Donkey rides, and everything....

Although the weather outlook was not great we decided to cycle down the Mawddach Traill which follows a disused railway along the southern side of the estuary from Dolgellau to Barmouth, a round trip of 20 miles or so. It's probably the prettiest trail we've been on so far, mixing woodland and esturarial wetland with mountain vistas. The track itself is very well maintained and has picnic tables dotted along the side if you get peckish. All very civilised. The parts of the trail next to car parks and access points were quite busy with families out cycling, but the miles between were relatively quiet.

 An old wooden Toll Bridge crosses the river at  the George III Hotel.

Seeing me seeing you...

Low cloud, but no rain

People were really friendly holding gates open for us and the electric bikes got a few admiring glances. A couple stopped to chat about them and we soon discovered that like us they had just retired and we swapped stories about how odd it was, after a working life where choices about where you lived were constrained by the demands of jobs, kid schools, mortgages and all the other vageries of family life, to suddenly find yourself in the enviable position of being able to choose where you might like to live, and how to spend your time. We were a few months ahead of them in the retirement malarky and we were able to reassure them that, yes, really it was quite OK spending all of your days together. They were wondering about buying a B&B in Wales as a retirement project. We explained that long term travel was our aim.We wished each other well for the future, and went our separate ways. The seemed a really nice, lively couple - best wishes to them.

At the river mouth you need to cross a narrow wooded bridge running alongside the coastal raiway track to reach Barmouth. From a distance the place seemed calm enough, but when we got there, in fact it was heaving. After the peace of the estuary a full-on, in-your-face British seaside resort came as a bit of a culture shock. 

Barmouth had all the hallmarks of a small resort. Lots of caffs, a classic 'harbour fish bar', tacky gift shops, a small fun fair and amusement park and donkey rides on the beach. Of course to complete the picture the weather was showery and the beach darkened by glowering  clouds threarening a proper downpour. After a brief perusal lunch possibilities, Gill joined the queue for the chip shop. It's years since I had proper fish and chips. The portions were so huge that Gill and I shared a meal sheltering from the drizzle by the sea wall.

The charms of Barmouth

It was not all stereotypical, Barmouth had some decidedly quirky aspects to it too. For a start a number of the shops, including the Ebenezer Chapel Emporium where we stopped for a coffee, seemed to be owned by Buddhists.  The Emporium itself sold lots of hippyish Indian goods as well as serving food. That's before we get to the rival fish bar at the opposite end of the high street - the intruigingly named 'Arousal Cafe', Maybe traditional British seaside fare has little appreciated qualities as an aphrodisiac. Certainly people were queueing up to sample it.

Punjabi, Moroccan, Jamaican, Malaysian and Welsh cuisine was on offer - not often you can say that!

It might have been July, but I bet they were doing a roaring trade in wooly hats...

The donkey looked depressed, the owner grumpy and the child fed-up - happy hols!

Gill - "it's just how I remember it as a child...."

Perhaps our children have been deprived...all those Corsican beaches forced on them without a donkey in sight (a fair few feral cows though).

So that was that. Nothing else to do but scoot back along the track to Dolgellau. And Gill really did scoot, I seemed to be constantly upping the power on the electic bike just to keep-up. No wonder she went out like a light at 9:00pm sharp, and woke the next morning aching all over ...what is it that they say? What does'nt kill you makes you stronger!

Gill's instrument of torture