Y Garn and Beddgelert

The weather looked a bit sketchy, but we thought we would attempt another mountain walk starting near Beddgelert called the Nantlle Ridge. We sat in the car for a while wondering whether it would be a good idea to start climbing up the peak of Y Garn in the spitting rain. We decided to go for it, but the weather was bad pretty much all the way up. My already wet boots were uncomfortably squelchy the whole time. When we got to the top of Y Garn, we decided not to do the rest of the circuit as the weather was really horrible. We climbed down again passing a drenched family of 4 (including the 3 year old daughter). That’s hard core.

We thought we’d go to Caernafon Castle instead but the rain was so heavy that we could barely drive. We could see blue skies the other way so decided to turn around and head towards them. We passed 2 ladies walking along the road in the torrential rain and we offered them a lift. They looked very jolly and said no thank you. Mad.

We got back to Beddgelert, parked the car and enjoyed tea and coffee sitting in a tea garden by the river in the sun…. until it started to rain and we huddled under the sun umbrella until it stopped. We explored Beddgelert a bit. What a lovely town! Pretty touristy, but not ridiculous. I wished I had taken the house there instead of the one we had miles away in Rhiw. The money I saved on rent I would just pay in petrol anyway.

We followed the riverside path to the grave of Gellert, Llewelyn’s dog. Heard a lot of Brummie accents. I guess Birmingham isn’t that far from Snowdonia. People had picnics beside the river and some brave souls even went for a dip. We went for tea and bara brith at “Lyn’s” caffi.

There was a big outdoor shop and I decided to have a look. We both got new jackets, socks and boots. We didn’t actually go in for boots, but there some quite good offers. David was due to replace his and I discovered that my new ones weren’t actually Goretex, so unless I wanted wet feet for the rest of the trip, I had better buy some new ones. We came away feeling really pleased with our purchased and wanted to try them out on Mount Snowdon the very next day.