Never is anything so mundane as on returning from the mountains.
Never is the sky so grey nor the land so flat.
Work doesn’t interest me. The dull documents and dull conversations I’m putting off. I’ve voluntarily shackled myself to this slow, safe life but the siren song of freedom pulls my attention to faraway, intangible landscapes. Imagine emancipation from expectations. Imagine aspirational certainty.
Perhaps the taste I had was too much. All I can think of is deep glens, ancient forests and mysterious peaks. I’m captivated and cursed by the bewitching majesty of a place remembered.
The sky tries pathetically to rain but gives up. It can’t be bothered either. It would have rained properly up there, savage, relentless and certain.
The sun tries to penetrate the cloud but can’t. It can’t be bothered either. There’s not much to look at down here anyway.
It’s too warm for February.
—
Time stopped for two weeks and waited for our return. I wish it hadn’t.
Working from home is deafeningly quiet. I wasn’t productive this morning, I just moped.
Amber asked for a walk at lunchtime as she always does. I took her. The path was muddier than before and nature seemed colourless. The road was too loud. I had to fabricate a smile for other dog walkers.
Things that should have brightened my mood only accentuated my absurd misery. Amber’s usually contagious happiness, the warm breeze, the abundant birdsong.
My despondence peaked when I walked over the bridge and looked for the trout who sits there waiting for me and Amber. He wasn’t there. Perhaps he thought I’d abandoned him.
—
Ryan’s text was a subtle turning point. There was a Twix next to the handbrake if I needed cheering up. I did, but the thought was enough. I’ll save the Twix for later as a reward for finishing work, although I’ll need to start first.
Crocuses, snowdrops and daffodils – nice, but it’s too early. Crows, collared doves, a robin, a blackbird, a dunnock. They’re okay.
I see the allotments and look forward to the house we’re buying. A glimmer, small but bright. Once that’s done we can go back to Scotland. I hope time hurries up for a while, then slows again.
I try to get over myself and decide to write down my gloom in the hope of some relief. I think it’s worked, a bit. My walk is over.
Later we need to empty the van and tackle the torrent of admin.
Now I need to do some work.
—
Acceptance is better than denial but worse than contentment. That’ll do me for now. The mountains will still be there.
We woke for the last time in the Dyffryn Mymbyr valley and went straight back to the Moel Siabod café (see my post on the previous day for more about the café – amazing place) for breakfast. I had a vegan full English and Ryan had a normal full English and as before, we were very pleased.
We left the café and drove wistfully back along the lovely A5 valley, joined the picturesque A470 at Betws y Coed and travelled south for about 45 minutes , via Blaenau Ffestiniog (a remarkably grey town), before reaching Coed y Brenin Forest Park. We’d decided to make use of the mountain bikes one more time before heading home and this place prides itself on being “the UK’s first and largest dedicated mountain bike trail centre”, so we decided to try it as it was “kind of” on the way back. We parked up, took the bikes off the van and went to look at the ample selection of trails shown on a board by the large visitors centre.
Ryan was feeling a bit sluggish so he suggested that we do the blue “Minor Taur” trail and see how we get on. This is a 12km loop (which can be shortened to 3, 5 or 9km) through the forest that runs along the sides of the Afon Eden and adjoining Afon Mawddach. As expected of a blue trail it was fairly smooth, flowy and enjoyable, with nothing particularly challenging but a lot of fun nonetheless and a few quick sections. We felt sorry for a man right in front of us whose tyre blew out on a root near the beginning of the trail, but a little relieved as it allowed us to overtake and zip along the fun singletrack.
We were a little confused by the loops at first (the 12km route is made of 4 loops, making each section optional) and nearly went wrong at an unclear signpost, but heard someone explain it to their friend and followed them onto the right track. The forest was lovely – leafy, green and quiet, and riding along next to the river felt quite idyllic. We passed a rushing waterfall, disused gold mine and gunpowder works, which I’m sure have an interesting history but are now just a strange bunch of ruins, crossed a couple of bridges and had a pleasant, easy ride.
We found ourselves back at the car park after an hour or so and, well aware of the 5 hour drive ahead of us, decided resolutely to save the three red and three black trails for another trip. We did, however, have enough time to check out the “skills area”, which consists of four zones:
Training zone – to practise braking, turning etc
Singletrack zone – four short runs graded green, blue, red and black
Freeride zone – a pump/jump track
Drop-off zone – a drop-off slab at the end of the red singletrack that can be taken from various lines
We started at the singletrack zone and had so much fun whizzing along the blue and red runs that apart from a quick go on the black, which was bumpy and twisty to the extent that it was much less fun, we didn’t do the other zones. The red was good but I actually preferred the blue because the lack of technicality meant it was flowy and very quick. The runs were short and we must have whizzed along them tens of times to the amusement of a group having a lesson (we weren’t in their way!) before finally packing it in and heading back to the van.
The last thing remaining on my “things I wanted to do [but Ryan didn’t really]” list was a wild swim, or at least a dip, and fortunately my Wild Guide informed me that there was a swimming place just 10 minutes down the road. We pulled into a quiet, leafy parking spot near the attractive, multi-arched old Llanelltyd Bridge, went through a little gate that led into an open field and walked over to the large, round pool described in the book, which sits under the bridge and forms part of the Afon Mawddach river. After a little customary cold-water hesitation I enjoyed a beautifully refreshing, if brief, swim-float around the cold, clear pool, and Ryan “enjoyed” an even briefer dip before retreating to the stony beach to watch me wallow around like an excited hippo.
Wallowing finished, I shivered into a changing robe and we trudged reluctantly back to the van, steeling ourselves for the impending farewell. Leaving Snowdonia was never going to be easy but the bitter sting of parting was softened slightly by the sunny weather and the pretty drive through idyllic mid-Wales and rural Shropshire before hitting the bigger roads.
And just like that, our busy week in North Wales was all over. We visited so many beautiful places and hiked, climbed, scrambled, mountain biked, road tripped, ate, drank and just about swam. As usual I don’t really know how to conclude, other than the common-or-garden words can’t do it justice, or simply even what a trip. One thing is certain: we’ll be back before long.
Another year, another fluctuating labyrinth of lockdown restrictions and uncertainties. Like most of my projects I’m behind on the blog, although I did manage to do a bit of catching up earlier this year – who cares if I write about my January 2020 Alps trip 18 months later, with the wistful knowledge that – to my contemporaneous blissful ignorance, the reminiscence of which is bittersweet – the following 17 months would be spent in varying levels of lockdown?
It’s been a whirlwind: I’ve been rejected from a couple of jobs, spent a lot of money fixing the van, lost my beloved dog and a funny, kind uncle, missed family and friends, experienced the stress of buying a house in complicated circumstances and regularly questioned what I want to do with my life. But I’ve also qualified as a lawyer, got my first full-time permanent “proper” job, started the process of buying a house and juggled work with regular running, hiking, climbing, cycling and mountain biking, as well as a few art projects, an ongoing environmental project and this blog, and a bunch of other, less regular activities. Swings and roundabouts.
In keeping with the focus (or lack of) of this blog, here’s a summary of my year in adventure:
January/February
The deep, dark depths of winter lockdown. I saw no family or friends and my only solaces were the comforting buzz of activity at Hill HQ, running, cycling and walking (notably a 15-mile hike one grey January weekend) in and near the New Forest, a bit of snow towards the end of January and wildlife-watching.
March
Lockdown eased very slowly. Ryan’s powerkite gave me an unsolicited flying lesson one windy afternoon, we built and slept in a shelter in Godshill Wood (a very uncomfortable night but stubbornness prevailed), went coarse fishing locally, climbed at Hedbury on the Dorset coast, attempted and failed to surf and paddleboard at Christchurch and saw my parents for the first time all year. I became a fully fledged lawyer.
April
We managed a van weekend in the South Downs, which involved a good hike and a trip to mum and dad’s. We celebrated Ryan’s grandad’s 80th birthday with a “day at the races” fancy dress party and went to the pub for a drink on the day it reopened. Ryan rescued a baby squirrel (Cyril) from a road at work and we released it into the wood. We visited Monkey World in Dorset, met my parents at a campsite in the New Forest and visited Bucklers Hard.
May
The first “proper” van trip – we climbed at the Devil’s Jump on Bodmin Moor and at Sennen cliffs, visited Porthcurno and Lands End and explored Padstow and Port Isaac. We started weekly indoor climbing sessions with our friend Luke, visited Shaftesbury, both fell off skateboards, had a Hill family fancy dress Eurovision party, saw more friends and family and celebrated our birthdays – Ryan’s with a climbing session followed by pub lunch, driving range and barbecue, and mine with a party and a visit to the local raptor and reptile centre.
June
A sunny weekend van trip to the Dorset coast saw us climbing at Winspit, snorkelling in the cold, clear water over a “coral reef”, exploring Corfe and visiting the naturist beach at Studland. We explored pretty Warwick and impressive Warwick Castle with Ryan’s family and saw more of my family. We spent a few days in the van in Cornwall again, this time climbing at Cheesewring Quarry on Bodmin Moor, surfing, beach exploring, drinking and “rave in a cave”ing at Perranporth, and visiting Newquay, Bodmin Jail and Tintagel Castle. Started a week-long holiday in Pembrokeshire with my parents and brother.
July
Pembrokeshire continued – we visited Castell Henllys Iron Age village, explored St David’s and Whitesands Bay, hiked across the Preseli Hills, had a barbecue on Newport Sands, tombstoned and swam in Blue Lagoon at Abereiddy, kayaked and paddleboarded at Llys y Fran, walked along Newgale Beach, visited Pembroke Castle, explored and powerkited at Broadhaven beach, climbed at St Govan’s Head, visited Stackpole gardens, surfed (unsuccessfully)/bodyboarded in fierce waves at Freshwater West and came back via Cardiff National Museum. Back home we watched England lose the Euros final, went bouldering at St Aldhelm’s Head and swimming in Chapman’s Pool, visited Blue Pool near Wareham, swam in the river Hamble, trad climbed at Subliminal cliffs (including the Avernus blowhole) and took the van to the Forest of Dean/Wye Valley.
