Walk in the light

May our journey be lived in peace with one another, and with creation

Thanksgiving Prayer

I got thoroughly midged as I packed the tent away this morning (with my midge-management expert nowhere to be seen), and set off in good time. I was looking forward to the mountain views unfolding, but was disappointed that they were at first hidden by a series of rocky crags.

It was a road walk into the village of Penrhyndeudraeth, reached by crossing over the Pont Briwet bridge at the top end of the Dwyryd estuary. As a reminder that the beach sections of this journey are now behind me, the railway with its slate barriers and high metal fences stood between me and the estuary view of Portmeirion reflected in the early-morning water, but the view from my side of the bridge was towards the hills, and absolutely none the less beautiful.

Once over the bridge, I walked into the village past a hedge of the heavily-scented rosa rugosa which grows so well by the sea, my pleasure in them shared by a host of attendant bees. Between me and the estuary sheep were peacefully grazing on the saltmarsh with their lambs.

I planned (needed!) to get my breakfast here although I wasn’t sure what would be open on a Sunday. Just past the bridge, however, I saw a banner sign for the Griffin Pub, serving an all-day breakfast seven days a week. Thing is, though, you can’t walk comfortably on a full stomach, full of any kind that is, but especially not full of the full English variety. I mourned the foregone sausage, bacon, and egg, and also the lambs — since next to the Griffin banner was one advertising saltmarsh-grazed Welsh lamb.

The trusty Spa was open. It was already hot, and I didn’t want to sit out in the sun if I could help it. I begged a chair from Annette, setting out teacups in Holy Trinity Church, to put in the shade in the churchyard for me to eat my virtuous breakfast of carrot batons and hummus. The church looked beautifully festive, and I said as much to Annette. It’s a special day! she said. Pentecost! It was also especially festive because there was to be a commissioning service for a new lay chaplain. What Annette didn’t tell me at first was that it was herself who was to be commissioned.

As I munched on my carrots by the church door one by one the people organising the service arrived, and rather than look askance at this strange pilgrim on the threshold, they were warm, friendly and open-hearted. Annette kindly brought me a cup of coffee (what a dear!), hands trembling with a mixture she said of excitement and nerves about the day to come. She introduced me to Hilary, one of the two priests taking the service, who had brought a kite with her as a visual aid for the Pentecostal sermon she was preaching later.

I’m afraid I didn’t write down the name of the other kind lady who brought me a copy of the service sheet to read. I read the whole thing as they were bustling around, and I was so moved by the warmth of their welcome, and how important the day was to Annette. I was so sorry I could not stay for her commissioning, but I contributed the leftover hummus and carrots sticks to their Pentecostal feast of cakes and biscuits. And I read the service sheet cover to cover, gave Annette a secret hug in the parish kitchen, and took two lines from the service as the title and header quotation for today’s blog post. I do so hope her day went well!

The hills that had screened the mountains from my view had of course to be climbed. It was a stiff pull up out of the village, but I felt so buoyed by my encounters that I made light work of it. There were wonderful views back, but I was more interested in the views forward. I would have to wait for them, though: down shady wooded slopes of the countrified A- road, surrounded by blackbirds and thrushes singing, I crossed into the national park once more with the knobbly summit of the hill called Cnicht just coming into sight.

It is not nice walking on A-roads, even fairly quiet ones, as this one was. I criss-crossed the road several times so I wasn’t walking the inside of a bend invisible to oncoming traffic, and in a long flat section, I avoided the temptation of walking on the more comfortably shady side of the road, where it would be all too easy to be mown down by inattentive drivers or drivers blinded by driving into the sun. Walk in the light!

Out in the wide open space of the ‘wild saltmarsh’ of the Morfa Gwyllt, I gorged my fill on the panoramas. Not a cloud on top of Y Wyddfa Snowdon today, and uninterrupted views of all the hills to the south and west, familiar to me from many, many holidays. A pair of kites wheeled overhead, and I thought of Hilary’s Pentecostal kite and how she was going to talk about me too in her sermon.

To my right seagulls stabbed at the wet ground exposed by farming contractors taking the first cut of silage off,

and to my left two skilled collies made short work of rounding up a flock of sheep and their lambs and herding them into a pen. I hoped, for the sake of the sheep, that their heavy fleeces would be shorn today.

Ahead of me was the roadside Oriel café. Although I had not long had breakfast, the umbrellas at the outdoor tables looked so inviting that I went inside and chatted with the new owners. They made me a lovely cup of coffee and because they had a small shop inside the café that sells fresh fruit, I bought a banana and a plum and I ate the plum with my fabulous coffee. I was given a free bottle of water to take with me as well, thus insuring my undying gratitude and a return visit for sure at some point.

They were waiting for a group of fifteen motorcyclists out from the Wirral to come foot their breakfast. They arrived just as I was leaving, all of them in high good humour.

I felt as though I were in seventh heaven. Perhaps this was partly because I was doubly caffeinated, but I did feel particularly blessed to be out on such a day. Buttercup meadows drew the eye to the hills that every moment were getting nearer and nearer.

Despite the heat, contractors were out working round-the-clock to get in the cut of silage. They had at least three tractors with trailers piled high with mown grass tag-teaming each other from the fields to the farm where they were slowly filling the enormous silage clamp ready to cover with black plastic and weigh down with old tyres from an enormous pile to the side of the yard.

I turned off further down the road past a set of idyllic-looking holiday cottages which I thought might make a wonderful base for a return visit at some point.

