Tag: walking
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 8: Capel Curig to Bethesda
On the map today’s walk looks straightforward. The Trail leaves Capel Curig and moves east and then north to Bethesda, its final destination. Surely there should be no navigational problems this time? The worst we should face will be spots of rain. Some small rain has already fallen, the all-sun weather of the last few…
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 7: Penmachno to Capel Curig
If yesterday was Mountain Day, today is the Day of the Three Rivers, Afon Machno, Afon Conwy and Afon Llugwy. And because the Trail, on the whole, follows the course of the rivers, the going promises to be much less challenging than yesterday’s. The other factor is that yesterday’s furious wind has dropped to a…
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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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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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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 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,…
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Deep in Carmarthenshire
If you’re in love with green – I mean chlorophyll-saturated green, the lightest and deepest greens that nature can offer – there are fewer better places to find it than north-west Carmarthenshire. To wander through the fields and woods on the hills either side of the Tywi valley and its tributaries is to soak your…
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Beacons Way, day 8: Carreg Cennen to Bethlehem
The taxi arrives at the White Hart on the dot, and we set off from Llandeilo, on another fine morning, through Ffairfach and Trap to the farm car park at Castell Carreg Cennen. I thank Mr Teilo Taxis for his essential help, and he leaves for home and a day of painting his house, unless…