August
Forest of Dean/Wye Valley weekend continued – we looked for wild boar, mountain biked the red trail at Coleford, explored Clearwell Caves, walked into Wales without realising, spent a day canoeing along the Wye from Ross-on-Wye to Symonds Yat and walked up to Yat Rock. Locally we powerkited, swam and paddleboarded on Bournemouth beach (the day before a “large marine animal” was sighted in the water), went clubbing in Chichester and hiked, cycled and indoor climbed. We took the van to the Brecon Beacons, where we mountain biked the epic “Gap” route, did the Four Waterfalls walk at Ystradfellte and trad climbed at Llangattock escarpment. On the last bank holiday weekend we took our friend Gus to the Dorset coast, where we frequented the Square and Compass, paddleboarded from Winspit to Swanage, swam and climbed at Winspit, night-hiked back to the van from the Scott Arms and mountain biked at Puddletown Forest.
September
We put in an offer on a house and the seller promptly passed away (still buying, still awaiting probate). We mountain biked at Queen Elizabeth Country Park and the New Forest, celebrated Ryan’s dad’s 60th, went coasteering at Dancing Ledge, barbecued at Poole Harbour and went to Snowdonia for a week. Here we trad climbed up Little and Big Tryfan, took a road trip round Anglesey (including Beaumaris town, Baron Hill abandoned mansion, Din Lligwy ancient site, Parys Mountain copper mines, Holy Island and South Stack lighthouse), explored Betws-y-Coed, mountain biked the Marin Trail, hiked/scrambled the Snowdon Horseshoe – Crib Goch, Garnedd Ugain, Snowdon and Y Lliwedd, sport climbed at Dinorwig Quarry, hiked/scrambled up Bristly Ridge, Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr, mountain biked at Coed y Brenin and wild swam/dipped near Dolgellau.
October
We explored the aquariums, museums and pubs of Lyme Regis in west Dorset, climbed up Golden Cap hill, met my parents’ new puppy, I went on my friend’s stag do near Bath, which involved clay pigeon shooting, paintballing and drinking, we visited Gilbert White’s museum and the Oates exhibition (notably the Antarctic section) in Selborne village, fished unsuccessfully at Todber, walked around the New Forest and went to the local pub for a Halloween party.
November
I played rugby for the first time since before lockdown, visited the puppy as much as possible, went to a best friend’s beautiful wedding in the New Forest, spent a day exploring Bradford on Avon, took the pup to Meon beach and tried to keep up with a heavy workload. We spent a weekend in Brecon with some friends, which involved completing the Pen y Fan horseshoe hike (Fan y Big, Cribyn, Pen y Fan and Corn Du) in below freezing 70mph gusts and drinking enough to write off the next day.
December
Suddenly Christmas loomed. We walked the pup (and my parents) up the zig zag at Selborne, I went for a tough 32 mile mountain bike ride across the Forest in freezing winds and explored Bristol after a practically unheard of day in the office, we mountain biked the blue and red routes at Swinley Forest, bouldered and climbed at Portland with Ryan’s younger brother Adam, rode our bikes at Moors Valley with Gus, had a Christmas climbing social and have spent Christmas seeing a lot of family and getting (quite frankly) fat and drunk.
And so ends a turbulent year. I think I’m getting better at keeping my life in order – occasionally I tidy my room now and I’m sure I eat more spinach. Progress is progress. I’m never really sure which direction I’m going in, but wherever it is I just have as much fun as possible along the way, and although sometimes idiotic I try to be a good person. I’m not yet rich enough to travel the world or influential enough to stop climate change, but I’ll keep trying – maybe next year.
Endnote: I’ve kept it to one photo per month for the sake of my ebbing sanity, and that was tough enough… read my other posts for more pictures!
The Snowdon Horseshoe is a classic hiking/scrambling route which follows the ridges and peaks that run around Snowdon’s east side in a distinctive horseshoe shape. It takes in the perilous knife-edge balancing act of the Crib Goch arete, with its vertigo-inducingly steep drop offs either side, the epic scrambles of Garnedd Ugain and Y Lliwedd, the ever-popular Snowdon summit and on a clear day, some breathtaking panoramic views.
We woke early in our picturesque camping spot in the Dyffryn Mymbyr valley, quickly sorted the van, grabbed our ready-packed bags and headed west along the A4086. Ahead of us, Snowdon and its surrounding peaks were bathed in the golden early morning sun. After a few minutes we passed the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel and entered the dramatic Llanberis Pass, where the narrow, twisty road snakes between steep, undulating ridges covered in scrubby grass and an absurd amount of slate-grey rock, of which some towers as formidable vertical slab and some blankets the hillsides in large, loose boulderfields. The low drystone walls that line the road look incredibly small in that wild landscape.
We drove past Pen y Pass, the car park and youth hostel where some of the most popular routes up Snowdon begin, and were shocked to see that it now costs £18 to park for 8 hours, £25 for 12 and £40 for 24, and parking must be booked over a day in advance. We carried on down the valley for a couple of miles and stopped at the large park and ride car park in the tiny village of Nant Peris, nestled deep in the Llanberis valley. It’d usually cost £6 to park for the day but the ticket machine wasn’t working, so we chanced it and left a note in the windscreen before kitting up (in a bit of a rush) and hopping on the early morning Sherpa bus back to Pen y Pass.
The Pyg Track
From Pen y Pass, we set off west along the Pyg track and plodded on for about a mile. The terrain was rocky and moderately steep, and looking down the Llanberis Pass the low sun behind us highlighted the yellowish grass, the long, black shadows cast by jagged rocks and the deep blue sky which implied a beautiful clear day. After a strenuous couple of miles we overshot the right fork that leads up to Crib Goch, but realised after about a minute and retraced our steps to cross a wall and realise the hidden path, which was less well-trodden than the Pyg.
Crib Goch
After branching right, the real steepness began. The way up Crib Goch is certainly a scramble rather than a hike, and we pulled, pushed and climbed our way up the bare rock. The array of crampon marks and kind-of-paths all heading in the same direction suggested that there was no definitive right way up, so we just headed up the bits of rock that seemed most forgiving.
A lot of ascending and very little “as the crow flies” progress later, the terrain levelled off and we found ourselves on a rocky ridge overlooking the most beautiful panoramic landscape. The entire Snowdon horseshoe was clearly visible in a long, dark curve which towered over and around the glassy, blue-black waters of Glaslyn and Llyn Llydaw, and hazy peaks punctuated the distance in every direction above innocuous, wispy clouds.
We exchanged the generic “lovely day for it” with a couple of hikers having a snack before the Crib Goch traverse, then I led the way along the narrow, uneven, precipitous ridge. To the right, the ground dropped away so sickeningly that it wasn’t worth thinking about the consequences of a small slip. To the left, you’d be lucky to get away with a couple of broken legs. It was exhilarating. Despite the seriousness of any potential fall, we were quite sure-footed and decided that a fall was unlikely in the dry, clear conditions, so we crossed the arete fairly quickly.
Garnedd Ugain
Once across the knife edge, the next section involved an exciting scramble up, around and across more jagged masses of bare rock until we reached the trig point at the mini-summit of Garnedd Ugain, which is really just a high point along the long ridge between Crib Goch and Snowdon. We watched a red and white rescue helicopter hovering dead still and low above a flat, grassy plateau on the ridge opposite us, along the path we’d take after summiting Snowdon, and decided it was a training exercise rather than an actual rescue. All the while we were surrounded by spectacular views over sprawling ridges, mountains and valleys, and over the back of that opposite ridge we could see out to the flatter, jutting coastline around Porthmadog.
Snowdon
From there, the way up Snowdon was a bimble. We followed the curve of the ridge round until we joined the Llanberis path, where most of the major routes up the mountain – the Miners, Pyg, Rangers, Llanberis and Crib Goch paths – meet and run parallel with the railway up the wide, gently inclining ridge on Snowdon’s north side. Suddenly there were a lot more people, and we joined the pilgrimage for about 700 metres to reach the distinctive, stepped summit mound, where we queued (a little ashamedly, but it only took a few minutes) for a photo. We had lunch sat on the east side of the summit overlooking Glaslyn and the beautiful, sprawling landscape, thankful for clear weather. It was busy, but not unbearably so being a Monday and the train/summit café being shut – I’ve seen Snowdon much worse.
Y Lliwedd
Refuelled and amused by a couple of sheep that were forcibly interrupting picnics in search of snacks, we sent my dad a happy birthday video message and left the summit before the breeze got to us. We headed onwards down the Rhydd Ddu path, which descends Snowdon’s south side. It was steeper and considerably less busy than the Llanberis path to the north – the majority walk up and down the Miners/Llanberis paths. After a couple of hundred metres we took a sharp left onto the Watkin path, which set our course east, back towards the dark blue water of Llyn Llydaw and in the far distance, invisible behind rocky ridges, our destination – Pen y Pass.
The first half mile was a rocky, steep hike, almost verging on a scramble, down Snowdon’s south east side. It then flattened out a bit and we walked along the path, taking in the view. Ahead of us Y Lliwedd loomed dramatically: its right side swept majestically in a long, gentle curve down to the bottom of another huge cwm*, backed by layers of ridges, hills and eventually flat coastline, and its left dropped away, an intimidatingly high, dark face of bare grey, almost vertical rock.
