Tag: walking
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Wales Coast Path, day 71: Dinas Dinlle to Caernarfon
Ca has joined us from Swansea. Yesterday it took her almost ten hours to make the journey of 150 miles by train (Swansea to Carmarthen), bus (Carmarthen to Aberystwyth) and train (Aberystwyth to Pwllheli), including two connection stops of an hour each in Aberystwyth and Machynlleth, and a serious train breakdown in Machynlleth. To put it…
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Wales Coast Path, day 70: Trefor to Dinas Dinlle
We knew today’s trip wouldn’t be a popular choice – it’s just the two of us again. The stretch from Trefor to Dinas Dinlle mainly follows the course of the busy A499 and must count as one of the Wales Coast Path planners’ biggest failures. Presumably they were unable to engineer or negotiate either a…
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Wales Coast Path, day 69: Nefyn to Trefor
Now we are two, C and me, for the toughest challenge of the week, a mountain trek from Nefyn to Trefor across Yr Eifl. And here’s our favourite driver for the Bysus Nefyn trip, talking non-stop with the same workmate. It’s a quick journey: there are no deviations and, like all Llŷn buses, this one…
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Wales Coast Path, day 68: Tudweiliog to Nefyn
Bus journeys to the start of walks are always welcome. Today we’re off, the five of us, to Tudweiliog with Bysus Nefyn. Strangely, the bus visits Nefyn, our final destination, before rattling along to Tudweiliog, but otherwise doesn’t deviate from the road to reach remote villages on either side (there aren’t many of them), so…
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Wales Coast Path, day 67: Porthor to Tudweiliog
Finding the way to Tywyn in our two cars isn’t easy. Turning off the road to Tudweiliog we miss a minor road to the right. We realise the mistake and trying to correct it, but go wrong again and end up on a narrow farm track behind an alarmed family of ducks. Retracing our steps,…
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Wales Coast Path, day 66: Aberdaron to Porthor
We’ve stayed in cottages, houses and old chapels in previous walking weeks, but never in a penthouse. But here we are, in The Penthouse, in a building that’s part of the sea front at Pwllheli. It’s a replacement for the old West End Hotel, built by Solomon Andrews, the original developer of the grand seafront…
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R. M. Lockley, coastwalking pioneer
Preparing for a talk about coastwalking in Plas Brondanw in a week or two I’ve been thinking about the origins of the practice of walking around the coast of a country, and specifically Wales. When, I wondered, did coastwalking start to become a conscious mode of walking for travellers and tourists? Rebecca Solnit, in her…
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Wales Coast Path, day 90: Conwy to Llandudno
We’re quite a crowd, today, six of us. Enough to cause anxiety, with our clompy boots and bulky rucksacks, to anyone encountering us on the Coast Path. As well as M we have two other guestwalkers, Ca, and M-A, who’s waiting for us at Conwy station. A misunderstanding in the café nearby gives us one…
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Wales Coast Path, day 89: Llanfairfechan to Conwy
Guestwalker M joins the three of us today. Together we walk down to the railway station at Pensarn and wait for the train. It’s a cool, dark day, with a threat of rain. A few yellow-jacketed workers make sporadic attempts to relieve the glumness and dereliction of the place. We catch the train, change at Llandudno…
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Wales Coast Path, day 95: Flint to Chester
In sunny Flint C and I make for a recommended café in Church Street, Yr Hen Lys. It deserves the praise. The coffee is good and the bara brith even better. Back over the railway line, we make for the castle, only glimpsed the day before. A silhouette sculpture – Flintshire has dozens of them,…