30 March 2015 - Bryars Farm, Lea , Preston

Although the van rocked and rolled through the night, all was calm by morning and I was woken by the bleats of sheep calling for their errant lambs and seagulls blown in from the coast, actually not so far away. We had forgotten to change our alarm clock but that was of no account to us.

We rose and went through our normal routine, including dumping and refilling with water, the latter task my own and a terrible one to freeze one’s hands. But I should not complain; it would be so much worse in the middle of winter and will be so when we return to New Zealand and face the coming winter in the southern hemisphere. Our hostess had insisted we delay our payment until our departure so it was on her bidding that we turned up on her doorstep to settle up. She too had overlooked the changing of alarm clocks, and the doorbell woke her from her slumber; she came to the kitchen window direct from her bed, a sight for sore eyes but not as much as it would have been had the tables been turned. She was awake enough to remember which camping party we were, answering my question about the breed of sheep carried all about the area – Welsh, of course! And to ask how many head of sheep per capita we had in New Zealand. Chris gave a comprehensive answer, better than I could have done, then we handed over our 20 GBP as prescribed in the Caravan Club bible. She asked for a further 4 GBP, saying the price was now 12 GBP a night; she was awake enough to note any such tariff discrepancy! We muttered our way back to the camper but I reminded Chris that the same bible advises that one should enquire when one books as prices can rise without notice. We were ourselves at fault for not asking that question.

Over breakfast we had poured over the map and agreed on a route far south of our original plan to complete our abbreviated tour of Wales along the northern coastal highway. Instead we agreed to head east again through Snowdonia, but by routes yet unexplored. Not far south east of our camp at Llanrug, we passed along the southern shore of Llyn Padarn, the opposite shores steep, quarried, intriguing and leading me to search through our travel literature for answers.

At the eastern end of the lake is the Padarn Country Park, a place we did not visit, but it is here that the lakeside oak woods are gradually recolonizing the discarded workings of the defunct Dinorwig Slate Quarries, formerly one of the largest slate quarries in the world. Equipment and engines that once hauled materials up inclined tramways have been partly restored and punctuate the paths which link the levels chiselled out of the hillside. One of the most interesting spots is right near the parking area, again monitored by a parking meter, where you can walk through a rock arch to the flooded Vivian Quarry.

For the best part of two centuries slate was torn from the flanks of Elider Fawr, employing up to three thousand men to chisel out the slabs. They closed in 1969, leaving a vast staircase of sixty foot terraced platforms and tiers of blue-grey rubble  covering the mountainside and giving rise to my questions.

On our right, the village of Llanberis sits with its railway station from where the Mountain Railway starts. It was only when we continued on along the base of Mt Snowden and saw the incredibly rugged slopes, those not shrouded in cloud, that I realised what an amazing engineering feat this railway must be. It is Britain’s only rack-and-pinion railway, completed as I mentioned in an earlier post in 1896. Trains, sometimes pushed by seventy year old steam locos, still climb to the summit in just under an hour along the most heavily maintained track in all the country. The rails follow the shallowest approach to the top of the mountain, struggling for five miles and three thousand feet up a mostly one in eight gradient.

Even at this hour in the cold and windy conditions, there were many folk about, mostly young and fit looking and all well wrapped up in woolly hats and very trendy mountain climbing gear. For myself, as I looked up the wild and inhospitable slopes, I did not regret our decision to leave the mountain unchallenged. 

The road across the Pass of Llanberis, beyond Mt Snowden climbs to 356 metres at Pen-y-Pass, apparently the deepest, narrowest and craggiest of Snowdonia’s passes. The road is not as steep as those travelled over the past week since in Wales, but we had one of the scariest experiences if one considers the possibility of losing one’s deposit / insurance bond scary. The tractors which ply their agricultural business on Welsh roads are large beasts with even wider tyres, altogether unsuitable for these incredibly narrow roads.  Today we met one at the base of the pass, with a well loaded up trailer. Stone walls hemmed in the route, and trees leaned in on our side of the road, yet un-pruned and certainly not motorhome friendly branches, but then perhaps you need to be a motorhome driver to understand this concern. We stopped and let the tractor driver crawl through, he slowed to almost a halt, and before we escaped any damage, Chris reckoned we had no more than a centimetre between us. Now let me assure you that Chris never exaggerates; he leaves that to me. It was indeed a near miss.

But aside from that, the scenery along the road and all those that followed as we travelled through this slice of Wales was spectacular. We came down to Capel Curig where one can find the Plas-y-Brenin, the National Centre for the Mountains and operators of dozens of identical minivans for shuttling rock climbers, hikers and kayakers. The road continued along beautiful rivers, through lovely woods albeit still winter nude. We pulled into the Swallow Falls which Chris remembered seeing as a child, however he did not remember the steel turnstile which opens only when 1.50 GBP is inserted in the slot. We decided that the falls could be glimpsed sufficiently through the trees below the road without filling the coffers of the hotel opposite or whoever lays claim to this steel monstrosity. We noted too that the car park up at the hotel is also graced with a parking meter; they get you everywhere here in Wales, if not all of Britain.