At the base of the long Y Lliwedd ridge, we left the Watkin path and continued up the bare rock of the jagged mountain. We were scrambling once again, using hands almost as much as feet up the steep ridge, but the climbing was very straightforward and not nearly as exposed as Crib Goch. Eventually we reached the top of the long scramble and were rewarded by stunning views over the almost unrealistically blue, green and grey-brown landscape in front, made up of the rugged, grassy-rocky cwm sides, glassy lake in its belly and hazy, distant ridges under a deep blue sky, which was broken only by a low scattering of fluffy white clouds.
The Home Straight
We walked along the curved ridge in awe of and slightly overwhelmed by the world, then descended down the more gradual, grassy, unreasonably picturesque slope of its north east side. We reached the edge of Llyn Llydaw, crossed a wooden footbridge and joined the Miners track back to Pen y Pass. I’ve walked this path several times and it never gets shorter; it’s very well-trodden, relatively flat and seems to take forever, although it doesn’t really matter because the scenery is beautiful the whole way. The mountains loomed behind us over the huge, bowl-like, two-tier cwm containing the two lakes, and high, grassy, rocky ridges ran above us either side. Ahead of us the distant, rolling landscape was visible in the V at the end of the valley, as if affording us a glimpse into another world.
The Miners track snaked between smaller ridges, past little Llyn Teyrn and around the end of the lumpy mass of rock that eventually leads up to Crib Goch. The two miles we spent on that path were almost languid, and we reached the Pen y Pass car park just before 2.30pm, which was several hours earlier than we’d expected based on reports from guidebooks/google. The weather had very much been on our side – the horseshoe was obviously a totally different game in wet, windy or winter conditions – but we were pleased to have made it round with a moving time of just under 4 and a half hours at what we considered a leisurely pace.
The Snowdon Horseshoe had been very high on our to-do list for a very long time, so we celebrated its completion with a couple of drinks from the Pen y Pass youth hostel bar. We sat outside basking in the warm afternoon sun and before I knew it I was tipsy, fast approaching full-blown drunk, on a cider and a (single) gin. After an hour or so we got on the double decker bus (front seats at the top, of course – the best view of Llanberis Pass) back to the van.
Evening
Pleased to find that we hadn’t received a parking ticket, we wandered over to the nearby Vaynol Arms, only to find it closed on Mondays. Unfazed, Ryan drove us back along the Llanberis Pass, past the layby we camped in and through Capel Curig to the Tyn y Coed pub we’d been impressed by after climbing Tryfan on Friday. He charmed the very friendly manager into letting us stay in their large car park overnight, and in return we sat in a corner of the pub for a good couple of hours. We planned the following day by poring over climbing books, phoned my dad to say happy birthday and grovel for once again being away on an adventure, ate a pizza and a burger (respectively, not each) and had a couple of drinks before retiring to the van, which was tucked away under some leafy trees, for an early night. Needless to say we slept well.
*a cwm is kind of a three-sided valley / bowl with a single opening
We agreed to have a “rest” day following the excitement (and mild trauma) of the previous day’s climbing excursion up Tryfan. Neither of us had been to Anglesey before so we decided to embark on a road trip around the island, stopping at various places recommended by our Wild Guide – shoutout to Angus (my long-suffering brother) for an excellent birthday present, although I know it was probably mum’s idea.
After watching the morning mist rise above Llyn Ogwen, scrabbling down to the water’s edge for a refreshing face wash, sorting out various bits of van admin and appreciating the beauty of the valley over breakfast, we set off northwest, between the hulking mountains that tower over the A5. We drove through the greyish town of Bethesda, past the outskirts of Bangor and across the attractive, stone-and-steel Menai suspension bridge, which spans the Menai Strait to connect Anglesey to the mainland.
Anglesey is kind of egg-shaped, with a big shark’s fin sticking out of its eastern side and a smaller lump of land barely attached to its western side by two bridges. We planned to drive around it anti-clockwise and our first stop was Beaumaris, a small, seaside town on the shark’s fin. The short drive there was along an attractive coastal road looking across the Menai Strait and back towards the dark, fog-shrouded mountains of the mainland, and our first impressions of the island were of a clean, pretty and peaceful place.
Beaumaris town
These impressions were confirmed when we reached the town’s quaint, pastel-painted streets and parked in an empty car park which seemed to be shared by the community, leisure and medical centres. We walked past a moated, compact and nearly-intact castle onto a small square where we found the Old Court House Museum, which was – to my considerable disappointment – closed.
We wandered through a small street to the seafront, where a large grassy car park charged £5 a day, a kiosk advertised boat trips, a long pier and adjacent small, triangular beach jutted into the water and people ambled lazily along the promenade. It was quietly busy – there was enough bustle that it didn’t feel like a ghost town, but not so much that we were peopled out.
As usual Ryan was after a snack, so we cut through an alley onto the high street. The buildings were attractive and of varying styles, and we particularly liked a tiny old beamed cottage – now an estate agent’s – dating back to about 1400. It claimed to be one of the oldest houses in Britain and it had a door which only just came up to Ryan’s shoulders.
We found a lovely old-fashioned butchers/deli a short way down the colourful street, where Ryan treated “us” to a small lamb and mint pie, a scotch egg and a bottle of dandelion and burdock. We ate it back at the small square by the castle, then went back to the van to continue our island tour.
Baron Hill abandoned mansion
As I started writing about Baron Hill, I realised that it deserves its own post which you can read here. This is a shortened account.
We found Baron Hill in the Wales Wild Guide, which describes it as “an extraordinary and completely overgrown ruined country mansion and gardens”. As it was nearby we thought we’d look for it, not knowing what to expect. We parked in a housing estate on the edge of the town and followed the book’s obscure directions across a road and over a shoulder-high wall into a wood thick with mature trees, shrubs and near-impenetrable rhododendron.
We stumbled across the old garden first, which was made up of several strange, waist-high old greenhouse foundations hidden in the thickets. A large walled garden appeared through the trees, nearly absorbed by Jurassic-Park-esque vegetation. Tiptoeing tentatively along the length of the high wall, struggling to imagine this overgrown jungle as a once-productive, bright, blooming courtyard, we found the stables and servants’ quarters.
Five or six large, symmetrical arches beckoned us down a long corridor lined by overgrown, roofless stables and servants’ rooms. Patterned tiles clung desperately to the walls, and the occasional fireplace, horse stall and water trough served as a slightly unsettling reminder of the place’s forgotten grandeur. Ivy crept everywhere and undergrowth hid most, but not all, the detritus from the broken rooms.
Then we found the house. We stepped out of the corridor and our eyes were drawn upwards, just above the tree canopy, to the corner of an enormous, neo-classical mansion rising above the jungle, well into the process of being devoured by ivy. Fascinated, we approached the three-storey building, which been thoroughly reclaimed by nature. Huge, frameless windows and doors granted access to the inside, which was empty of all the things that should be in a house but full to the brim with vegetation, detritus and the eerie caw of crows. It was devoid of humanity, a shell of a once-glorious home, yet abundant with life – plants, mosses, lichens, birds and insects.
It was an extraordinary place. For more descriptive waffling [shameless plug alert] I urge you (again) to read my separate post about it.
We tore ourselves away from the towering walls and after a quick go on the rope swing we found around the back of the house, fought our way through the thick wood and back to the van.
Din Lligwy ancient settlement
We drove 20 minutes northwards along the east side of Anglesey to the roadside parking at Din Lligwy, a trio of ancient sites. We missed out the first one – a Neolithic burial chamber – in the interests of time, as we’d poked around Baron Hill for longer than planned and wanted to see the rest of the island. A short walk across a grassy meadow took us to the second site, a pretty, compact 12th century chapel ruin with a lovely view over fields that stretched down to the sweeping curve of Lligwy Bay.
A bit further on we found the third site surrounded by leafy woodland. Din Lligwy is a small Romano-British village dating back to the Bronze or Iron Age, whose huge stone foundations mark the positions of several round and rectangular buildings. I imagined the bustle of the old walled settlement, the fires that would have been lit to warm the huts and the simple (if perilous) lives people once lived, and I tried to work out how on earth they manoeuvred those enormous rocks around.
The short walk back to the van was pleasant, through wood and meadow and past a sheep field. Anglesey had impressed us so far, with its rolling green hills, well-spaced towns, smooth roads and air of quiet self-containment.
Parys Mountain copper mines
The next place of interest was another 20 minute drive north. Parys Mountain is a huge copper mining site set high up on a hill with panoramic views of the Anglesey countryside. We parked in the large, free car park and walked up a large bank of loose, orange-brown gravel. As we climbed, the excavated landscape opened out around us: an enormous plateau of hillocks, banks, ridges and dips made of compact earth and rock covered in shale, which seemed to span the colour spectrum from reddish brown through several shades of pink to bright orange and yellow. It was like we’d wandered onto another planet.
We spotted an old stone windmill tower and walked towards it through the alien landscape along a yellow-orange track. It was dry and desert-like except for the swathes of coarse brown heather that grew everywhere in large patches, somehow finding nutrients in the loose, pinky-orange ground. The windmill was on a high point and we looked around at the Anglesey countryside. The sleek white wind turbines and rolling green fields contrasted strangely with the arid plateau where we stood.
After reading about the old copper mines, we wandered down another track and came to the top of what I can only describe as a small canyon, a bathtub-shaped hollow over 200 feet deep that was formed by the excavation of 3.5 million tonnes of rock by 1,500 men in the late 18th century. It looked as if the land had been gorged out by a giant ice cream scoop, and it was amazing to think that humans had created this vast landscape by hand. The steep banks were a rich yellow-orange-pink colour and dark heather blanketed patches of the dry, loose rock. It was very wild west, like we’d just walked into a cowboy film, and it reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of Utah or Arizona. Hard to believe it was rainy old Wales.
