Best bike trail ever?

The Mawddach trail follows the disused railway line from Dolgelau to Barmouth. It's nine miles long, for most of its length following the course of Afon Mawddach, a fast flowing mountain river at Dolgelau that changes after a couple of miles into a broad tidal estuary flanked by green mountains. 

The change of scenery is signalled by your arrival at the Penmaenpool Toll Bridge. Nearby, the George III hotel looked like a good place for a pub lunch, but we were determined to do the whole round trip of 18 miles, no stopping until Barmouth we had agreed.

We held a gate open for a couple of cyclists riding towards us. They looked to be in their late twenties, glowing with health, riding sleek road bikes. "Thank you!" they chorused, "This has to be the best bike trail ever!" they added as they sped away.

A big claim, but as wannabe dismantled railway cycling specialists we reckon we could make a fair assessment. Over the years we must have ridden more than two dozen, not just in the UK, but in Europe - Sweden, Spain and six or seven other countries in between, then there was the Otaga Trail in New Zealand, and two decades ago an old railway track in northern Quebec that we cycled as a family. Was the Mawddach trail really better than any of these?

We concluded you could argue the case. Admittedly, Wales can't really compete in terms of scale with New Zealand's South Island. Otaga trail.It is epic, taking at least two days to ride the whole thing. However sections of it are dead straight and the long steady climbs are tedious and exhausting. Closer to home there are great trails in Spain. In Andalucia  we loved the Via Verde de la Sierra which runs 30km from Olvera  to Serrano through a varied landscape of craggy outcrops and olive dotted hills. That's if you can catch a glimpse of them, the route also features many tunnels and steep-sided cuttings. In the north we spent a memorable day cycling through the Cantabrian Mountains on the Senda del Oso. It is magnificent,  the route follows an old mineral line through a wooded valley; it was a bright autumn day with sunlight glinting on the pale grey peaks, vultures  laconically spiralling above them. So far as a ride through mountains go can Snowdonia compete with that?

Maybe it's an unfair comparison. Mountains provide a spectacular backdrop to the Mawddach trail, but really it's a fluvial route, the river is its focus. However, here too we have had  grander riverside rides, such as the route along Meuse in the French Ardennes or the vine clad banks of the Moselle in Rhineland-Palatinate. So what exactly makes this modest trail along the banks of an obscure estuary in Wales exceptional?

Partly it's about scale, variety is a factor too, and more ineffably perhaps, charm. I remember reading somewhere of a Swiss alpinist visiting the Lake District towards the end of the nineteenth when mountaineering was first emerging as a popular pastime. Faced with the fist-like bulk of the Langdale Pikes he estimated that they were 7000' high and might take two days to climb. In fact they are a third of that height and their ascent is possible in an afternoon. What this reflects is the larger than life quality that  typifies many British landscapes; they manage the apparently impossible trick of seeming epic and intimate simultaneously. The rolling chalk lands of Suffolk are comely and pastoral but their cloudscapes  magnificent. 

The Mawddach trail is similarly heterogeneous, an amalgam of sublime  mountain backdrop, with sunlit woods full of wayside flowers and birdsong. The well surfaced  level track traces the river's journey from swift flowing mountain stream  to the quietude of the estuary, at ebb tide a glistening expanse of mud,  mirror-like on the return journey when the tide had turned.

It took little more than an hour to pedal from Dolgelau to Barmouth, but the variety of the scenery and the ever changing views of the mountains and the estuary made it feel expansive and absorbing. The couple's assessment of the trail was correct, it is not the most challenging or spectacular trail but it is truly satisfying and engaging. For us perhaps it's the most charming trail we have ridden, whether that makes it the best is a question personal predilection; if you are a thrill-seeker you will find it too tame, if you seek quietude and solace in nature, as we do, then you will love it.

