope passed the Sygun Copper Mine and down to the lane. Back along the lane into the village, to round a lovely afternoon off with an ice cream at Glaslyn Ices.

The Glyders

Or Biting Off More Than You Can Chew.

We spent the weekend in North Wales and yesterday went for a rather long walk over the Glyders, about 13.5 miles with approximately1800m of ascent (give or take as our gps went a bit wonky in the middle) taking in three of the Welsh 3000'ers. We climbed up to start just after the quarry at Carnedd y Filiast (821m) and walked along the ridge over Mynedd Perfedd (812m), Foel goch (831m), Y Garn (947m), Glyder Fawr (999m) and Glyder Fach (we skirted around the back over Castel y Gwynt at 950m) then Y Foel Goch (805m) dropping down to Cefn y Capel (441m) to finish in Capel Curig. Ridge walks are fabulous, as once you are up there, there are always amazing views and relatively little up and down to worry about. Of course, on walks where there are 3000'ers there is always going to be some uphill (and there most certainly was!) but it was all worth it. I think. I should probably apologise to all non-British people who ever read my blog (if, in fact, there are any) because of the way that I casually change between feet, metres, miles, etc. There are fifteen 3000'ers in Wales and they are called thus because they are higher than 3000ft, but because the OS maps are printed with the heights in metres, these are the ones I tend to use here. 999m is 3279 feet.

From Y Garn, looking over Llyn Clyd & Llyn Idwal towards Tryfan

At the summit of Glyder Fach with Snowdon in the distance

Looking towards Glyder Fawr

Coming down off Cefn y Capel

Sheepses and lambses at Gelli

Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach means 'big mound of stones' and 'little mound of stones' in English, which is very appropriate. We have had great fun while I have been putting up this post trying to work out all the Welsh pronunciations for all the places, probably getting it all terribly wrong. I can speak about 10 words in Welsh, none of them of any use in any situation, and I am determined to learn a few more useful ones, as we do go to Wales quite often and have a week's holiday booked in the Black Mountains this year.

One of the reasons that we chose to go to Wales this weekend was because of the smoking ban that has just been introduced, which is A Good Thing. But as it was, we were so long out our walk that it was too late to go to the pub by the time we got back and we ended up with tinned chilli and easy cook rice at the campsite with bottles of beer, which went down very well.

I am a little bit achey in the legs today, but not as bad as I feared I would be and all in all and despite some route uncertainty at the beginning and severe knackeredness at the end (!) a good day was had by all.

Wales Holiday

The first couple of days of our holiday proper were spent in North Wales, at Betws-Y-Coed, which is one of my favourite places. It has a nice campsite (the Riverside, open March till end of Oct), nice pub with outside seats and heaters, and lots of outdoor shops to browse.






















On Monday (while NOT AT WORK ha!) we caught the bus (with very friendly bus driver) to Capel Curig and walked back to Betws via Llyn Crafnant (always pretty) and The Grey Mare's Tail waterfall. The walk was 11,5 miles but not particularly hilly.


































We passed lots of old mine workings and relics of industrial days, all overgrown and reclaimed by nature. The men that worked in these places must have thought that their walls were so solid and the industry would last forever, and yet not so very long a time later, here I am wandering through their ruins looking at the plants and trees that have taken hold.

It always makes me wonder how long it would take for all the things we take for granted, like shopping centres, motorways and so on to disappear if the people did. I think I've seen too many films, as it's usually around this point that I start thinking about zombies and get scared... anyway back to Wales.

You can't really tell on this little picture, but the white blob on the left of the tree is a sheep that was taking a nap on a rock. So cute!!
















Saw lots of white welsh sheep and these two - which I think are Jacob sheep (although my sheep spotting talents are minimal to say the least.)

Bank Holiday Weekend

Wales had been calling to me lately. So we went. Unfortunately we went on a Bank Holiday weekend. But it wasn't all bad. We had nice evening at the Stables in Betws-Y-Coed under their umbrellas, which had heaters during the warm afternoon and then switched off as the evening turned cooler, I got pushed out of my seat by a Norwegian but the scampi was nice and the beer went down well.

It was quite amazing on Saturday to see the hoardes of walkers getting off the buses at Pen-Y-Pass to go up Snowdon. There were people everywhere. Thankfully we were going the other way, to walk from Nant Gywnant back to Betws (15.5 miles) over Moel Siabod (872m) - in other words, bloody knackering.
















Looking back towards Llyn Gwynant with Snowdon topped in cloud in the distance. Just imagining the crowds at the top makes me shudder. We saw seven people all day while out on the tops, a family of three in the distance, a couple of blokes who were ahead of us during the slog up Moel Siabod and a (french?) couple who asked us to take a photo of them at the top.
















A bog! This just about sums up most of the first half of the walk.












And a welsh windswept sheep.

We tried a new campsite, which I think would be ok at any time other than a Bank Holiday, but then at any other time, the Riverside would be a little quieter too (I was quite surprised that there were any spaces left when we arrived on Saturday afternoon) and it's a much nicer site, so I don't know that we'll ever use this one again. The 'Site Full' sign went up on Saturday evening and the number of people on site was reasonable, but we ended up coming home early because of ignorant, rude people who arrived on Sunday, having no idea about being considerate towards others and put their tent up between our car and tent where there wasn't even enough space for them to pitch their tent straight, let alone put any guys in. I feel that we kind of let them win by leaving, but I really didn't want to spend the night knowing they were within 3 feet of me. So Rob drove us home and I slept till 10am in my own bed. Hurrah!

Llyn Crafnant

Here are some pictures of the walk we did at the weekend from Betws-Y-Coed, up to Llyn Crafnant (14.7 miles). It was a good day for walking - although boggy. Very boggy. Very very boggy.

Moel Siabod across the valley.






















Toadstools. Do not eat.


















Llyn Bychan




















Clean looking sheep up on Creigiau Gleision (678m).




















Rainbow (and rapidly approaching dark) on the way back to the car.

Pembrokeshire

We got back from our holiday to Pembrokeshire on Saturday after a lovely week by the coast. It was slightly spoiled by me getting a stinky cold, but if that's the worst thing that happens to me this month, then it's not so bad.

Took loads of holiday snaps of our walks along the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, which is a National Trail over 150 miles long. I think we managed about 30 miles all week, but it was meant to be a holiday so there was no expectation to ever do more than a bit of it. The parts of the coastline we saw from Newgale up to Whitesands around St David's Head were beautiful and there were seals, birds, animals and many plants also.

The first evening at Trelerw... a promising start :)

Walking around St David' s Head
Sheepses on Dinas Head
Seals spotted in Ramsey Sound
Newgale Beach


Walking from Solva to Newgale Beach (the next day - these are in some sort of order!)