We squeezed through an irresistible gap between some large orange-brown rocks, found another bit of canyon on the other side, then started heading back around the giant bathtub towards the van. We spotted a cave halfway down one of the steep banks and obviously scrabbled down to investigate, disappointed to discover that it was just a hollow in the rock as opposed to the old mine shaft we’d hoped for. We walked all the way along the long edge of the gorge, took a last look at the incredible scenery, scrambled back over the loose mounds and got back to the van just as it started to drizzle, our minds slightly blown by the other-worldliness of the place and the travesty that we’d never even heard of it.
Holyhead & South Stack
The next section of the road trip was a 40 minute drive around the north and west of the island. This took us through swathes of lush farmland and across a tidal spit to Holy Island, a small, sticky-outey lump of land halfway down Anglesey’s western edge, until we reached a big petrol station on the outskirts of the town of Holyhead. We refuelled the van, grabbed a few bits from Tesco and drove through the busy, slightly shabby-looking streets towards South Stack.
We found the car park a couple of miles west of the town along a narrow, twisty, dead-end road. We wandered up to the clifftop and spent a good few minutes just looking at the view. To the south, sheer grey cliffs dropped into the flat water, grass and vegetation breaking up their hardness in all the nooks and crannies where roots could take hold. The coastline was far from straight like the long stretches of the Dorset coast where we usually climb, but “squiggly”, as if an imaginative child had drawn the line between land and sea and chosen to embellish it with lots of little headlands, inlets and sticky-outey bits. This made the cliffs look wild, rugged and very intriguing, and we watched slightly enviously as a couple of tiny climbers clung to the rough rock faces. Behind them a finger of land jutted out into the sea, and behind that the blue haze of the mainland mountains resembled the scaley back of a sleeping dragon.
South Stack is a tiny island attached to Holy Island by a footbridge, which is accessed by climbing down a lot of zig-zagging steps. We didn’t fancy paying to go over, so we just climbed down a few steps for a good view of the iconic white lighthouse perched on the grassy, rocky hump. It was a stunning, bleak clifftop view. The dead calm, blue-grey sea took up most of my field of vision, stretching an impossibly long way to the crisp horizon which itself seemed impossibly wide, and the soft grey sky looked like strokes of a watercolour brush.
We heard a few people making a fuss about something and looked over to where they were pointing. It was worth visiting South Stack for the next couple of minutes alone. I watched through my binoculars as a group of dolphins drifted lazily around the bay to the right of the lighthouse, five or six dorsal fins appearing and disappearing above the surface at once. I’d never seen dolphins before so I was very excited, and I watched them until a couple of jetskis appeared and they dived down out of sight. We also saw a bulky grey seal bobbing in the water near the rocks of South Stack and a lot of choughs, whose bright red beaks and legs contrast with their jet black feathers.
We wandered back up the steps and up the hill to a lookout hut, took in the brown, heathy, wild clifftops and hills to the north, and agreed that as much as we’d love to keep exploring, we were also keen to see Betws-y-Coed on a Saturday evening.
“Back to Betsy”
We hopped in the van and drove back to the mainland along Anglesey’s south side. I’d wanted to explore Newborough Forest nature reserve and some of the beaches but we were pressed for time as we wanted to eat out in Betws-y-Coed, so we admired the sand dunes from the van and decided to come back another time. We crossed the bridge, slipped back into the mountains and made it to the town with plenty of daylight left.
We found a discrete parking spot, wandered onto Sappers Suspension Bridge to look at the river, then went to find somewhere to eat. An ultramarathon had finished on the grassy rec in the middle of town that day, so everywhere was rammed. Hangin’ Pizzeria had an hour’s wait, the queue for Y Stabblau pub snaked way back into the Cotswold car park and Gwydyr Hotel had stopped doing food, although we had a drink there. We decided to go back to the pizzeria and drink through the wait. It was so worth it – out of all the pizzas I’ve ever eaten, this came second only to pizza from a renowned pizzeria in Italy (featured in this post, not sorry), despite being vegan. After food and a couple of drinks on an outside table, we watched bemusedly as the heavens opened around the canopy we were sheltered under, hammering water down with the unrelenting fury of Welsh rain clouds. Somehow we managed to get across to Y Stabblau for a drink and then back to the van wet, but not quite drowned.
This was going to be part of my upcoming Anglesey-in-a-day post recounting the second day of our recent Snowdonia trip, but I think it deserves its own.
We found Baron Hill in the Wales Wild Guide, which describes it as “an extraordinary and completely overgrown ruined country mansion and gardens”. We were in Beaumaris anyway and as the place was nearby we thought we’d look for it, not knowing what to expect. We parked in a housing estate on the edge of the town and followed the book’s obscure directions across a road and over a shoulder-high wall into a wood thick with mature trees, shrubs and near-impenetrable rhododendron.
Garden
We wandered through the thick vegetation along narrow, criss-crossing paths. We were a little dubious until we came to a strange, rectangular structure made of waist-high stone, like the bottom half of a long room. I thought it might have been some kind of water tank or outdoor pool until we found several others nearby, all nestled in the trees. I’m still not entirely sure what they are and can’t find much about them online, but my guess is that they were the foundations of greenhouses or similar outhouses.
Next we came across a long brick wall with shallow, symmetrical alcoves and an arch leading into a large, extremely overgrown courtyard garden. Nearly every inch of brick had been consumed by ivy, the floor was smothered by ferns that looked straight out of Jurassic Park and skeletal greenhouses retreated shyly into leaf cover. It was enchanting. I looked at Google Maps on satellite view to guide us to the house, as its straight walls are easily visible from above as a fascinating, overgrown floorplan nestled in the trees.
Stables & Servants’ Quarters
It was hard to believe that we’d actually find anything as the vegetation was so thick, but suddenly we were standing in front of a building with high stone walls and an open corridor formed by several large, rectangular, perfectly repeating arches. It was obviously a big building but it was difficult to tell where the architecture ended and nature began, as the two had seemingly fused into one inseparable whole. What little was left of the roof had fallen to the floor and mostly been absorbed by roots, leaves and tendrils.
We walked along the corridor and looked curiously into the large rooms that lined its left hand side. Through the ivy, ferns and now-resident trees we saw the remnants of colourful, patterned tiles, strange semi-circular recesses set into the walls and what looked like a rusty, once-elaborate metal divider of the type used for separating horse stalls. This object, along with the large arches, occasional fireplace and several water troughs stationed along the corridor, suggested that this building – despite its apparent bygone grandeur – was perhaps just the stables and servant’s quarters.
Mansion
At the end of the corridor we turned right and our eyes were drawn instantly upwards, just above the canopy of trees. If this were a novel I’d say we found ourselves rooted to the spot with dropped jaws, rendered speechless by astonishment. This is not a novel so I’ll leave out the embellishment, but the sight of the enormous, ancient-Rome-or-Athens-esque building rising from the jungle in front of us, well into the process of being devoured by ivy, really was like nothing I’d ever seen before. We approached it almost apprehensively, instantly struck by the eerie juxtaposition of lavish grandeur and ruinous dereliction.
The house was three high-ceilinged storeys high, with huge windows that were empty apart from foliage, birds nests and the occasional remnant of a wooden frame. Stone doorways granted access to the inside, which was full of wild plants and building detritus, some of it teetering precariously against walls. The main entrance was a bit further on and on the same side, framed by four enormously high, ivy-covered columns and a colossal doorframe. Inside, only the basic structural elements were left to imply the house’s size and magnificence, with the occasional stubborn detail left as a strange reminder that this place was once a home. Bare walls (save for some graffiti) towered around us under an uncovered grey sky that seemed disproportionately small, particularly in the claustrophobic corridors, where the multitudinous wires of an old servant calling system hung suspended in an inextricable tangle. Thick RSJ beams spanned the huge rooms like bones, impervious to the decay of the grand floors, carpets and furniture they once supported. A staircase fell away to nothing after a few steps then started again a bit higher up, and trees grew from first and second floor iron fireplaces which were strange to view from below. We were captivated.
We explored the house with fascination and a little trepidation, well aware of its obvious structural un-soundness. We padded around the old rooms, crossed a plank of wood over a gap that hinted at a basement, and marvelled at the way nature had slowly, effortlessly and almost entirely reclaimed the land. The slightly sinister cawing of several nearby crows seemed to fill the walls, but otherwise it was completely still and pin-drop silent, as if time had stopped. The atmosphere is hard to describe; it felt like a place of contradictions – majestic but ruined, peaceful but eerie, benign but dangerous, neither dead nor alive, and constantly as if we were being quietly observed. A stark demonstration that where humanity ceases, nature thrives.
We could have explored all day but were conscious of time, so after a cautious poke around we went through to the other side of the house, where more window and door frames towered high above us and the remains of a huge trellis spanned all three storeys, seemingly held up only by the ivy that grew thickly on it. The place is clearly well-known by local kids, evident from the graffiti, the odd bit of rubbish and the rope swing that I couldn’t resist before we ducked and weaved our way back through the thick vegetation to the wall we’d clambered over about an hour before. Carefully avoiding the low barbed wire fence, presumably installed as a half-hearted way of preventing access to the private land, we dropped down over the wall and back into the real world.
I now fancy myself as the next Indiana Jones.
Endnote – the History
I can’t find much detail on the history of the place, but Wikipedia reliably tells me that the ruined mansion was built in 1618 by politician Sir Richard Bulkeley and has been in the family ever since, although it was reconstructed in its current style in 1776. During World War I, death duties (inheritance tax) depleted the Bulkeley fortune so much that they could no longer afford the upkeep and the house became used to station Royal Engineers. In 1939 the government requisitioned it to temporarily house Polish soldiers following the outbreak of World War II, but they found it too cold and started a fire in the hope they would be moved somewhere warmer. The fire destroyed much of the interior and the soldiers were removed – to tents in the grounds, ironically – and the abandoned mansion was left to nature.