You can see Barmouth on the opposite shore well before you reach it. A rickety old wooden bridge crosses the wide estuary. It still carries the railway that runs down the coast to Aberystwyth. To cross the river cyclists need to use the equally ramshackle footbridge that runs alongside it. It is privately owned and an honesty box requests a toll of £1.00 per person to help with the upkeep . Sadly we had no loose change, since Covid we've gone completely contactless, only carrying an emergency tenner, which was not  much help under the circumstances.

Barmouth is a typical small seaside resort. I know I have been very rude  about them, but maybe that is not entirely fair. What is true is that they have remained more or less unchanged since I was a child. Sunday outings in the early sixties to Seahouses on the Northumbrian coast might involve a visit to the Neptune fish bar or Coxons Ice Cream parlour and milk bar; not the amusement arcade though, that was regarded as uncouth. 

Six decades on in Barmouth it was the same proposition, only the names had changed. Though the delights of the British seaside may not be to our taste, nevertheless there is something admirable about these small resorts' longevity. In a world of virtual delights their charms are simple and palpable. They have no pretensions, they are as they are, and that is quite rare these days. We celebrated the fact by sharing a portion of cod and chips.

Next day we headed home. The weather had been mixed and the welcome somewhat chilly at times. That was not our final impression though. Last time we stayed in Dolgelau we visited an excellent traditional butchers. We were pleased to see that Robert"s Brothers was still in business and his range of traditional sausages as good as ever.

 I don't know which brother served Gill, but he was friendly and happy to have a chat. We learned that for the past 24 years he had been married to a strict vegetarian who had never tasted his beautiful sausages. I was left with the thought all marriages are unique and what makes them tick quite mysterious. 

Perhaps what been missing most from out lives during these strange times is not personal freedom or lack of contact with close family but the the mundane presence of strangers. Unplanned phatic exchanges, the occasional unexpected smile, odd conversations. Even introverts are sustained by those and the sense that the unfamiliar can be friendly, strangers are not so strange, and because all of us are always solitary in our heads counter intuitively this means we are not alone.

Unwelcome in Wales?

Yesterday we moved from Beaumaris to Dolgelau, from a coastal location where the weather was forecast to be showery to one in Snowdonia promising persistent rain. Staying put was not an option as Covid restrictions meant we had to pay for all our accommodation outright in advance.

Luckily our departure coincided with a sunny interval and Hyma, (the obscure Greek goddess of campervans mentioned by Motor-Homer) poured further blessings upon us by magicking a Morrisons en-route in  Caernavon, so all our desires might be fulfilled - a small bag of paella rice and some contact lens soaking solution. We have modest aspirations.

Ever since we left home I have had an uneasy sense that the entire trip has been some kind of exercise in predestination, days unfolding like protracted deja-vu, if such a thing is possible. Admittedly it was inevitable that we would end up doing some stuff for a second time as we had stayed at both campsites previously. However we seem fated to repeat the exact same things in minute detail. For example, on reaching the outskirts of Caernarvon  I missed the turning into Morrisons car park, luckily there was a public one adjacent to it off the next roundabout. Even better it had longer length spaces for motohomes. 

It was only when I had reversed into it that it struck me this was the exact spot where I parked on a previous trip to Caernarvon in 2013. The Morrisons had not been built then but the nearby swanky marina and apartment complex 'Doc Fictoria' certainly had. I remember it well because it prompted a rambling blog post about the evils of gentrification and trickle down economics.

If neo liberal economics happened to be the theme of our last visit, socio-linguistics became the focus of this one. When We went shopping on Beaumaris yesterday I would guess there was a roughly 50/50 split between locals speaking Welsh or English. In Caernarvon's Morrisons we seemed to be the only English speakers. 

Over lunch I found a map on-line of the distribution of the Welsh language across the country. Our rule of thumb experience exactly mirrored the shading on the map. The mid blue patch around Beaumaris indicated 50% of people using Welsh as their primary language, whereas the purple stripe stretching southwards down the coast from Bangor to Aberbdaron  revealed this area of Gwyndd to have the largest concentration of native speakers in the country. Over 70% of people hereabouts use Welsh as their primary language.

This resulted in some interesting compromises in Morrisons as they attempted to balance their UK branding with the predominant vernacular. 

