Wandering around the dump that is Shrewsbury town centre after my train was cancelled, hungover and running on one hours sleep, lugging my bags and looking in vain for somewhere open to eat until the manager of Ask reluctantly gives me a table for four (this seems to be a theme of my travels, I would be a very unsuccessful restaurant critic) – it was not the best start to the second part of my UK Tour. In hindsight booking an early morning, 6.5 hour train journey from London straight after the first rock n roll party since Lockdown was never going to be fun. But the show must go on and there is no time to lose as I’m gate crashing the end of my good friends Anna, Adam and little Lucian’s camping getaway.
The eventual 9 hour journey was all worth it of course – it always is. The Cambrian Coast Railway goes west from Shrewsbury and hugs the coastline up to Gwynedd – when the train eventually turns up it transports me through the most beautiful green valleys and wild, empty beaches with tides so far out you could walk for miles on the sand. I wouldn’t have minded if it took another two hours.
I arrived in time for sunset on Talybont beach and as an added bonus, Anna and Adam are pro-campers and had everything set up for me. Soon there was pasta cooking on the stove and a cold beer in hand 🍻
Amazingly I have reached this age without setting foot in Wales. I expected sheep and rain – we spent an idyllic day swimming in crystal clear lakes surrounded by heather covered mountains in the brilliant sunshine.
I climbed to the top of the above mountain/hill (choose description depending on your level of fitness!) in 15 minutes after Adam boasted he did it in half an hour carrying a baby. I had the whole thing to myself from the climb up to wandering around at the top, amazed by the views over even more lakes.
I soon realised camping is serious stuff, with some monster tents popping up around us. I don’t really understand the point of driving to a site and setting up what is practically a plastic house with all the mod cons, why not just sleep in a B&B in that case? I think I would prefer to wild camp in the middle of nowhere, I don’t even want to see a toilet block. However, this may be a litttle optimistic – later we were joined by new Travel Companion, Phil (another pro-camper and all round outdoorsy person) who took one look at me attempting to light the stove and asked ‘have you actually been camping before?’.
We moved on further inland to the even tinier village of Corris and some seriously upgraded accommodation in the form of a gorgeous cottage with a private stream perfect for morning coffee, near the town with a name I don’t dare to try to pronounce, Machynlleth.
With an entirely different but equally stunning backdrop, we visited the waterfalls near Ganllwyd. Obviously this meant climbing down to the base, yet another thing that ‘Adam did carrying a baby’ despite there not being an obvious path down. Challenge accepted – I couldn’t miss a chance to get in some more outdoor swimming (I may have had some help getting down but that’s beside the point).
This area is a great base for walking and cycling. Let’s go for a bike ride I said, momentarily forgetting that a) the hills in Wales are not the same as the flats of Norfolk and b) Phil cycles about 100 miles a day so our idea of a bike ride is very different. Subsequently he spends half the time waiting for me around the corner and I spend it trying to stay upright and not break the gears on the bike.
The scenery here is so beautiful it’s once again all worth it, especially when you end up at a great little rock pub Y Llew Coch playing 70s tunes in what seems like the middle of nowhere and the last place you’d expect to find it. A couple of pints and I’ve almost forgotten I have to cycle back.
Seven degrees of separation moment when there is a sign outside the door advertising that your mate’s band is playing here next month and the barman is from Shrewsbury, whose shopping centre still haunts me.
My introductory tour of mid Wales was topped off with a visit to the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), run by hippies (another theme of my travels) who promised that if I had any questions there would be a man called Dieter with a flag wandering around. I was more disappointed than I should have been not to have found him although I realise this is not the main reason to visit 🧐
I learned some rudimentary facts I should definitely have learned in school, like what a fossil fuel is and how a battery works (turns out you really shouldn’t throw them in the rubbish bin). Also, who knew you could power a train up a mountain by water? None of this was quite so enthralling for Phil who has a PhD in the subject.
Wales only encouraged my enthusiasm for UK trips, camping is now a definite option and a whole world of short breaks has opened up. Now time to go solo up to the last of the unknown frontiers, Scotland… via an overnight stop in my old friend Shrewsbury ofcourse! It turns out when the sun is shining and you don’t look like a homeless person carrying a sleeping bag (maybe this accounts for the previous stares?), it’s actually a very nice place indeed. I even managed to get food. 🙃
Maz On The Road 