What a week. We’ve just returned from an incredible trip to Snowdonia and the mountain blues have hit us like a steam train. Hiking, scrambling, climbing, mountain biking, an island road trip, a smidgeon of wild swimming and several pubs – the last few days have had everything I could have asked for and more.
Friday 17th September
We drove up on Thursday night and stayed in a layby just before Betws y Coed. After a good night’s sleep and eggs on toast for brekkie, we drove west along the A5 through the picturesque valley that cuts through the lush, green Gwydir Forest. Past the trees, the landscape opened out to wild country, where mountains sprawl lazily for miles across rugged land untainted by concrete or tarmac.
Little Tryfan
After a 20 minute drive we parked in the long layby on the A5 just after Gwern Gof Uchaf campsite, nestled in the Ogwen Valley. We fancied a gentle introduction to what we (rightly) anticipated would be a full-on week, so we started with some easy trad climbing on Little Tryfan, where I’d climbed with army cadets a decade ago and Ryan had climbed a couple of years ago. We tramped past Gwern Gof Uchaf and a short distance up the south side of the valley to the huge, slanting rock face, whose gentle angle and solid, grippy rock make it the perfect destination for new or casual climbers.
Most of the wall was being used by a big army group so we walked past them to the far end and climbed “Mossy Slab”, an easy two-pitch route graded HVD. I led the first pitch and Ryan led the second. Some of the gear was good but I found that several of the crack constrictions were “wrong” in that they were V-shaped and didn’t allow nut placements to correspond with the direction of fall, but the climbing was so easy that I was comfortable with running the gear out. At the top we paused to appreciate the stunning view of the Ogwen Valley, then walked down the rightward descent scramble.
We felt that Little Tryfan was one of those “if you’ve climbed one route, you’ve climbed them all” crags, so at the bottom I put forward a case for climbing “big” Tryfan. My arguments were:
the weather was drier and clearer than forecast,
we were part way there anyway,
we’d packed enough equipment to not have to return to the car, and
we’d already discussed climbing it via a certain route called First Pinnacle Rib.
Ryan put up precisely no resistance and insisted that he’d be fine in his battered old Nike skate shoes. It was one of those off-the-cuff decisions that lead to the best days out, and the verdict was unanimous. Off we went.
Tryfan: to Heather Terrace
The first bit involved a steep walk/scramble up to Heather Terrace, the path that runs roughly north-south along Tryfan’s east face and is characterised by uneven rock, unavoidable grey boulders, resolute purple heather and lovely high views over the valley of Cwm Tryfan. Heather Terrace is probably the gentlest and flattest route up Tryfan, a mountain whose summit requires at least a scramble regardless of which way you go.
Once we were in roughly the right place along the path, we searched the rock for the start of the climbing route. We’d eyed up First Pinnacle Rib (also called Overlapping Ridge Route), a classic VDiff multi-pitch that featured in both our new Rockfax book and Kev’s (Ryan’s dad) 1990 Constable guide, which Kev had climbed years before. We couldn’t easily tell exactly where the routes were as the rock to our right was high, steep and looked very much the same, and the photos in the guidebooks were taken from further back – we’d have fallen off the side of the mountain if we stepped back to gain the same vantage point.
After a frustrating 20 minutes or so I spotted “FPR” vaguely etched into a slab. Kev had told us that “1PR” was scratched at the bottom of the route, so we assumed that the “1” had been turned into an “F” at some point and didn’t investigate further. A few days later we spotted in the Rockfax book that FPR actually and misleadingly denotes the start of Pinnacle Rib Route, fortunately another classic VDiff which is next to First Pinnacle Rib, so that’s what we set out on.
Tryfan: Pinnacle Rib Route, the nice bit
We shoed, harnessed, helmeted, geared and roped up and I led the first pitch, an easy line up a big groove with good gear and solid holds. Ryan followed me up and led the second pitch up a rib, again with good gear and holds. I came up and led the third; we weren’t exactly following Rockfax’s instructions as to where to climb/belay, but just doing what looked good and felt right. I paused a couple of times to snack on some wild bilberries that grow on scrubby bushes all over the mountain.
The first slightly sketchy section came at what I thought was “Yellow Slab”, an infamous polished wall. With hindsight and research I don’t think it was Yellow Slab, but I found myself on a flat, vertical face covered in thin yellowish lichen, few holds and fewer gear placements, just past a flat ledge and out of Ryan’s view. I felt strong and confident so I pulled myself up, managed to place a small blue nut which subsequently popped out shortly after I climbed above it, and belayed from just above it – fortunately it was quite short.
We were enjoying the climbing hugely and flying up quickly until Ryan finished the fourth pitch and belayed me up. The sky was starting to cloud over and at one point I was climbing above a rainbow, which was cool. However, Ryan had gone slightly off-piste by climbing in whichever direction he liked the look of, and we weren’t entirely sure where we were. We read something in the book about walking rightwards for 20m and belaying, so we tramped right up some awkward wet, heathery ground and stopped at a slightly ominous-looking corner crack.
Tryfan: Pinnacle Rib Route? The ordeal
For reasons that will become clear, I don’t have any photos of this section. The weather had closed in, the stunning views had gone, we were starting to get damp and Type 1 fun was rapidly turning into Type 2. Looking a little reluctantly at the wet corner, I started up it and quickly realised that opportunities to place gear were scarce. It followed a crack up a corner between two fairly bare slabs which tilted towards each other at a shallow angle, not enough to properly bridge, meaning that I had to trust my shoes to grip the damp rock on tiny or next-to-no holds while I made some awkward upper body moves. The crack itself was slimy and mossy and the gear placements just got worse.
I climbed quite slowly, constantly weighing up whether to carry on or come down. The gear became so run-out that if I slipped it’d have been a ground fall onto the ledge where Ryan was belaying (very supportively and encouragingly despite his soaking wet shoes, to his credit), a fact of which I was painfully conscious. When I was climbing my head was calm, clear and acutely aware of everything, but when I paused to look for a much-needed gear placement I felt genuine fear. I’m not used to that feeling – there’s a difference between the adrenaline-inducing thrill of climbing above a bolt at a crag, flying down a steep mountain bike trail or scrambling along an exposed ridge, or even worrying a little that we’d get back later than planned after a big day out, and real, spine-chilling, one-wrong-move-means-hello-mountain-rescue fear.
Eventually I reached a good handhold where I placed two nuts. I didn’t allow relief to wash through me because the next few metres looked as bare as the previous few. I convinced myself to carry on, then proceeded to put myself through the same torment as before, with a long, run-out, balancey few moves up slippery rock until eventually (another potential ground fall later) I reached a horn of rock, which I threw a sling over, clipped into and fully exhaled for the first time in a good few minutes. From there I clambered up onto another horn, which I straddled tightly and belayed Ryan up from, genuinely relieved to be unscathed.
Ryan followed me up and congratulated me on being alive and unbroken, then led the next pitch up an awkward channel which luckily had plenty of gear placements. I followed him, a bit shaky from my belaying position, and met him at his belay. I was a bit disheartened not to see Adam and Eve, the two adjacent pillars that mark the summit, but after a slightly awkward scramble up a column of rock they emerged through the clag to our immense relief.
Tryfan: summit, descent
Ryan clambered up first and did the famous leap between the pillars to gain the “freedom of Tryfan”. I followed, still a little shaken from that hellish pitch, and jumped across before I could ponder the sheer drop to the left, the wide gap between the rocks or the slippery-looking, uneven surfaces on the tops. Ryan thought it funny to tell me I had to do it again as he’d missed the photo; I did not find it funny. Fortunately (for him) he’d captured it perfectly.
We swapped climbing shoes for Scarpa approach shoes / Nike pumps (joking that Ryan was now “that person” we hate to see up mountains), munched a cheese salad sandwich and walked down the steep south side of the mountain until we branched left and rejoined Heather Terrace. The terrain was awkward, uneven and very rocky, and our knees took a battering all the way down. The clag lifted as we descended, the landscape-defining artery of Nant Gwern y Gof appeared way below us to the right, and eventually the views over the long Ogwen Valley returned.
The Perfect Ending: pub, curry, van
We passed behind Little Tryfan, through Gwen Gof Uchaf and returned to the van around 5.30pm, pleased to see the bikes hadn’t been stolen and slightly amused that we’d only travelled just over 4 miles (2,000ft elevation aside). We threw our stuff in and drove the short distance down the A5 back to Tyn-y-Coed, a nice, welcoming pub Ryan had frequented on a previous trip with his brother. I was revived by a cider and an Irish coffee, then Ryan drove us back along the A5 to a car park by Llyn Ogwen, a wild, peaceful mountain lake overlooked by Tryfan.
Several vans were already parked up and there were no signs so we decided to settle for the evening. I cooked a Thai green chicken curry which was admittedly pretty good, especially after the day we’d had, and with hindsight, we could (almost) laugh about the strange route we’d taken up the mountain. We slept very well.
May bank holiday meant a free three-day opportunity to get away in the van, our first proper trip post-lockdown easing (excepting a quick foray in the South Downs). We left on Friday evening and found an excellent, out the way overnight spot on Bodmin Moor, the car park at Crowdy Reservoir, and spent the night under a jet black sky full of stars.
Saturday 1st May
I was up at 6am to go down to the water and watch the sunrise over the reservoir, which was very tranquil in the morning mist. After a lovely little walk I went back and badgered Ryan to get up, then we ate breakfast (a Subway salad we didn’t eat the night before, not even sorry) and drove along tiny, twisty roads to the discrete parking spot for the Devil’s Jump crag just west of Bodmin Moor, near Helstone.
Climbing at Bodmin Moor
We followed the instructions in the Rockfax guide to get to the crag, which took us uphill along a path and through a farm, over a wall (in slightly the wrong place, but we worked it out) and over open moorland past a bunch of cows. We approached the crag from above and saw what looked like a nest of crows on the left hand side of the rocky outcrop. We got a bit closer, realised to my excitement that it was actually a raven’s nest, and scrambled down the steep, overgrown bank to reach the bottom of the rock face.
