Exploring North Wales By Bus And By Foot…..

It had been a very cold ten days in my tent and on my mountainside, in Snowdonia. I really needed to keep my blood moving in order to keep myself warm and having thoroughly explored my immediate surroundings, I wanted to venture a little further North….to explore!

I caught the local bus up at the top of the Llanberis Pass, and enjoyed the warm air circulating around me as I chatted to the bus driver. He dropped me off in the town square, right next to the railway station in the small town of Conwy. The sun had come out, and although bitterly cold, it lifted my spirits. I walked for just two or three minutes, following a medieval wall, as it led me to the enormous castle keep of Conwy. A majestic structure built onto a natural rock outcropping, overlooking the River that gave the town its name, it dominated the valley…….. It was my first glimpse of this wonderful structure, and now as a tour guide, I actually get to visit Conwy with my tour groups (with a well known US tour company), and am unable to give them a tour of the castle as our emphasis is on Caernarvon instead….. Its a shame. I love Conwy Castle and as I wandered around its interior walls, I was amazed at how complete it still was.

After about an hours self guiding I exited and walked over to a small tea shoppe, where I gathered my thoughts and imagined how life would’ve been for an English colonist inside these walls, 800 years ago……. My tea was insipid but warm and sweet and was just what I needed to gird myself for what I had decided to do.

Gathering my backpack and placing it snugly over my shoulders I started to walk. I left Conwy through its Western gatehouse and followed the road, for a short distance, out of town. It got narrower and ascended steeply. Finding the old track that was indicated on my map, I headed out across the moors and hills, completely mesmerised by the beauty of the surrounding mountains with the river below.

An hour into my walk, I saw woodsmoke climbing into the sky and headed towards to it. It was emanating from an ancient stone pub that was nestled into the folds of a small valley and surrounded by its accompanying hamlet. The weathered place name told me that I had arrived in Rowan and the smell of hot food wafting out of the pub was irresistible.

I sat down by a warmly burning fire inside the pub and ordered a bowl of soup and a portion of chips….. enough flavour, warmth and energy to keep me fuelled up for the rest of the day. Another cup of tea ( I didn’t drink beer in those days because I was heavily involved in sport) saw me depart and head up a very steep lane into the mountains once again. Water was running off the hills around me because of the recent rainfalls and it caused a cold mist to settle, sedately, amongst some of the woodlands that I found myself walking through. As the trees thinned, a strange structure greeted me……… a dolmen was sitting there in the field. Three stones standing upright, supported a capstone……it smiled at me invitingly. I climbed over a granite wall and made my way towards it.

A dolmen is a word used to describe the remains of a burial site. It would once have been covered in rubble and peat and would have looked like a bump in the field, but Mother Nature had slowly and laboriously removed the outer coating of stone, through erosion, leaving just the large structural stones intact. there are literally thousands of them all over Britain, and I have to say this was not a particularly large one………. diminutive is a better word. However, I had realised that by sheltering underneath and inside it, I could gain a panoramic view of my surroundings.

I had gotten chilly again, so, I removed my tiny stove from my backpack and started to brew up yet another cup of tea……

I sat there, chilled to the bone, hugging my warm tin cup, looking out over the roof of Wales whilst sheltering in a 4000 year old tomb……. What could be better than this?!

My aim was to get to the waterfalls at Abergwyngregyn, so I had to get moving. the track that I was following was stony and washed out in some places. Wild horses dotted the rocky slopes around me as did the peacefully grazing sheep. The walls that enclosed the fields up here were massive and well built….. thousands of years of hard work and ingenuity had led to their existence…I was awestruck by it all.

I had deliberately chosen this track because it was actually a Roman road!….. It had been trodden by legionaries two millennia ago, as they patrolled this wild corner of their empire. I wonder what they thought about as they trudged through the mist and cold as I was now doing.

Another hour of hiking saw me cresting a ridge and as I did so, I could see the island of Anglesey laid out in front of me….. It was a splendid sight as the sun came out once again and smiled at me.

Somewhere along the way, I had missed a trail and as a result I had missed my objective……. It didn’t matter it had been a marvellous adventure and the waterfalls would be there upon my return one day….

I wasn’t wrong…. The waterfall is still there and I have returned many times..