Category: travel
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Wales Coast Path, day 57: Tywyn from Fairbourne
Penhelig is the best hidden of railway stations. A poorly signed flight of steps takes us to a platform high above the road, the single track line leading to a tunnel at each end. Facing us a curving Victorian terrace blocks the sea view; it has its gardens at the front, each bisected by a…
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Wales Coast Path, day 54: Tre’r Ddôl to Machynlleth
By car back to Tre’r Ddôl, and coffee and flapjacks in the excellent café in Siop Cynfelin run by Cwmni Cymunedol Cletwr. Today’s guestwalkers converge on the village: D from Aberystwyth, and S, J and Jo from Borth. As we set off up the woodland path we must look like a branch of the North…
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Wales Coast Path, day 53: Aberystwyth to Tre’r Ddôl
In Tre’r Ddôl I lock the car and tie up my boots, while the others make for the bus stop. Walking over the bridge I look up and see the bus is already there and about to leave. I have to break into a run to catch it. C explains that the driver – Lloyds…
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Wales Coast Path, day 56: Aberdyfi from Tywyn
It’s early afternoon. The Lloyds Coaches bus from Aberdyfi lets us off in a lay-by, near a school on the outskirts of Tywyn. We’re on Neptune Road. Somewhere ‘over there’ is the town centre, and ‘over here’ is the sea. We head for the latter, past the terminus of the Tal-y-llyn railway and some low,…
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Wales Coast Path, day 14: Mumbles from Oxwich
A spring morning. Six paces from the car and we’re standing, four of us, on the beach at Oxwich. Calm sea, a light airflow from the south east, and, best of all, sun – a star banished from sight during the darkest, warmest, wettest winter in memory. Our only mistake is neglecting to notice the…
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Drinking coffee in the desert with Charles Doughty
On 10 November 1876, having taught himself Arabic, a 31 year old Englishmen called Charles Montagu Doughty set off from Damascus to travel alone across the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula via Meda’in Saleh to join the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. It was a quixotic act. The British Consul refused to help him…
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Cofio am Osi Rhys Osmond
Y dydd o’r blaen rhoddodd ffrind lyfr ail-law imi, ychwanegiad i’m llyfrgell fach o lyfrau ar gelfyddyd cerdded. Doedd y gyfrol, I know another way: from Tintern to St Davids (Gomer, 2002) ddim yn gyfarwydd imi. Casgliad yw e o ysgrifau er cof am Robin Reeves, y newyddiadurwr, ymgyrchydd a golygydd New Welsh Review a…
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Wales Coast Path, day 28: Amroth to Tenby
8:30am on a dark December Friday, and we’re driving west, three of us. Rain, unforecast, runs into us from the west. The stub of a rainbow over St Clears soon erases itself. At Llanddowror the Tâf has burst its banks and flooded dozens of fields, metres deep. Everywhere the land is bloated with the rains…
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Two Svalbard flights
The most remarkable place on the planet I’ve visited, in the summer of 2005, is the Svalbard archipelago. Svalbard lies half way between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole, between 74 and 81 degrees north, far within the Arctic Circle. About 60% of its surface is covered with glacial ice, and ice…
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Cadair Idris eto
A wnelo rhai o’m hoff brofiadau o deithio yng Nghymru â Chadair Idris. Ar yr hen ffordd Rufeinig o Domen y Mur tua’r de, does dim golygfa fwy gwefreiddiol na gweld mur hir, mawreddog y mynydd yn y pellter, yn sgleinio’n oren a llwyd yn yr haul isel ar noson glir o haf. Eto, wn…