Do I belong in north Wales?

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I think I could fit in here. I have felt more at home here that anywhere else we have visited over the past 15 years or so. I love the mountains and the scenery. I am enjoying re-learning Welsh and I love hearing and seeing it around me everyday. I am into the tea and cake culture. I love that there are so many interesting old castles and buildings. I enjoy being near the coast and getting fabulous sea views. I am enjoying all the beautiful wild flowers. I love seeing sheep everywhere (although I can’t seem to be able to bring myself to eat lamb anymore – sheep are way to cute to be food). I love the range of breads you can get here and the locally produced preserves. Perhaps I should move here. What on earth would I do though? Not many vacancies for applied linguists I imagine. I’m not sure I could survive a winter here either.

The Carneddau Circuit

Great hiking day today. We were up and out early hiking a circuit from Llyn Ogwen. 3 major peaks and 5 ½ hours of wonderful views, good weather and interesting terrain. I love north Wales so much.

Stopped in Beddgelert on the way back for tea, coffee at Lyn’s Caffi with apple pie and custard (David) and fudge (me). The staff at Lyn’s all know us now.

Break from the mountains

Today we gave our legs a rest from major hiking and did some proper sightseeing instead. The weather was gorgeous and a perfect day for visiting Portmeirion – the Italianate village on its own peninsular. I have always wanted to visit. They filmed a 1960s show called The Prisoner here and I have vague memories of some of the scenes involving giant balls and messages via a tannoy. The village is really lovely! It stands on a beautiful stretch of coast and incorporates extensive woodland trails. The buildings are all guesthouses, shops and restaurants and it really draws the crowds.






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Next stop was Tremadog for a gourmet lunch at a fine restaurant called Y Sgwar (The Square) situated on the market square. We sat at the window and occasionally locals would stop and look right in at us and pull faces. Strange. Have you ever seen “The League of Gentlemen”?

After lunch we visited Cricieth Castle. We drive passed it everyday, but this was a great day to stop because of the fine weather – we thought we would get some decent views and we really did. We stopped for afternoon tea at a tea garden called Ty Te in Cricieth. I am really going to miss Welsh tea shops.

Climbing Snowdon

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We didn’t exactly get off to an early start, so by the time we got to Pen y Pass car part to climb Snowdon, it was already full. Instead we parked down the hill and got a bus to the start of the hike.

As we got going, we saw a sign where every sentence began with “dim” dim dim dim dim. Basically, the café at the top wasn’t finished so there would be no tea, no shelter and no toilets. No train either which hopefully meant there would at least be fewer people.

There were a lot of people hiking up Wales’ highest mountain, but compared to a popular mountain in Japan in hiking season, it wasn’t too bad. I admired people who had the patience to march their kids up there. One guy even had his baby in a backpack. I assume it was a baby, he/she was covered with a kind of tent to keep out the wind and rain and we could just hear the screaming underneath. There were a lot of dogs too.

It took us about 2 ¼ hours to reach the top along the Pyg track. We weren’t brave enough to attempt the knife edged Crib Goch track, but could see people above walking on all fours above us (I thought they were sheep at first). The weather stayed fine throughout the walk, but we could see the summit of Snowdon ahead enshrouded in cloud. As we neared the top, we entered the thick cloud and could no longer see the valley below. It got very cold and windy and after taking our turn of standing on the summit, we got out of the wind and brewed a cuppa. We didn’t hang about long, but started the ascent, this time via the Miners’ track which went alongside the lake which was lovely. We passed some old ruined mine buildings and machinery which made the place seem very mysterious. We think the Snowdon climb is the Welsh version of the Inka Trail. A bit busy, but really beautiful and well worth doing.

We stopped off at Lyn’s Caffi in Beddgelert on the way home again for tea and apple pie with custard.

Evenings

I haven’t described anything we have done in the evening. Life is very quiet in the countryside. We get home around 7pm, shower and just cook something simple, watch a bit of TV and have an early night. We are usually pretty tired after the daytime exertions. When you have been away for a while, British TV is fun and exotic even if it is just The News and Midsomer Murders.

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.

The tip of Llyn

Today we drove to Aberdaron on the Llyn peninsular and did a coastal hike. This was really beautiful until it started to lash rain as we walked back via the lanes. The Saturday travel supplement of the weekend’s guardian featured some of the remotest places in the Britain and one of them was the tip of the Llyn peninsular opposite Ynus Enlli (Bardsey Island) exactly where we had been today! It is pretty remote where we are staying. We can’t get a phone line and forget accessing the internet! Back at Aberdaron, we had a pub lunch at The Ship. Nice enough, but overpriced just for a Ploughman’s and a bowl of Heinz tomato soup. The barman could have been the twin brother of our friend Joe-Joe in Japan. Joe-Joe loves making fun of Welsh people (he’s English) so I found this really amusing. We overheard two people talking in the bar, rather the woman was talking in a really loud voice at the man who said very little. She went on and on about herself – how tedious! At one point she started talking about how she had given up smoking because there were too many holes in her aura. I gave David a look, but he hadn’t heard properly so I had to wait until they left to tell him what I had heard. We have been running with this ever since: “I had better not have any more coffee as there are already too many holes in my aura” etc.

That afternoon we went to Pwllheli as I had to access the internet to send an article I had promised by mid August. I had to do this in the basement of the town library in the kids’ section on a computer which censored Facebook. We also had to find a launderette as when we asked our landlady about a washing machine, she said “I’ll have a think about it.” Did she think we’d go for 2 weeks without washing any clothes after hiking on muddy mountains everyday