Foodstuff signage - bi-lingual, equal font size, vernacular first 

General signage - standard Morrisons branding in English.

Customer and staff announcements used English, whereas the check-out operator greeted us in Welsh but swapped to immediately to English realising we looked non-plussed. Fellow customers conversed in Welsh with the odd idiomatic English phrase thrown in here and there. The two oldish guys having a good old chat beside me by the veg, all in Welsh,  ended their conversation with a jolly, "See you soon." A cute couple in their twenties wandered by, they were having a good humoured row in Welsh about something or other, the girl prefaced every riposte with a fiesty, "No way!" It's a good sign that Welsh is flourishing when younger people are using it as a matter of course, not just the young couple in the store but teenagers messing about on the picnic benches when we took a post lunch stroll up the cycle track that runs along the shore line.

In between stopping to take photos, and looking up unfamiliar spring flowers on Google (purslane) we chatted about how it seemed the use of Welsh had increased since we first visited here in the 1980s; back then, so far as we recalled, it had been older people speaking it mostly. That it seems ubiquitous now has to be one of the successes of devolution.

That we found this fact notable reflects how England remains stubbornly mono-lingual despite becoming increasingly multi-cultural. We need to acknowledge that we are the outliers, for most of history humans have had to speak more than one language, either to communicate with neighbouring tribes or trade further afield. Even today most people are multi-lingual, not least because the world's two largest countries are patchworks of differing language groups.  China, with a population of  I.4 billion, has  302 local languages; in India which is similarly sized, has 121 languages and 19,000 local dialects! It is an embarrassment to only speak one language, I regret not making the effort to become fluent in at least one other.

We headed  south towards Dolgelau.  The road skirts the edge of Snowdonia National Park, hereabouts an upland landscape rather than a mountainous one. Dotted with abandoned slate quarries and run down hill farms it looked impoverished. Near Portmadog we took a left turn following the valley of the Afon Dwyryd  into the heart of  Snowdonia, a very beautiful drive through steep ravines and beech green woods, then more open rugged countryside, past  the silver waters of Llyn Trawsfyndd and the sinister looking nuclear power station on the far shore. 

When I booked the campsite last week the owner asked me for an ETA, I said a round four. It was purely accidental that it happened to be 3.57pm when we stopped at the barrier. That this unplanned moment of almost perfect punctuality made me mysteriously happy is yet another sign that I am further into 'the spectrum' than I like to pretend. The site was  pleasant enough, a bit basic and expensive for what it has to offer. Perched on a hillside about ten minutes from the town centre the place is also somewhat exposed, not a pleasant prospect given the stormy forecast. 

The promised downpours failed to materialise so we took the opportunity to walk into town. Like many country towns Dolgelau doesn't look as if it is thriving, quite a few buildings in the centre are unoccupied, I think the past year has been tough for all small scale traders. A few doughty souls were huddled into temporary gazebos erected outside the pubs, we are still a few days away from the happy day when indoor socialising is allowed. With the temperature struggling to reach double figures you have to admire their pluck. Generally the welcome too felt somewhat chilly. The few people scurrying about were all wearing masks and as they approached swerved into the road to perform an overt social distancing ritual. Back home it's more relaxed, here feels somewhat downbeat. Perhaps our perception of the place was affected by the sign in a cottage window that we passed on the outskirts of the town.

This is hardly going to endear you to a place, I guess that was the intention. Moreover, the dull weather, the dreary effect of the slate-stone buildings and he prospect of Cader Idris towering gloomily over the town all  made us feel ever more  dis-spirited. 

We have spent far too many rainy weekends in the Lake District to be under any illusions, bright weather makes time in the mountains worthwhile, rain is miserable. BBC weather  promised that things might perk up enough by tomorrow for us to manage a cycle trip down Mawddach Trail trail to Barmouth;  fingers crossed, because this was the sole reason for being here, otherwise we felt distinctly   unwelcome and happy to comply with the local's request and head home. 