While gearing up at the bottom we felt a few drips and realised that we’d been pooed on by a raven, which – if anything – added to the experience. We climbed the two-pitch, 24m VDiff South East Climb, the only route in the Rockfax guide. Ryan led the first pitch up the solid granite and I led the second. It was straightforward trad climbing up an obvious crack, as far as I can remember (I’m writing this three months late), which was a good thing as we were a bit out of practice post-lockdown. I belayed Ryan up to the top of the slabby face while enjoying stunning views over a long, wooded valley. At the top we jumped across a disconcertingly wide gap, clambered down the back side of the outcrop and scrabbled back down the bank to retrieve our stuff.
Porthcurno beach
We stopped at Asda in Bodmin to do a supermarket shop, then headed south west to Porthcurno. We’d considered stopping for an explore in Penzance and Mousehole, but the former was too busy and the latter was too awkward to park in. The car park at Porthcurno is set just above the beach, which is narrow and quite deep, nestled in between two rocky, grassy headlands. The water was Mediterranean blue, the sand glowed in the sun, and we’d found a new favourite place. We sat against the rocks on the right side of the beach and I pottered around the rockpools, considered a dip in the sea (but got no further), people watched – although it wasn’t too busy – and played Ryan at beach chess.
After a while we walked up the steep, grassy cliff on the other side of the beach and sat admiring the view on an old wartime pillbox. The bay in front of us was dream-like, with the deep blue water on the horizon fading gradually to clear azure as it stretched in to touch the yellow-grey rocks and nearly white sands of the small beaches. Having been in some form of lockdown for what felt like an age, we were so pleased to taste freedom again. With evening approaching, we walked back to the van and drove to Lands End.
Lands End
We parked on the grassy area towards the back of the large, mostly empty car park and after chatting to some other van people who’d decided to stay overnight, walked through the tourist complex to see the heathery cliffs of the UK’s most southwesterly point.. It was a very attractive place and I liked the whitewashed First & Last House sat alone against the wide sea and wild moorland, but in my opinion it was slightly spoilt by the visitor attractions, which include a Shaun the Sheep and Arthur’s Quest experience, eateries and gift shops. We took an obligatory signpost photo and went back to the van for stir fry. A bit later on we went back to watch the sunset over the sea, which was beautiful.
Sunday 2nd May
Climbing at Sennen Cove
In the morning we drove the short distance along the coast to the pretty village of Sennen, set overlooking the long stretch of white sand that is Sennen Beach. We parked in the harbour car park, grabbed our climbing gear and walked up the hill to an old coastguard lookout. The descent down to the climbing area was a steep, rocky scramble, and at the bottom we followed the large ledge around to the easy-looking climbs of Golva area on the right.
We spent the day ticking off some very easy grade climbs, including the Diff grades Junior’s Route, Senior’s Route and Staircase. We alternated leading, seconding and scrambling back down to go again. The rock was solid and the lines we took were up wide cracks – it was good to get back into the swing of trad climbing after so long, but we felt quite out of practice. Just being there was lovely after lockdown, and for a few hours the world was reduced to a high, grey-brown rock face, the deep blue sea stretched across the horizon and just us sandwiched in the middle under a clear blue sky.
Sennen Cove beach
The crag started to get busy by early afternoon, so we topped out and walked back down the hill to the van. We had lunch then walked along to Sennen Beach via a roundhouse gallery where I bought a map, and a tourist-type convenience shop where Ryan the child bought a couple of snorkels and a stunt kite.
The whitish sand sweeps across the curve of the bay in a long stretch between gentle green cliffs, and towards the back of the beach is a boulderfield made from large, sea-smoothed rocks. I spent a while collecting plastic from crevices between the rocks, mostly old rope and fishing line, and was amazed (and saddened) by how much there was.
We went back to the van, had a gin and decided to squeeze an evening climb in – I think it was the mod grade Sinner’s Route. We were pleased that the crag had emptied and glad for the late sun. Back at the van we spent the night talking, cooking (or watching Ryan cook, on my part) stir fry and playing chess. The harbour car park allowed overnight stays, so we tucked the van in a corner and slept peacefully by the sea.
Monday 3rd May
We’d hoped to go snorkelling but the sea was grey and choppy, so we thought better of it. After a good explore of the rock pools just below the harbour car park at Sennen, we started making our way slowly home.
Padstow
First we stopped at Padstow, a very pretty old fishing village on the north Cornish coast. Annoyingly but not surprisingly as it was bank holiday Monday, it was heaving with people. We parked by the lobster hatchery (sadly closed at the time) and walked the short distance to the small harbour, which is surrounded on three sides by quaint pubs, cafes and shops selling fish, chips, coffee, boaty-type clothes and a hundred million varieties of pasty. We walked round to the far side to look at the fishing boats, then headed up the narrow, bustling streets to look in some of the surf-type shops. This time Ryan the child bought a skateboard, which we’ve both since fallen off quite spectacularly.
Port Isaac
Feeling a bit peopled out, we left Padstow and drove north east along little roads to Port Isaac, where Doc Martin was filmed. We parked at the top of the hill and walked down the steep slope into the village, the majority of which sits in a tight little bowl connected to the sea by a narrow opening in the harbour wall. It was another very pretty, quaint and cosy place, with steep, narrow streets lined with a mix of quirky stone, whitewashed, painted and slated cottages.
We walked up the hill on the other side of the harbour to Doc Martin’s house (just to send a photo to Ryan’s mum) and poked around some back streets to find “squeezy belly alley”, which was once recorded as the world’s narrowest thoroughfare. Charmed by the timeless little streets, we grabbed a drink from an outdoor bar on the harbour, sat and watched the seagulls and reluctantly traipsed back up the hill to the van (via the Co-op for road snacks to dampen the back-to-work-tomorrow feeling) and headed home, refreshed in equal measures by the sea air and the taste of freedom.
We drove down in the evening and met our friend Gus in the car park near the Square and Compass pub at Worth Matravers. This pub is something special – I’ve mentioned it before but on reflection it deserves its own post, so I won’t go into detail. We turned up, ordered three Kiss me Kate ciders and drank in the garden, enjoying the mild summer air and sea views.
Once we were a pint or so in and approaching the giggly stage, a Spanish band started playing from a small gazebo next to us. We didn’t understand a word but appreciated some post-covid, impromptu live music, especially when the keyboardist came out with an impressive solo and the singer donned some bright yellow, horizontal-barred sunglasses with flashing rims which had no business being designed, manufactured or worn, but somehow added to the slightly trippy atmosphere.
My hazy memory suggests that we chatted to the singer and came away with some random band stickers, listened to a mind-numbingly repetitive encore song which had approximately two chords and precisely two lyrics – te and amo – , stayed until (and a bit beyond) last orders, got unintentionally drunk and (on my part) threw up outside the van. I’m not proud, so I’ll move onto the next day.
Saturday 28th August: Paddleboarding Winspit to Swanage, 6.5 miles
Gus slept in the pop-top roof of the van and reported that it was surprisingly comfy, although I suspect he’s too polite to say anything less. We had bacon and sausage sandwiches for breakfast, packed a day’s worth of paddleboarding stuff and walked the mile-or-so down the beautifully green, wild valley to the sea-level ledge at Winspit. After some exertion, the three paddleboards were pumped up and launched.
Section 1: Winspit to Dancing Ledge
We paddled away from the shore and looked back on the sheer limestone cliffs that dominate the long Purbeck coastline, topped by rolling green fields under a blue sky punctuated by fluffy, harmless-looking white clouds. The weather was dry and the sea was fairly calm, but an annoying north-easterly headwind hampered our progress and disturbed the water enough to make travelling in a straight line very difficult for me, as I’d borrowed Tom’s short-finned river/lake paddleboard.
A kayaker passed us and asked if everything was okay, which we perhaps should have taken as a warning. I told him we were fine and enjoying our trip from Winspit to Swanage and he looked at me as if I was positively mad.
After a frustrating half hour Ryan and I swapped, realised to my amusement that he was heavy enough to submerge the board, then both jumped on the family-sized board that Gus had lent us. We paddled along happier, towing the other board, speaker blaring one of my questionable Spotify playlists. Gus flew ahead at an impressive speed on his racing board, which cut through the water like soft butter.
We passed some big caves, resisting the temptation to take a closer look as we realised that reaching Swanage might be an ambitious task. Hedbury Quarry seemed to take forever to pass, and eventually we reached a very busy Dancing Ledge after about an hour and a half.
Section 2: Dancing Ledge to Durlston Lighthouse
Lunch at Dancing Ledge was a good idea as it broke up the journey, lifted our spirits and gave the tens of people sitting and swimming there a chuckle as we attempted to beach and re-launch the boards over the sharp-barnacled, uneven rock ledges. Ryan’s homemade Scotch eggs went down a treat – I think he’s finally found his calling.
The wind seemed to die down along this section, which was by far the most pleasant. We paddled happily along the calm surface as the sun warmed our skin, and even when it clouded over the air was still mild. “You’re Beautiful” came on the speaker and Gus fell in the water, presumably due to James Blunt-induced overexcitement, and we watched a handful of climbers making their way up the blocky limestone cliffs. It was interesting to see the areas we usually climb from this angle because the abseil-in trad climbing at Swanage tends to feel quite lonely, as if there’s noone else on the rock, but there were quite a few people fairly close together who wouldn’t have been able to see each other.
Section 3: Durlston Lighthouse to Peveril Point (AKA Peril Point)
After another hour along the long, straight section of cliffs we reached Anvil Point and Durlston Lighthouse, which had taunted us for so long by not appearing to get any closer. This stretch changed our course from due east to north-east, so the land no longer sheltered from the chilly northeasterly wind.
