Cil-y-Bont, Llanrug, Gwynned

Tonight were glad to put our feet up after a patched together dinner, assembled from fridge scraps and with too little pasta. It seems my pantry-management skills have fallen short; I will have to do better.

We pulled out of camp at about 9.30 this morning, heading south back along the A487 on which we travelled on Saturday. Soon we veered off heading directly south on the A499 down the Lleyn Peninsula, the exploration site for the day. As I had studied the map over breakfast and read extracts from our guide book to The Chauffeur, my expectations sank; I suspected we would be home soon after lunch and Chris would be able to watch the entire Tour de France stage as it unfolded. How wrong this turned out to be.

As we travelled south along the coast, that which borders the Caernarfon Bay, we noted the mountains rising before us, dead on schedule.  We pulled into Trefor, sitting at the foot of Yr Eifl, a range of three hills dominating the skyline. A granite quarry opened here in 1850 and fifteen years later, an industrial narrow gauge railway, yet another of these many such operations in Wales. This brought rock from the quarry to the coast, and was gradually replaced by road transport, the whole operation finally closed in 1960. Today the zigzag of abandoned tracks still stand out from afar and the remains of the quarry, appearing like a castle emerging from the mountain side, make for surreal views. 

The central peak of these three is Garn Ganol which stands at 561 metres ASL, which compared to peaks seen later is not so massive, however the setting beside the seashore, makes these seem so much more grand.

Continuing on, we turned on to the B4417, soon passing through the village of Llithfaen, where we spotted a sign advertising views and other tourist attractions. We found ourselves up on the lower southern slopes of Garn Ganol, with views back up across Caernarfan Bay and at the starting spot for several challenging walks, none of which appealed today.

Again we travelled south until we reached Nefyn, a more significant village high above the sea shore, however we continued on a little further passing through the smaller village of Merfa Nefyn, to a car park surprisingly and pleasingly policed by the National Trust. Once our membership card was scanned in the parking machine, we could stay all day, had that been our plan. Instead we remained at a view point high above the shore and looked across the little bay to the tiny old fishing village of Porthdinllaen, accessed only by sea or on foot along the shore which has kept it frozen in time.

  
In 1806, a parliamentary bill approved new buildings when Porthdinllaen was mooted to be a new port for the route to Ireland, rather than Holyhead on Anglesey Island. However Holyhead won the lottery, helped along with Thomas Telford’s road developments, hence the port was limited to importing salt for the neighbouring herring industry in Nefyn.

Back on the road again, we made our way further along the B4417, crossing pleasant and prosperous looking rolling pastoral land, soon turning on to the B4413 which took us to Aberdaron, yet another fishing hamlet, just two miles short of the most southern tip of the peninsula. Here again the National Trust was controlling the movement of tourists and again we flashed our membership card to deal with the parking fee. We wandered about the little village, not that there is much public access available to wander here. A little up the hill we found St Hywyn’s  church, dating from the 12^th century although its origins are earlier, from between the 5^th and 7^th centuries. Aberdaron was an important embarkation point for the abbey on Bardsey Island which lies a short distance off the end of the peninsula.

The church celebrates its connection to Welsh poet R S Thomas, an Anglican  minister who was born on Anglesey in 1913, and died in nearby Criccieth in 2000,  vicar here at this church from 1967 to 1978. The exhibition within the church tells of his life, his eccentric character and his poetry and other published work. He was a miserable lonely old sod by all accounts and I would love to read more about him; again plenty to fill my retirement when I finally stop rushing from one place to another.

It was midday but we decided to look elsewhere for a picnic spot and so headed across to the eastern coast of the peninsula, to Llanbedrog, which again turned out to be a gem. National Trust was again standing guard at the entrance to the car park and explained the attractions of the spot. After picnicking near the rows and rows of brightly coloured beach huts, we learned how they came to be up in the car park rather than standing along the seashore. 

In March 2018 when Storm Emma swept across Britain, tonnes of sand was washed from the Llanbedrog beach, revealing a base of broken glass, metal shards and a host of other debris;  an old rubbish tip had been uncovered.  Six hundred tonnes of this rubbish, including the sand mixed up with it all, was removed and the lot was passed through an industrial sieve, before the clean and safe sand was restored to the beach. Naturally less bulk was restored than initially taken (arithmetic logic) and the bureaucrats decided spring tides and other climatic wonders were still a threat to the beach huts.