Still, beyond our grumping we did manage to find where the trail began and walked about a mile or so up it. Though it was puddly the surface was not too muddy, OK for tomorrow so long as the weather improves, we agreed. 

Unmasked in pursuit of a pasty.

'Persistently grey,'  Gill concluded as she peered out of the bedroom window. The observation came as no surprise as I had just spent half the night of dozing fitfully to the accompaniment of periods of pitter patter interspersed with a periodic plop as  drizzle gathered into pools then dripped off the end of the awning cover. For me a sleepless night proffers an ideal opportunity to run through my entire back catalogue of psychosomatic episodes, inevitably leading to rumination about the time it would take for an ambulance to reach the remote spot we are parked in. The lack of mobile coverage would make it impossible to call one anyway, so there is no chance at all of me surviving my imagined impending heart attack. So when woken next morning by Gill's sad reflection about the weather, whereas she felt downcast I was positively joyous having survived yet another close run thing with acute hypochondria.

If the rain stops our plan for today is to cycle to Penmon Point, Anglesey's eastern tip. It's only about 3 miles from the site, we did the exact same thing the last time we stayed here in 2013. It's a bit lame to simply replicate what we did previously, but the effect of six months of house arrest depresses the spirits, just getting out and about is such a novelty that seeking new experiences feels like a step too far. So we are staying at the same site and apparently destined to do exactly the same things.

The site has developed somewhat over the past seven years specialising in statics and seasonal pitches more than tourers, nevertheless you can see that the new investments have been planned carefully and benefit everyone. The upgraded facilities for tourers are well designed and the place has maintained the eco-friendly atmosphere we noted previously. Its location in a little valley screens the developments, and despite the scores of statics dotted about it's hardly a blot in the landscape and the patch woodland at the rear of the place is  peaceful, shadowy and full of birdsong. 

In the event the trip to Penmon point might as well have been new territory because none of it looked familiar at all, which is odd, this corner of the island is lovely, it should be memorable, a rolling wooded landscape with spectacular views of the mainland all the way from the Great Orme near Llandudno to Bangor and the Snowdonia massif beyond, today looking dark and threatening as rain clouds bubbled up.

Unlike our last trip we didn't make it all the way to the lighthouse. Instead, after frequent photo stops along the way, we became sidetracked by the remains of St Seiriol's priory. 

The church is still intact. It dates from the twelfth century and looks Norman, but isn't of course because Wales at that point was an independent Kingdom. 

Some of the monastic buildings have been incorporated into the grand house which abutts the church, the other structures are ruined. Of these the large stone dovecote built in the sixteenth century is the best preserved.

Perhaps the most evocative part of the complex is an ancient spring behind the church. St. Seiriol is a semi-legendary figure from the sixth century associated with early Christianity in Wales. 

I suspect like many of these sacred springs the veneration of this place reaches back even further, since pre-existing Celtic deities were often reinvented as saints. 

We must have passed by here on our previous visit, but we remembered nothing about the ancient site. Strange how some places resonate and remain familiar yet others slip your mind completely. There seems no logic to it.

For example, our trip into Beaumaris yesterday became an exercise in déjà vu purely by accident. One gloomy day in February I made a list of places we might visit in the UK once restrictions were lifted - short trips to attractive places with a nice, well reviewed bakery, since in all likelihood pubs and restaurants would open at a later date than shops. It was a good plan but it didn't come to fruition as many of the small rural sites I had earmarked chose not to reopen until restrictions on opening sanitary blocks were lifted. Consequently we have had to plan our socially distanced mini-breaks around club sites and larger park home sites able to attract visitors with on-board facilities, a niche market it has to be said! As for our pursuit of that delicious pastry for lunch, we have been forced to take pot luck.

The results so far do not bode well so far as British bakeries are concerned. In Devon we were served an inedible pastie in Woolacombe. Wales though takes its cakes and pies seriously, we had high hopes of Beaumaris's 'Central Bakery'. The place took a bit of finding, it is indeed in the town centre but hidden down a side street. It looked very traditional. In our enthusiasm to seek out the Principalities finest pies Gill forgot to put her mask on, her very first transgression in over twelve months of law abiding social distancing. We had hardly passed through the door when the shop assistant barked, "You must wear a mask!"