It took us a painfully long time to get past some people fishing at Tilly Whim caves, then along to Durlston Head. We stoicly rejected the offer of a tow from a jetski, paddled hard as the strange little turrets of Durlston Castle on our left barely moved at all, and fought the frighteningly strong currents around the corner between Durlston Bay and the open sea.
Eventually, after some soul-destroyingly slow progress, we made it around the headland and into the less-windy-but-still-quite-choppy Durlston Bay. This was tough news to swallow as I’d forgotten that this bay lies between Durlston Head and Swanage, so had expected to turn the corner and see the finish line. Exasperated but kind of bemused, we pushed northwards along the wild, empty bay using land reference points to check that we were actually moving, watched enviously as Gus made the whole thing look easy, and regrouped just before Peveril Point to agree how to approach the treacherous-looking thin, rocky spit.
Section 4: Peveril Point to Swanage beach
Acutely aware of the lookout station directly to our left and the numerous people observing our plight, probably with a mixture of concern and amusement, we adopted a plan to paddle aggressively past the rocky finger as if striding confidently into battle. Gus went first and again made it look easy, although he later confessed that his life had flashed before his eyes and he thought the end was nigh.
Ryan and I reached the choppy water, which looked as if a frenzy of sharks were feeding just below the surface, and paddled hard. I thought things were under control until I glanced left at the rocks and realised that we were making absolutely no progress whatsoever. I irritably expressed my concern when Ryan decided to point out (using his paddle, which at that moment should have been being used as a paddle) how mesmerising the calm water ahead of us was. Recoiling at the telling-off, he returned to paddling and we made it past the choppy section, thinking we were in the clear.
As it turned out, I was right to be suspicious about the rolling, mesmerisingly calm water that appeared abruptly beyond the choppy bit. We quickly realised that the flattest sea was in fact the worst, where the currents are strongest, and I watched hopelessly as the water pulled us effortlessly back. Ryan said something along the lines of “let’s go as hard as we can”, I refrained from sarcastically replying “you reckon”, and we paddled our sorry little shoulders off to get out of the current. The paddleboard we were towing was pulling us back and it took nearly everything we had to paddle fast and hard enough to escape, but by some miracle we eventually made it out before muscle fatigue set in.
From there it was plain sailing through the gentle water of Swanage Bay. We paddled triumphantly past the people watching us near the lookout station, between the moored up boats, under the pier and onto the southern end of the busy beach. Relieved to feel solid land beneath our feet, we checked in with Gus to make sure he struggled with Peveril (later named Peril) Point too – he reassured us that he did – and we packed up our stuff.
A few celebratory drinks
We traipsed through the busy streets of Swanage and quickly found ourselves in the tucked-away garden of the White Swan with a cold pint each. The customary post-adventure, post-near-death-experience debrief ensued and we laughed about how – with hindsight – oddly enjoyable the journey had been, and how – even with hindsight – it wasn’t quite all enjoyable. A combination of all day sun, exposure to the elements, hunger, fatigue, relief and on my part lightweightedness meant that the alcohol got to us quite quickly.
We caught the bus from Swanage to Acton with our big paddleboard bags and walked a mile across a field and along a quiet road back to the van. To the others’ delight I managed to flick a big dollop of wet sheep poo up the back of my legs, thanks to my April to October flip-flop policy. We met Tom and Cam (Tom’s girlfriend) in the car park, had a discrete barbecue as we watched the sun set, then returned to the Square and Compass to while the night away. After last orders we came back to the van to talk more rubbish and play card games, but I don’t remember much of that.
Sunday 29th August: Snorkelling and climbing at Winspit
Sunday was comparatively relaxed. After breakfast the five of us walked down to the sea-level ledge at Winspit and had a dip in the sea, with varying levels of reluctance. On jumping in I dropped my snorkel mask, which was thankfully retrieved by Ryan. The others messed around while I snorkelled over colourful rocks covered in all kinds of barnacles, anemones, plants and algae, underwater forests of long, gently swaying seaweed and fish, including large, tropical-looking red, yellow, blue and green wrasse.
We sat talking, eating, drinking and people/dog watching on the flat, rocky ledge, enjoying the sun. Around mid-afternoon we persuaded a reluctant Gus to try rock climbing, so we walked up the bank to Winspit west Quarry and Ryan led Bread Knife, a grade 4 sport climb up a corner crack with a couple of tricky-ish moves for the grade. I belayed while Gus trembled his way up (in Vans as Ryan’s shoes didn’t fit him, poor boy), until he reached a difficult section and decided that the most sensible option was to come down. He did a good job of putting on a brave face – we only realised his genuine terror once he was back on the ground.
I toproped the climb, came down, then toproped again to clean it once we realised Gus wasn’t getting back on the wall. Having successfully managed to put him off climbing, we walked back up the valley to Worth Matravers, all jumped in Tom and Cam’s van and went down the road to the Scott Arms at Kingston for dinner.
We were pleased to find that their outdoor Jamaican shack was open and serving food for the first time since we’d been there, so we found a table in the busy garden overlooking Corfe Castle and ordered various jerk dishes. We were all starving and the food seemed to take an age to come, but it was so worth it once it did – I’ve never had proper Jamaican food before and it was lovely – sweet, spicy and incredibly satisfying. We enjoyed the evening sun and the lovely view (but not so much the occasional sewage smell coming from a drain in the garden) over a couple of drinks, then Tom and Cam went home ready to work the following day.
The remaining three of us walked 3 miles back to Worth Matravers as the sun was setting, through a cattlefield and along a wild, narrow, steep-sided wooded valley on a path filled with slugs and stinging nettles. I’m glad I took a headtorch because it was absolutely pitch black when I turned it off. We emerged in a field at the back of Worth and walked to the Square and Compass via the cobbled village. The rest of the evening involved mead, jelly snakes, deep conversations, admiring the mustard walls and eclectic décor and a visit to the pub’s fossil museum.
Monday 30th August: Mountain biking at Puddletown Forest
We got up, packed up, had a classic van breakfast of eggs in purgatory and headed about half an hour west to Puddletown Forest, where Gus knew some mountain bike trails.
Puddletown Forest is a large area of Forestry Commission leased woodland interspersed by bridleways, firebreaks and footpaths. It’s quite hilly and after a climb up a sandy, gravelly track, we emerged from the trees onto a high, heathery ridge. Mountain bikers have carved natural trails through the heather and the first section we did was very narrow, overgrown and scratchy, which woke us up and started the adrenaline pump.
From there we went to find a couple of bombhole-type bits with flowy jumps and steep drop-ins. I’m confident downhill but very much in the learning stage of jumping a bike, so I messed about on my own while the other two flew around all over the place. Some of the jumps looked crazy – way too ambitious for any of us – and I wonder how on earth people manage them. The ground was nice, compact dirt, but the tree roots were a bit annoying as they threatened to throw wheels off course at the most inconvenient moments.
We spent the rest of the afternoon riding around looking for more trails, which cropped up either side of the bridleways and provided some lovely singletrack riding. Some of it was quite committing (mainly because of the loose ground, roots, steepness and drop-offs) but we made it round fine. The trails have been named but the location feature of Gus’s Trail Forks app was playing up, so we had no idea where we were or how to get to each one; instead we ended up riding along until we saw something that looked good. One trail in particular had a lovely section of flowing, S-shaped berms, and another had some fun, technical rooty downhill.
I felt quite sluggish after a long weekend of exertion, drinking and a less-than-ideal amount of sleep, but I really enjoyed the riding and I’ll definitely come back. It’s the kind of place where you have to spend time to work out how to get around, but I’m sure that once you do it’s easier to link the trails together and cut down on the firebreak/gravel track riding.
Tired and hungry, we accepted that the weekend had to finish at some point and made the unanimous decision to soften this blow with a team McDonalds. We packed the bikes up after 3 hours of riding and met at Ferndown Maccies, where we ate naughty food and agreed that we can’t leave it too long until the next adventure… and so concluded a pretty epic weekend.
The fog was still thick around our wild camping spot on the Preseli Hills when we woke up. We were due travel to South Pembrokeshire for the second half of the holiday and had arranged to meet mum, dad and Angus at Pembroke Castle at 1pm. We spent the morning driving down via Newgale Beach on the west coast, with a view to seeing as much of the national park as possible.
We dropped down into Newgale after an hour’s drive through pretty farmland and parked at the large beachfront car park. Newgale is a small village in a basin that opens onto St Brides Bay, with a large, lively-looking campsite set just across the road from the beach. The beach is long, sandy and scattered with smooth pebbles. The weather was strange – still, warm and bright, but grey sea mist stopped sunlight penetrating and gave the sea and sky a serene, dream-like quality. We walked along the shore until we reached some cliffs and caves at the southern end, explored for a little bit and headed back to the van.
Pembroke Castle & Town
We stopped at Morrisons in Haverfordwest for shopping and fuel, then met the others in Pembroke early afternoon. Pembroke is a small, bustling town that still seems to revolve around the castle, which has high, well-preserved walls that tower over a long pond on one side and the high street on the other. Inside, the large, grassy courtyard is contained by walkable walls and several towers which house a lot of interesting information about the castle’s history, including some realistic mannequin scenes and the room where Henry VII was born. It has a “proper” castle feel, with its huge keep (sadly closed), dungeon room, herb garden, scattered flowerpots, battlements, towers and high walls. Definitely worth a visit.
After a thorough poke around the castle we wandered up the high street, where we looked round an old fashioned convenience store and a tiny shop that sells handmade, surfwear type clothes. I bought a pair of yoga shorts with a honeycomb pattern and a couple of headbands, all made in the shop with organic cotton – would recommend, see the website here – https://www.iseasurfwear.co.uk/. Ryan and I then went on to the Watermans Arms pub and enjoyed a cold cider on the deck, which is raised on stilts over the edge of the pond and has a lovely view over the water, the castle and the town. We watched in amusement as a single, angry-looking swan chased a group of at least 30 much more passive swans around.