Soon we arrived at Betws-y-coed which was altogether pleasing and would have warranted a brief wander up and down the street and about the river, but parking was again impossible. Chris parked in an illegal park, leaving me to excuse our presence if necessary while he went to buy a newspaper and a sweet treat.

The road continued on in a south east direction, soon opening up to beautiful grazing land, then over into the Dee Valley, now on the A5. A little later we learned the significance of this route; after the 1800 Act of Union between Britain and Ireland, a good road was needed to hasten mail and to transport the new Irish MPs to and from Parliament in London. What is now the A5 was driven right through Snowdonia, its gradient never exceeding 1:20. The combination of its near-level route and the high quality of its well-drained surface cut hours off the journey time. This was one of several incredible engineering feats accomplished by Thomas Telford of whom I shall write more later.

We paused in a layby to admire the views over the valley before descending down to the delightful town of Llangollen, where we pulled into a car park. Before we could commence our daily moans and groans about parking, we were presented with a partly used parking ticket; the young woman had purchased too much time and was now on her way home satisfied her troublesome tooth had been dealt with in record time. We thanked her effusively.

At the Information Centre we were given instruction on how to view the Pontcysllte Aquaduct without the hassle of parking, yet another bonus for the day. Before we followed the helpful woman’s directions, we walked down to the Town Bridge to view the falls on the Dee River, the aptly named Town Falls. The bridge was constructed in the fourteenth century, but has undergone widening and strengthening over the intervening years, but it is still absolutely charming and even more so for the riverside structures that seem to be built from the river bed up.

Crossing the river we travelled east again along the A539 on the northern bank to Trevor where the Pontcysyllte Aquaduct and Trevor Basin Visitor Centre, World Heritage Site are to be found. Happily here we found the parking free and today with enough space for us, even though the school holidays have obviously started and there were several family groups about. This is ostensibly all about the Llangollen Canal, built in 1806 and is one of Britain’s finest feats of engineering, designed to transport slates from the quarries above the town of Llangollen and as a water supply for the Shropshire Union Canal. This was partly achieved by means of a three hundred and seven metre long Aquaduct, which spans the Dee Valley on eighteen piers, thirty nine metres, nineteen arches, each with a forty five foot span. It took ten years to build and cost 47,000 GBP. Fifty million litres of water cross it daily to supply drinking water to South Cheshire. This was yet another of the amazing designs of the aforementioned Thomas Telford, and William Jessop, and was one of the earliest aquaducts to use a cast iron trough.

 It is a mind boggling structure, even more so when you walk along the board walk beside the open water channel, and even more so when you see long narrowboats travelling across it as we did today. Even today, the aquaduct is crossed by more than 15,000 boats and over 200,000 pedestrians a year.

At Trevor there is a dock full of narrow boats for hire, and those at rest on their travels. There are also docks for repairs and today we watched as one was made fit for purpose, filled as we waited and soon to have a craft in for work.  

Until the mid 1900s Trevor Basin was a bustling wharf with tramways carrying coal, bricks, iron and chemicals to be loaded into narrowboats destined for the Midlands. The area’s chemical industry, established by Robert Graesser in the 1860s, produced phenol and carbolic acid (used for disinfectants, dyes and explosives) from tar acids. The raw materials and finished chemicals were transported by canal as they were too dangerous to be carried by road.

After we walked back across the aquaduct, we walked to the foot of the structure, down to the Dee River, along the banks on the muddy path, then back up through the woods. Needless to say, we were totally enchanted by our visit to the Centre.

We took advantage of the park and lunched before heading away again, and this time proceeded on to our next camp without pause. I should note here that Chris had at last been successful in reaching his travelling mate of forty five years ago, Stan of Preston, a self-professed Luddite who has no email address, no computer, no television, no cellphone and not even an answerphone. To receive a response after several days of trying to ring him was a real bonus and vindication of our plans to travel through and stay at Preston. And so with this destination in mind, we continued on past Trevor, turning north up the A483, turning east again near Wrexham onto the A534 as far as Nantwich, then on to the A534 on through the lovely outskirts of Crewe, onto the M6 where we joined the streams of heavy traffic heading north to Manchester, Liverpool and beyond. It was on this final section that the rain started in earnest again and has not eased since.

Happily Mavis guided us without event to our camp, again on a small farm, but strangely behind a more formal commercial caravan park. Soon after setting up and seeking out our hostess who lives in one of several beautiful homes within the farmyard, we noticed a couple of squirrels immediately behind us, then the bird feeders and their customers, and last of all a large rodent, one I would prefer to be a vole than a rat, although the jury is still out.