Gill, apologising profusely, immediately reached into her bag to make amends. At which point the feisty woman behind the counter in her very best school ma'am voice advised us that Gill should, "go outside to put the mask on then come back in." Now this was quite clearly a very silly overreaction, community transmission of Covid is minimal hereabouts it was obvious simply looking at the pair of us that the chances are were we had both been vaccinated, and there was only the three of us in the shop. Nevertheless, we duly marched outside, looked at each other, raised our eyebrows and without exchanging a word decided to find our lunch elsewhere

Opposite Beaumaris's toy-town pier  two places offered lunch al-fresco, The Bulkeley Hotel and The Pier House Cafe and Bistro. We chose the latter on the basis that Beaumaris's mafia of albatross sized seagulls seemed intent on harassing the diners at the Bulkeley, whereas those at the Pier House seemed unaffected, probably because most tables there had a kerbside ambience. We were faced with  Hobson's choice, choked by traffic fumes or  splattered with droppings. 

Even before we were seated we realised that yet again we seemed fated to re-enact our previous visit, yes this was the place  where we had a pleasant, leisurely lunch seven years ago; 'Good food, chaotic service' I tagged the photo that I uploaded at the time.  The only thing that had changed since then were the particularities of front of house mismanagement. Back in 2014 service was provided by a couple of inept teenagers, today one guy was trying serve the dozen or so outside covers, He seemed frazzled, wrong-footed by the complexities Covid related regulations and mixed up about his priorities. The upshot was that we sat down in warm sunshine but by the time our melts arrived a chilly breeze was whipping through the straights and the mountaintops across the water now were wreathed with rain clouds.

As for lunch itself, the menu today is certainly more ambitious than before, more modern showing a bit of southern European influence combined with a commitment to using local produce, all of which has to be lauded. Good, but not exceptional was the verdict on my Welsh rarebit, and if tempted to slip into Jay Rainer mode, then perhaps a little under seasoned, a bigger dash of Worcestershire sauce on the rarebit would have been welcome. Also if you want to elevate your offer then accompanying the main dish with a handful of plain crisps and a few sprigs of rocket and floppy bits of pepper as a salad is simply disappointing. In the end the menu probably offered too much choice, most places where we have had really delicious food have focused on a handful of dishes cooked with skill and panache, the wider the choice the greater the chance of mediocrity has been our experience.

 

After lunch we attempted  to shop for some essentials, an unusual  mix it has to be said, paella rice and contact lens soaking solution. We were fairly convinced that Beaumaris's high street was not going to deliver on this, which it didn't, but not before we had explored the small Spa supermarket, ascertained that the pharmacy did not sell lens solution and the opticians was operating on an appointment only basis. It did give us the opportunity to wander around most of the town centre. Arty crafty junk shops seemed to predominate; most were execrable, however 'Celtic Corner' went beyond the merely dreadful, its window display was positively disturbing, an odd mixture of air pistols, hand crafted replica metal swords and deaths head knuckledusters.  

We like Beaumaris, aside from the place's spectacular location, the town itself is a pleasing mixture of Regency and Victorian buildings on the high street and interesting colour washed terraces beyond it.

The small pier is picture postcard cute, the ruined castle on the edge of town impressive and foreboding in equal measure. 

We walked by the monument heading back to where we had locked the bikes. I stopped momentarily to take a photo, but we did not hang about, the mountains now were veiled in rain and it was heading our way. It took less than 15 minutes to cycle back to the campsite, As we turned into the gate it began to drizzle, then once again continued to rain intermittently until next morning. Our verdict on Beaumaris, beautiful location, pleasingly quirky ambience. It's not so from home, I can imagine us coming back.

 

Perhaps Wales will be better.

