Cil-y-Bont, Llanrug, Gwynned

Yesterday we woke to yet another lovely summer day, the jackdaws enjoying the respite from the noisy manmade aircraft. The walkers were already up and almost ready to leave. Chatting with our hostess, who was winning my growing admiration every time I engaged her in conversation, I learned that the clutch of nubile teenage girls, who had yesterday afternoon moved with a mobility better suited to a senior citizen, and one much older than our hostess, were in fact here chasing their Duke of Edinburgh Awards, as had our own granddaughter been when she set off on the Spirit of Adventure out of Auckland. From memory the exercise must be one set outside the comfort zone, with people whom you do not know and in a wilderness situation. The different levels require longer times spent challenging yourself, and none of this appeals to me, hence I never chased such ambition, if indeed the award existed before I was twenty five years old.

Packing up and dealing with the sanitary matters that caravanners are required to do, we decided that this run down camp, with the drinking water apparently passed through additional filters and yet still resembling something from a flooded creek, the one shower out of order and the other requiring 20p for three minutes, the chemical waste dump station and rubbish recycling area being totally unacceptable, and  the field rough with ungathered straw, even in such a magnificent setting, would not be on our must-return-to schedule.

Our two fellow caravanners left before us, the second whom we had nicknamed “The Grandfather” because it was he who seated himself beside us at the Gwesty Tyn-y-Cornel to watch the soccer semi-final with his four year old grandson who would have been better served by an earlier bedtime. 

The first part of our trip was a route already twice travelled, through the Snowdonia National Park to Dolgellau, then continuing on the A470 through a varied landscape, still under the auspices of the National Park, some through forest and some through pastoral land with views of barren rocky crags and higher rounded tops ranging from 600 to 754 metres above sea-level.

We passed the Trawsfynydd Reservoir, the impressive nuclear power station standing proud at the far end of the lake. We learned that the reservoir was originally built between 1924 and 1928 to supply water for the Maentwrog hydro-electric power station. Later it supplied cooling water to the twin reactor nuclear power station which came into operation in 1965, then the only nuclear power station in the United Kingdom. It was closed in 1991 and work to decommission the site is expected to take almost one hundred years. I expressed my dismay at such information when we were up near Thurso in Scotland last year; I wonder that the politicians ever allowed their creation if their short lives and death throes had been wholly understood.

We came on down steeply to the Traeth Bach, that which divides one western bulge from the base of the Lleyn Peninsula, soon turning onto to the A487 skirting the northern edge of Porthmadog, and on up toward Caernarfon. From here it was a mere five miles or so to our destination, once sighted, remembered easily, for here we had stayed those years ago when travelling through in the hired motorhome.

We had rung ahead and been assured there was space, and indeed there was although the guidelines for Certified Locations suggest that there should be only five vans in at any one time. No doubt overbookings or overlaps happen from time to time, just as they did when we were stranded north of Liverpool two years ago and certainly overstayed our booked time. We immediately caught sight of the smart new amenities block, and were soon to learn that this was being officially opened tomorrow with a hog roast to celebrate the occasion, to which we were invited. Only a “hog roast” would do because it is this that our host John does professionally, although we were not privy to the whole story until this afternoon.

Our afternoon was spent in a most sedentary manner, Chris delighted to have a feast of sport to watch on the box and me to catch up with some of my blog postings. I was reminded how much I had enjoyed the television-free days in the mountain valley, so much so that I could forgive the absence of internet.

This morning we headed into Caernafon to stock up on a few fresh provisions, in time to arrive at the laundromat’s opening. We struggled to locate it, finally phoning the place while standing under large lettering on the end wall of a row of buildings. The phone was answered by the wife of the proprietor who told us they opened at 11 am on Sundays, “oh, already gone”; her husband would be out the second green door in thirty seconds to open the laundry housed inside the first. And so he was, with cat and a lovely black dog, a Newfoundland cross; the door was unlocked and we stepped in after the three. “What can I do for you?” he asked as he stepped around the piles of bagged laundry, the machines lost somewhere in the dinge. Now understanding that we would have to leave our laundry with this rather scruffy individual, we asked how long it would take. “Come back in two hours,” he responded.

We were expected elsewhere in that time, and neither of us was too excited about the state our laundry would emerge from such a shambles, so we returned to the car, dirty laundry in hand and meter already paid for an hour. 

I was furious; I had googled “Laundromat” and the sign said “Pete’s Laundromat” but this had not been a laundromat at all. Further research revealed another in Lanberris and another at Bangor, the first not answering their phone and the latter too far for this morning.

We wandered up into the town near the castle then down to the quay, the area slowly filling with tourists. The place appealed enormously and we learned from the parking signs everywhere that there was no disadvantage in visiting the town and castle during the week as opposed to a Sunday when other places may enjoy free parking.

We headed back to Llanrug, had a coffee then headed across the field to the hog roast where our host greeted us warmly and thrust the first of several full glasses of liquor into our hands. Over the next half hour folk slowly arrived, mostly neighbours and family friends, as well as those fellow campers who had felt it would have been undiplomatic not to partake of the occasion. 

Welsh was the order of the day, except for when we were directly being engaged in conversation. In this corner of the country the percentage of Welsh speakers, for whom it is the first language, is something like 85%. It was lovely to hear it all about us, but even nicer to find a couple of fellow caravanners to spend time exchanging travel stories. And all the while, meat, salads, cakes, trifle and more cakes were piled upon our plates. What a feast!

While this was a party to celebrate the completion of the lovely new toilet and show block , it was also an opportunity to raise funds for the air ambulance service which was instrumental in rescuing our hostess in November last year. In November Alwena fell down the stairs of their home, breaking her ribs and clavicle, as well as sustaining serious head injuries. She spent three months in Stoke hospital, her recovery more a lottery than anything else, and today, with apron over best clothes, she emerged from the house with platters of beautifully prepared food; what a star!

We stole away, after dropping our donation in the bucket and taking leave of John and Alwena, back to our caravan across the field, in time to watch the end of the Wimbledon final and the whole of the World Cup final. By now the fury and frustration of the morning was well forgotten, not only because of the feasting but by the discovery of the brand new washing machine in the ladies’ loo!