The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Monday 3 August 2009

AWW Day 3

Monday - 16ish miles

It was a 7.15 start this morning after an excellent, blissfully quiet, night's sleep. A bit of light rain had fallen in the night, and briefly as we breakfasted, but it was dry by the time we were all assembled and so, unexpectedly, waterproof trousers were left in our packs.

Multiple groups of 'roadside campers' were passed as we walked part of the way around Nant y Moch Reservoir before striking off along a By-way and onwards along the side of Llyn Craigypistyll.

At the dam end of the llyn two route choices presented themselves and a democratic decision was made to avoid the scree slopes on the north side of the valley. Viewing those slopes later from opposite the north-side they didn't look too bad and if walking the route again I would take that side of the valley.

A path through a forest and a footbridge took us to a track which gave us good, fast walking all the way down to Bont-goch. In fact the whole morning was fast, with easy route finding and easy walking on trodden paths and tracks.

Lanes, one of them (from where red kites were seen) particularly nice being more like a track than a road, took us to the main road into Aber, but of course a main road was not what we wanted.

We managed to find a surprising number of hills to walk up on those last few kilometres which was cruel as my mind was most decidedly in the mode of 'it's all downhill to the sea'.

Despite taking a bit of a circuitous route on the edge of Aber thanks to being faced with a plethora of paths in some woodland, we did finally make it.

As the previous post showed, toes (admittedly still enclosed in their footwear) were dipped in the sea and the trip was over.

Incredibly, considering that the forecast was for much rain on both Saturday and today, we were only actually rained on for the first couple of hours after we set out. The very edge of a few other showers caught us but nothing to warrant waterproofs. We have Martin to thank for that, for it is he who has the superb record for backpacking weather.
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2 comments:

  1. It was a lovely walk, Gayle. Thanks for your company and for allowing me along.
    Hoping you both enjoyed the champagne last night.
    Martin

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  2. Good to have you along!

    Alas, the champagne remained unopened. Such was the tiredness when we got home that it seemed a waste to open some bubbly, so a bath and a bed it was.

    Must make sure that I regain a bit of fitness before the next backpacking trip (I ache today far more than I have after any backpacking trip in recent years) - not to mention getting the knee better, which doesn't feel like it's going to be an overnight process.

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