Camping, Kiting & Broad Haven South Beach
We drove a little way south along tiny roads to the new campsite, Trefalen Farm, late afternoon. This is another lovely site with sea views, basic facilities and a really remote feel. The first thing we did was find an open field near the cliffs and fly Ryan’s powerkite, as so far the weather had been record-breakingly non-windy (for Wales) and having felt a slight breeze, we were very keen to get it in the air. There wasn’t lots of wind but there was enough to have some fun for half an hour or so before going back to the van and cooking fajitas for tea.
After eating we all tramped down the hill to Broad Haven South, a deep, attractive sandy beach with dunes set way back from the sea and impressive rocks and caves on either side. We walked and footballed our way to the far side, where we explored narrow caves and clambered around on the rocks. Angus was introduced to the slimy delights of large, light-hating cave lice and we found some random sea junk wedged high in damp cave systems, including ropes, buoys, jerry cans and a tyre. Satisfied with a day spent poking around castles and caves, we went back to the campsite and played some stupid card game Angus bought at the castle gift shop, which became hilariously long-winded.
Friday 2nd July
Climbing at St Govan’s Head
Ryan, Angus and I set off from the campsite to climb at the nearby coastal crag of St Govan’s Head. We walked west along a wild section of the Pembrokeshire coast path which had lovely views of dramatic cliffs towering over little rocky beaches and coves filled with clear blue water. We’d definitely chosen the right day for it as it was dry, still and kind of sunny, kind of cloudy, so not too hot or cold. We arrived at some abseil stakes by the edge of a cliff near a military training zone and after a little bit of faff, worked out the right stake to abseil off.
We set up the rope, took what gear we needed and one by one, abseiled over the edge of the cliff. As always the most awkward bit was going over the lip, where your legs go from vertical to horizontal against the wall. The abseil was really fun – about 30m high and against a pleasantly sheer wall, with some free space to hang into in the middle, and with dramatic views of the wild, intimidating cliffs and calm sea below.
The climbs were graded quite high and described as high in the grade, so we went for easy stuff. Angus hadn’t trad climbed for ages and Ryan and I hadn’t done much at all during a year of lockdown. First Ryan led “Exit Corner”, a straightforward VDiff up a blocky corner, I seconded and Angus toproped. We abseiled down again and I led “Lemming Way”, a Severe route up another corner with a fairly exposed, awkward section which had a disconcertingly damp crack where I faffed around with some tricky gear placements.
I belayed the other two up and we abseiled down again. This time Ryan picked “Centurion”, a Severe line up a nice-looking crack with one difficult looking move under an overhanging block. He got to that move without much difficulty but got stuck there, so he came down and I had a go without any real expectation of getting any further. It was an awkward and fairly bold move involving a high right leg and some dubious holds, but I committed to it and to my surprise pulled up over the block. The finish was quite loose but otherwise fine, and I belayed Ryan and Angus up (using a munter hitch as I’d given Ryan my belay plate) feeling quite pleased with myself. As I was doing so I watched a little nervously as a cow approached and sniffed another belayer’s rope anchor at the edge of the cliff – I didn’t want anyone to have to contend with curious cows while belaying, and I definitely didn’t want a cow to fall off a cliff. Luckily the cow lost interest and wandered back to safety.
Trad climbing always takes longer than you expect, especially when you’re a little out of practice and there are three of you. By this time we’d only done three climbs and three abseils, but it was mid-afternoon and we were getting hungry (having overlooked the value of packing lunch). We were satisfied with our taster of Pembrokeshire climbing (although Ryan and Angus slightly more so than me) so we packed up and headed for the nearest pub.
We walked west and took a detour via St Govan’s Head chapel, a tiny, ancient limestone chapel down steep steps built into the side of a cliff and perched above a small cove. It’s a striking building which merges into the cliff quite naturally, as if it’s always been there, and some of the etchings on the stone altar suggest that it’s drawn interest for a very long time.
We climbed back up the steep steps and walked north for half an hour into the village of Bosherston and found the pub, the St Govan’s Head Inn. Dad had left me a voicemail saying that he’d booked the five of us in for dinner at (unhelpfully) “the local pub” and nobody had any phone signal to find out which pub it was, so we had a couple of drinks there and after a bit of phone-waving, I received a text suggesting that we were in the right one so we stayed.
Mum and dad turned up about 6 and true to form, I was decidedly wavy after two or three ciders while Angus and Ryan were fine. The pub was lovely inside, with wooden beams and low ceilings, and the food was very good – I had dressed crab and some chocolate thing for pudding, and my only complaint was that Ryan promised me one of his prawns but ate them all before I could get there. We split the bill between Ryan, Angus and I and walked back to the campsite along a narrow, hedge-lined road, happy with a good day’s climbing and pubbing.
Saturday 3rd July
Stackpole Gardens
It was mum’s turn to pick something to do, so we ended up at Stackpole Walled Gardens. Entry is free and a lot of the gardening is done by adults with learning difficulties as part of a charity thing. It’s a nice place to go, with long greenhouses, strange plants and sculptures, and it had lots of little corners to explore. Our favourite part was the rows of fruit available to pick for free, including strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries and tayberries. We were there for an hour or so, until we ended up getting drizzled on while waiting for mum to finish bumbling around.
Surfing at Freshwater West
Taxi of dad then took us to Freshwater West beach, where we just about found a parking spot. Ryan and I changed into wetsuits and took the surfboard and bodyboard down to the long, sandy beach just down from the car park, and waded into the rough sea. We didn’t get far at all before being batted back by the waves. The surf was beyond our skill level in that we couldn’t even get the surfboard out far enough to catch the longer waves – the ones close to shore were short and ferocious, crashing high above our heads and pulled quickly back from under our feet.
We were washing machined around for a while, which involved getting hit multiple times with the boards and noting that a hard surfboard is considerably more painful than a foamie. One such collision (with my thigh) resulted in one of the three fins snapping off the surfboard and from then our attempts at proper surfing ceased. I’d managed to stand twice, both times in the shallows, and both times for a record-breakingly short duration. Body boarding was good fun though, and less calamitous.
After about an hour of being battered by the sea, we tramped back along the beach. Dobby’s grave, consisting of a lot of stones all piled up, was up on the sand dunes to the left – apparently it’s where the scene was filmed (spoiler – Dobby dies). The sea, and our attempt to find some surfable waves, had dragged us quite a long way to the right, and annoyingly we noticed on our way back that the surf to the left had calmed down a lot to the point where surf schools had started eyeing it up.
Feeling half-starved, we grabbed lunch from the famous Café Mor burger van in the car park. I had the vegetarian burger and Ryan had the classic Mor burger with chips. The people were really friendly and the burgers were amazing, served with some kind of seaweedy pickles and relish.
Powerkiting at Broad Haven South
We went back to the campsite via Pembroke so that mum could grab some bits from (ie. spend an inordinate length of time in) the shop. We helped pack up the awning and for tea mum cooked a strange but very nice mix of bits that needed using up, which included buckwheat, mackerel and salad.
That evening we wandered back down to Broad Haven South beach to show the others Ryan’s powerkite. There was practically no wind but we just about managed to get it up and give dad and Angus a go. It was nice to fly it on the beach regardless and the only downside was that in my enthusiasm to take the mountain board despite the lack of wind, I graunched my heel on the axle while scooting along and it bled quite a lot.
On the walk back up the hill the heavens opened. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was like a tropical storm – we were dry one minute and drenched to the bone the next, so much so that it stopped being annoying and became funny. Once back at the vans and changed into dry clothes, we all huddled in dad’s van and spent the last evening chatting away.
Sunday 4th July
National Museum & Cardiff
We parted and left, a little sad, quite early on Sunday morning. It was grey and wet and we counted ourselves lucky that the Welsh weather had arrived just as we were leaving. Ryan and I came back via the National Museum at Cardiff as I was keen to see the city, having never been before, and thought the museum would be a good rainy day activity.
We parked in the city centre quite cheaply – £5.50 for 4 hours – and walked the short distance to the museum, through an attractive, leafy park and past the grand university and court buildings. Entry was free and it was very interesting. The ground floor was all about the natural history of Wales and housed an incredible collection of rocks and meteorites, dinosaur and prehistoric animal skeletons and information about plants, fungi and habitats. After a lot of reading I sensed Ryan’s growing impatience and we moved upstairs to the art floor.
This had lots of cabinets filled with pottery which was, in our untrained opinion, of uncertain aesthetic value. It was a bit of a labyrinth, with different rooms housing works of photography, paintings and sculptures. The work ranged from very old-looking portraits of heavy-eyelidded, curly-wigged posh people to modern paintings in blocky colours with dubious justifications as to what makes them worthy of gallery status. One exhibition featured huge paintings by a couple of artists which I thought were excellent and very poignant, having read about their cultural backgrounds, but I can’t remember their names.
After a couple of hours we left the impressive building through the large marbled, columned foyer and went for a wander around Cardiff city centre, pleased that the weather had cleared up. I thought it was a very attractive and clean city, with a young, lively atmosphere and lots going on. There were all sorts of shops, cafes and bars in a very small area and the castle was impressive, set near the centre with high, well-preserved walls. After a quick excursion to a phone shop so Ryan could sort out a new phone contract, we grabbed a subway and headed back to the van.
And so concludes our holiday in Wales. We had a lovely, busy week and it was really nice spending some time with my family, especially after lockdown(s). The two van, one tent setup worked well and we got to see a lot of Pembrokeshire, although there’s definitely more to see. I have a feeling we’ll be back…
curiousgnome 