17 May 2015

17th May 2015.

Dear All,

We have experienced an action packed few days in North Wales. On Sunday we broke the journey at Upton Cressett, near Bridgenorth. It is a remote Tudor manor house with an attractive Elizabethan Gatehouse restored in the 1970’s by Sir Bill Cash. He was due to show us round but had instead chosen to travel to London to heap congratulations on David Cameron! We did a short, but steep walk there before being shown round by one of his staff who had been campaigning for UKIP!

We were staying at the Riverside Hotel at Betws-y-Coed which is in a fantastic situation but the evening meals were rather designed for artistic impression rather than filling after walking all day.

Upton Cressett Gatehouse

There was a choice of walks each day: long, short or very short. We chose the long walk on Monday which started at Dolwyddelan station and rose up to Ty Mawt Wybenant, a decent climb but made more of a challenge by near gale force winds and boggy underfoot conditions. The walk was just over 10 miles but seemed longer!

On Ty Mawt Wybenant

On Tuesday we had a bird themed walk guided by a local. This entailed leaving at 6.30 am with the hotels version of a packed breakfast: a minute croissant, small pot of jam, a small cake, a pack of biscuits and a bottle of water. The walk was excellent rising from the river at Swallow Falls around a couple of lakes. We evidently saw 41 different birds and heard calls of 6 more but it was 17 miles in total and we were out for 9.5 hours.

Swallow Falls

We had a free day on Wednesday and chose to go to Bodnant Gardens. These are truly spectacular with Rhodedendrons, Azelias and mature trees in profusion – probably the best garden I have visited. In the afternoon we visited Llandudno and took the tram up to the Great Orme, and strolled to the end of the pier.

Bodnant Gardens

Llandudno from the Tram

Thursday started wet so the proposed ascent of Snowdon was squashed and we chose the shorter walk in the woods above Betws-y-Coed – a mere 8.5 miles. The return journey on Friday was much slower than the outward one with traffic lams on the M6 at Wolverhampton and the road works at the A 14 junction. We stopped with a few others at Swinford for lunch and were home by 5 pm – just in time to prepare the pitch for Saturday.

Saturday was “Messy Church” and Kate was in charge as Rachel was away. Numbers were down but we still get new people showing up.

Love

Mike & Kate