Then things started to deteriorate. My path led through semi-dry rushy fields onto a sort of overgrown causeway over complicated interconnecting fields to a dilapidated hut ringed round with cattle hoofprints.

At the sight of them my mouth felt dry and my heart beat faster. I could see that the boggy, rushy fields were opening out ahead into much larger meadow being grazed by a very large herd of cows. The field was huge and the cows were everywhere. My low causeway went straight through the middle, and I would be completely exposed with no clear emergency exit options.

It was a real dilemma (though at least I wasn’t on the horns of it). After trying what I thought might be a possible wide circle around and discovering that the cows were there too, I eventually decided to pick my way through a couple of smaller fields hoping that there would be gates or maybe dry stone walls I could climb over. Through the first one: so far so good. The fence was down between the two and I could see from a distance it would be easy to cross. However, the saltmarsh was gridded with wide rectangular channels of muddy water, so not only did I have to cross fences, I had to cross the drains too. They were simply too wide for me to leap, even with my poles to propel me. I tried using a wooden fence post that had partially fallen into the water as a kind of a stepping stone, but as I jumped onto it, first one foot, and then the other sunk in up to the ankles in the strangely red water, and I ended up with both feet absolutely soaked.

Oh well! Absolutely nothing for it but to push on. The next field of rushes did a fairly good job of wiping most of the mud from my legs and wonder of wonders, on the other side, there was indeed a laid track which joined me, swiftly and easily, back on the path I had been on before.

So I rejoined the causeway, cow-free here, and well signposted, and it took me across sheep-grazed marshes to a footbridge over the most beautiful river, the Avon Dylif, full of waterweeds and crowfoot. Dragonflies and beautiful demoiselles danced over the surface.

I took a little time to recover myself here and let the beauty of the place bring back some, if not all of my equanimity.

At the place where the causeway joined the joined the track of the little mountain railway, someone had jammed a skull into a tree. Had I been walking in the other direction I would have had fair warning of the drama to come.

Running beside the little mountain railway was a fast path that I fairly sped along, trying to make up for lost time but still able to focus on the views ahead,

and the lovely oak-covered craggy woods.

The mountain ash trees were in flower and scented the air above the mossy rocks. Some of the older oaks had draped their roots all over the crags, either taking advantage of existing cracks in the rocks, or forcing them open themselves.

I was motoring along so quickly that I couldn’t quite believe it when I realised I had joined the Snowdonia Slate Trail — I was now only a couple of kilometres from Beddgelert and the campsite only a couple more beyond that. Map estimated 35 mins… great! Lunch at 1.30! And a big fat icecream.

It took nearly three times that long in the end. The path was every bit as rocky and rooty in places as the infamous Loch Lomond trail, and I thanked the lord I had not worn the trainers with no treads.

My shoes might be muddy but they have treads like a gecko’s, and although I had to go very slowly and gingerly because I am very top-heavy with the full pack on, I was in no danger of slipping, even on the rocks that had been polished smooth by so many walkers on this tourist path down the ridiculously scenic Afon Glaslyn.

I saw grey wagtails but no dippers, because my attention was almost completely on the path. As as I walked up river, I started to come across people wild swimming, or just blissing out with a book on the rocks. It looked idyllic.

I realised when I saw a bright red rivulet of water coming off the hill that the mud I had covered myself with wasn’t red due to some ghastly effluent, but was rich with ore. I had shod myself with iron! This was surely going to make me a terrifically hard-core walker.

I thought about my feet: shoes covered in mud, and socks completely saturated. My friend Jane would definitely have washed her feet in the river, I concluded, so I decided to channel her. I selected a handy spot where I could get down to the water easily, and scrubbed and scrubbed to get the mud off. It was quite stainy. But oh, the water was delicious. My feet felt completely refreshed.

10-month old Mabli joined me on the little stony strand, accompanied by her parents and justifiably proud grandparents. Her mum is a primary teacher near Holyhead; perhaps she will find herself walking one day to her sister’s house when Mabli is grown and flown, and when she’s had enough of teaching? (Her sister is in New Zealand … it would be the most epic walk of all!)

That was the worst of the path done, so I arrived in the honeypot of Beddgelert at reasonable speed. Pretty little village. And home of a very fine ice cream parlour.

I don’t know whether it was the soak in cold water and the clean socks or the iron cladding on my feet, but I fairly powered up the hill to Forest Holidays, an eco campsite just north of the village. I feel as though I have jumped up a level of fitness — just in time, as it’s over the top tomorrow!

I pitched my tent by a bend in the river (where there is good swimming, according to the mountain guide in the next tent), and once I had finished sorting it out, some sheep wandered by, grazing as they went.

Very picturesque, I thought, as I walked towards the shower block. But as I turned round to look at them again one of the lambs started using my tent as a scratching post for his budding horns. NEAR DISASTER!

I chased then off into the woods and I couldn’t see any evident signs of damage … but I think it was a close thing. I have been worried about being gored by a cow, but never by a lamb.

With the sheep gone, I judged I was safe to shower, and then go up to the old bakery for a pizza. Toyah and Dafydd furnished me with a terrific supper, refilled my water, bladder, and let me plug in my power bank so that I know I have enough juice to get over the hills to Llanberis tomorrow.

I spent some time on the blog and chatted to the super-lovely Amanda on reception, and was left with the impression that this place is certainly one to return to.