We have reached the 'reasons to be cheerful' stage of self administered therapy, a dubious variant of the idea that positive thinking or CBT is actually going to help, a bit like giving someone having a heart attack a sticking plaster. Still, just because putting on a brave face is not going to improve things one iota does not discourage us from doing it anyway, because we're English and that's what we do. So, reasons to be cheerful, each one with a suitably downbeat caveat...

1. It was my 66th birthday last week and the pain of becoming officially an OAP ameliorated somewhat by being given the biggest pay rise I have ever received for doing nothing at all apart from ageing. 

Sadly, the improvement in my financial circumstances is a meagre compensation compared to the loss of earnings experienced since accepting redundancy in 2013. In fact I reckon it would take until 2054 to make-up the shortfall by which time I will be 99, or more likely long dead and forgotten.

2. That being said, we made the most of our unexpected early retirement, becoming experts in maximum travel at minimum cost.

However our freedom to wander freely around Europe in the future has been greatly curtailed by a boneheaded slim majority of my fellow countrymen. Yes, I am a remoaner fundamentalist and I will keep going on about it all the time simply to irritate the boneheads, especially the nearby caravanner who has chosen to adorn their ridiculous SUV and twin-axled prefab's number plates with 'ENG' and a St. George's flag.  So there!

3. Spring! Whatever the madness  happening in the human zoo, who cannot be fail to be uplifted by the arrival of longer days, blossoming hedgerows and the dawn chorus? 

It's true, these things have been a solace during the latter days of lockdown. However, it has been a particularly tardy spring, snow showers in late April, frosty mornings well into May. 

I have spent weeks building a veg plot. I wonder now if there was any point to it given how short the growing season is in Buxton, I suspect that most of the veg won't mature until late August, by which time, with luck we we will be speeding southwards and the only beneficiaries will be the local wildlife.

4. It's great not to have to stay local, even if our particular locality is not so bad.

True, somewhere else is always a blessing. What I really want to do is not merely escape the locality, I want to go abroad, no, I need to go abroad for the sake of my wellbeing and sanity. What my home country has become makes me alternatively sad then mad. In fact, I really am confused about where exactly my home country now is. My passport says I'm British, but we cannot really pretend to be a United Kingdom any more. Collectively we appear to have achieved the opposite of Jo Cox's optimistic assertion that "“We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.” Right now, three out of four of Britain's constituent nations seem fatefully seduced by nationalisms of one kind or another,  English exceptionalism from Westminster, Scottish independence from Holyrood, and in Stormont the truce between warring tribes maintained for the past two decades seems ever more fragile. 

Our conclusion, perhaps Wales will be better, it is after all the last refuge of British socialism, the red wall holds for the moment. It is a different country, an abroad at home, it could be Scandinavia where the language is bewildering, but the locals are friendly and speak English. So here we are, in Kingsbridge Campsite near Beaumaris. 

The evening is chilly but the light beautiful, there in the distance Snowdonia across the Menai Straight; immediately in front of us the hedgerows are three weeks closer to summer than ours at home, herb Robert, red campion and hedge parsley in flower, the cowslips fading. 

We walk up the lane past a row of swanky architect designed houses, each of them someone's retirement dream, I suspect. From the glass gabled upper storey the view across the narrow straights towards the mountains must be a lovely thing to wake up to, a sublime backdrop to the more bucolic scene in the foreground - a patchwork of viridian fields dotted with whitewashed cottages, like Morbihan on steroids we observed. 

Could we have done this? Perhaps, but what brings me joy is having a different view each day, I cannot imagine being rooted to one spot, no matter how idyllic. I am a discontented soul, so seeking peace is a pointless exercise because I am hardwired to live in doubt. 

For many people it seems beauty is conflated with tranquility, 'the still point of the turning world', the 'peace that passeth understand'. It took me half a lifetime to realise I am happy simply figuring stuff out, it is curiosity that makes me tick and there is profound beauty in flux too. Phrases from Plath's 'Ariel' spill through my head. I muse that this way of thinking is not without risk; you only need to read 'Edge' to see that.