Down on the beach we saw many folk enjoying the sunshine and the remaining sand, and some venturing into the water. As beaches go, it really is quite lovely and there is even a café adjacent to the access for those who cannot go anywhere without their cappuccinos. We decided instead to walk up beyond the car park to the art gallery as suggested by the helpful National Trust girls at the gate.

Here in Llanbedrog is Wale’s oldest art gallery, the Oriel Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, which has recently celebrated its centenary and a half. The mansion which is now home to the art gallery was built in the mid-1850s as a Dower House for Lady Elizabeth Jones Parry, the widow of Sir Love Parry Jones Parry of Madryn. This family had popped up in the history we had read of that remote little fishing village of Porthdinllaen, and continued to do so until we finally left the peninsula after Porthmadog. Elizabeth never actually slept here although she visited it weekly by carriage and buried her dogs in the cemetery on the terraces below the house when each passed away, which I guess gave her a strong emotional link with the place. 

In 1896, the Victorian Gothic house and parts of the surrounding estate was sold to Solomon Andrews who was the main man in the development of the seaside resort of Pwllheli just up the coast. He turned it into a genteel centre for the arts, with pleasure gardens and legendary tea dances. 

Today there was great activity in the gallery because they are rearranging the exhibitions for the summer season. Generally when galleries are making changes, they close off rooms to rehang the new work, but in this case we were able to simply step around the piles of pictures and enjoy those facing our view. There was some excellent art on display and it was just as well the prices had not yet been attached or we might have been sending large parcels back to New Zealand.

Neither of us had any particular desire to stop in Pwllheli, that relatively new resort town. There was a market here back in 1355 so it is hardly new, but I had expected something with a bit more style. A hasty drive through revealed a fairly good mix of retail services which suggested that this was the place where the peninsula dwellers came to stock up on essentials. Further on up the A497 we passed through Criccieth which I thought more appealing, probably why that old curmudgeon, the Reverend Thomas, chose to spend his last years here.

When we reached Porthmadog, we parked up in the Tesco car park and popped in to justify our presence. One can always grab a couple of bottles of wine in such a situation as they never go amiss, although today potatoes took their place. From there we wandered along the High Street toward the port, that created by one Lincolnshire MP William Alexander Madocks. Not only did he prove a successful entrepreneur and developer, but he and his brother named this and that after themselves. Of course there is much more to this history but we did not spend too much time venturing into the Maritime Musuem where we would have learned much more. 

There are three tourist railways that run out of Porthmadog, the Ffestiniog , the Welsh Highland and the Welsh Heritage Railways. The first two are through superb countryside and I can vouch for this because we drove through the same landscapes later on. The Chauffeur suggested we check out Blaenau Ffestiniog and since I am always keen to explore as much of the countryside as possible, I agreed it was an excellent idea.

And so we headed a little east of Porthmadog, on the road travelled from Cardigan Bay then headed north up a steep valley into the mountains of Snowdonia. Blaenau Ffestiniog is a historic mining town, once the second largest town in North Wales. These days the 1910 peak population of 12,000 has diminished to less than 5,000. Some of these are employed in the tourist industry that celebrates the slate industry, once the lifeblood of this corner of the country and the rest must surely exist on welfare hand-outs. The houses cling to the steep slopes of the mountain and the shale heaps lie all about reminding this was once a prosperous area, with numerous shops, hotels and restaurants.

Just to the west of the town, on the upper slopes of the 720 metre Moelwyn Mawr, sits the Stwlan Dam erected in the 1950s and ‘60s, the higher of the two dams of the pioneering Ffestiniog Pumped Storage power station scheme, the first of its kind in Britain. I had caught a glimpse of this as we climbed up through the valley, it appearing like a space age fantasy castle.

After wandering about here, having to pay for parking for the first time all day, we descended the mountains, re-entering the Snowdonia National Park and headed across a steep ridge on the B4410 to join the A498 which took us up the Aberglaslyn Gorge. I should mention here that Blaenau Ffestiniog and its immediate surrounding area are excluded from the National Park because of the nature of the industry and the residual eyesore, this leaving a neck-pillow shaped gap in the green shades on the map.

Our drive back to Llanrug continued on to the lovely Beddgelert at the confluence of the Glaslyn and Colwyn Rivers, a place that begged at least several hours of exploration,  now on the A4085 up the west side of Mount Snowden, then across high ground from where we had expansive views over Anglesey , Caernarfon and toward Bangor, before dropping down to our own little camp. What a wonderful day it had been and a long one at that.