“Why visit Wales?” is what I thought when my business partner suggested it after being told good things by our Romford removals guy. I had heard it was cold and wet and full of Welsh. I discovered these things to be largely the case. The Welsh were very friendly and accommodating so no issues there but next time I leave England’s green and pleasant land I’ll be heading somewhere warm and sunny (unless of course those delightful specimens at the WEF ban all travel unless you’re injected up to the eyeballs with tans-humanist nonsense, but I digress.
After crossing the River Severn we stopped at a little quaint town called Crickhowell. Upon seeing this pub sign I thought “that’s the kind of thing I like” so we went in. I had the duck salad and my business partner dived headfirst into the Welsh experience with some faggots.
Pit stop over we headed deeper into the unknown…
There was some beautiful scenery as made our way up through Wales to our Air B&B at Bronant Farm, Bontnewydd, Caernarfon. The Air B&B was lovely though Bontnewydd, not so much. I don’t know what is but everywhere seemed to have awful-looking council houses build next to quaint old stone buildings. They literally had something nice to copy but no, they knocked up crappy 1950’s council housing. This was even the case at the otherwise picturesque village of Beddgelert to which we got the impressive steam train with Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways from Porthmadog. We’d watched a documentary on the rebuilding of a Pullman carriage and this train had one which my business partner was keen to sit in. £140 pounds later and there we were for 2 hours steeped in historical steam-powered glory.
After what can only be described as a piss-poor lunch at the Prince Llewelyn Hotel we headed back down to Porthmadog. If I had thought that little trip had sated my friend’s lust for heading up into the hills I was alas mistaken as on next day’s to-do-list was a hike up Snowdon 😭.
There were some impressive views, and I shouldn’t complain too much as we got the train two thirds of the way up (the last section not being open due to covid or some reason 🙄). The walk to the peak was an absolute killer and not helped by the fact it was obscured by freezing fog.
I’ve come to the conclusion walking downhill is better than up (though it was more of a scramble in places) and that there is nothing like getting back to relative civilisation having been out in nature.
