Category: travel
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 6: Llan Ffestiniog to Penmachno
M has left us for Cardiff, so we’re now reduced to a trio. Our taxi turns up on time today, and takes us back to Llan Ffestiniog. We leave the village and drop down through fields to make for the Cynfal Falls, whose waters cut a gash of white though the dark stony ravine. The…
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 5: Tanygrisiau to Llan Ffestiniog
In my crueller moments I like to think that Dr Richard Beeching is still suffering in purgatory for his destruction of the Welsh railway system. He left it in such a state that you can’t travel by rail between the country’s two main concentrations of population without a long diversion into England. Despite that, C1…
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Meinciau coffa
Os ewch chi am dro ar hyd Llwybr yr Arfordir tua’r Mwmbwls o’r gorllewin, oni bai eich bod chi wedi codi yn y bore bach, dych chi’n rhwym o gwrdd â llawer o bobl – cerddwyr (hamddenol a phellter hir), rhedwyr, syrffwyr ac eraill. Hynny yw, pobl fyw. Ond byddwch chi hefyd yn pasio heibio…
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St Illtud’s Walk, day 8: Afan Argoed to Margam
It’s taken four bus rides, via Swansea, Port Talbot and Pontrhydyfen, but by ten o’clock I’ve reached the visitor centre at Afan Argoed, where C. and I ended Day 7 in July 2024. I can’t really explain why it’s taken over a year and a half to reconnect with St Illtud. The weather’s often been…
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On active travel
Who could object to ‘active travel’? Who could possibly deny its health, environmental and economic benefits? Who could be in favour of being unfit or overweight, or encouraging unsafe roads, traffic jams, potholes and pollution? So, if it’s so obvious a virtue, why is active travel – walking and cycling as the natural mode of…
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Heaven in Trieste
It’s unlikely, for a number of good reasons, that after my death I shall end up in heaven. But if it happens, and if – an even more remote possibility – St Peter offers me a choice of where exactly in that fine place I’d like to be, I’d ask whether he could arrange for…
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 4: Beddgelert to Tanygrisiau
I’ve not slept well in Beddgelert. The reason, I think, is that our B&B is beside Afon Glaslyn, and I’m not used to sleeping with the constant noise of running water. Today we’re going to be following the river downstream towards Nantmor, before turning to Croesor and beyond. Yesterday’s heavy rain has begun to turn…
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Snowdonia Slate Trail, day 3: Y Fron to Beddgelert
There’s no room for doubt. The Met Office’s app shows black clouds and two black raindrops, every hour from mid-morning to the end of the day. Other weather apps say the same. But we’re stoical, as we wait for the taxi to take us back to Y Fron for a twelve-miler to Beddgelert. The taxi’s…
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Snowdonia Slate Trail, day 2: Llanberis to Y Fron
Today’s a rare day: no waterproofs needed, and sun forecast for the afternoon. We set off from Llanberis and climb up the lane towards Waunfawr. On average, each day of the Trail crosses two watersheds, and this is the first of today’s two ascents. Sheep outnumber people by some margin, as usual. Their fleeces are…
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Snowdonia Slate Trail, day 1: Bethesda to Llanberis
I’ve had my eye on Llwybr Llechi Eryri, the Snowdonia Slate Trail, ever since it opened in 2017, and especially since two seasoned long-distance walkers, Eirlys Thomas and Lucy O’Donnell, told me in 2021 that it was one of the best long treks they’d ever tried. So the three of us, C1, C2 and I,…