North Wales Pilgrims Way (Stage 10 Nefyn to Llangwynnad)

Oh dear - slipped again!

 If only I'd seen this  before I set off down  the cliffside. On the OS  map there looked to be  a clear right of way  footpath down to the  beach - Skip and I  would trundle down and  have a pleasant flat  beach run for the first  section of our day's  pilgrimage from Nefyn  westwards. The problem is that this section off coastline is subject to periodic landslips due to the friable nature of the hillside - this photo is from just a few years ago and of course this meant that our long established footpath had been eliminated leaving us scrambling about on a very unstable hillside amidst brambles, etc. Skip was quite discomfited! So back up we went having lost quite some time out of our allotment for the day

Llyn Cliffs!

We managed to drop down onto the next beach and had a pleasant jog along the strand but we were then faced with a climb up to Nefyn Golf Course which must be one of the most exposed courses in Wales. A stiff breeze faced us on the cliff tops and the constant ups and downs as we progressed from inlet to inlet on the narrow paths became somewhat wearing. To add to our troubles a steady fall of rain worked its way through my waterproof top and even Skip lost his usual zip. At our rendezvous some miles further on near Tudweiliog I sat in the car, ate an early lunch and took stock. Vicky very kindly trekked over to the cafe to fetch me a hot cup of tea. Suitably invigorated I decided to press on using the alternative inland route minus Skip. It couldn't get any worse I thought!!

A Picture Postcard Setting!

Porth Towyn is the closest beach to Tudweiliog. I'd been here before but not for 41 years. I'd hitchhiked up in a hot early September following the Isle of Wight Music Festival (highlights included Bob Dylan being booed for his being more electric and less folky than before). I'd been travelling on back roads sleeping at night under hedges in an extra-large fertiliser bag. On arrival I promptly fell asleep on the Towyn beach and woke up with a sore red nose! It certainly wasn't picture postcard weather today as I emerged from the car into the gale and  slogged the last few miles to our AirBnb at Llangwynnad just an hour or so short of the Pilgrims Way endpoint at Aberdaron. We already knew that our ferry to Bardsey Island had been cancelled due to the foul weather so our journey is not yet complete - we fight another day.

North Wales Pilgrims Way (Stage 9 - Clynnog Fawr to Nefyn)

Big church!

 The population of  Clynnog Fawr is round    about 1000. So what's  a big church like this  doing here? We've  seen cathedrals not  much bigger than this.  Well it was a rather    important staging post  for the medieval Welsh  pilgrims on their way to  Bardsey  Island. The  church is dedicated to  St Beuno   who lived here and there's a holy well just outside town where the pilgrims could bathe their sore feet.

Well, well, well!

And here's the well itself which I found on my way out of the village. This is one of a number of Welsh holy wells ascribed or dedicated to Beuno, maybe he had connections at Dwr Cymru. The signboard explains that the waters of this well are a cure for epileptic children and in medieval times folk would bring their affected offspring from miles around and fling them into the icy water. I can see how this might work perhaps! (My trusty rucksac has also found it's way into the picture to prove I was there!) From here it's a fairly direct route parallel to the main road before dropping down into Trefor where Skip and then I faced the big climb up towards the three summits of Yr Eifl. Our path upwards was clearly centuries old and has been used by pilgrims, quarry workers and shepherds over the years. It was a clear calm day and, away from the traffic noise, we began to relax and enjoy the far reaching views down the length of the Lleyn peninsula. Our route widened out into a track along which granite was transported from the high quarries down to the sea at Nant Gwrtheryn which is the modern name for Porth Nant.

Not my photo but I think this is a stunning snap of a quite extraordinary location, the former isolated village of Porth Nant which was the export outlet for vast quantities of granite setts quarried further up the hill in the 19th and 20th centuries. These cobbles for the roads of Manchester, Liverpool and further afield were chiselled to size in the quarries and then transported down a zig-zag winding track (known as the Screw!) to the coast;  they were then loaded into steamers which carried their cargos up the Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal to the newly built Coronation Streets and Penny Lanes of the late 19th century. Though very isolated Porth Nant was a thriving community, however after the second world war, tarmac became the road surface of choice and the cobble industry declined. The village was gradually abandoned and the dwellings fell into disrepair. However a forward thinking GP from Manchester, whose mother was Welsh speaking, had practised in North Wales and developed a strong Welsh affiliation to the extent that he set about reviving the village - it's now a busy residential Welsh Language centre, a new tarmacked (!) road enables vehicles to descent the steep tour down and the ruined buildings have been restored for accommodation for the students. It's a lovely spot and Skip and I were delighted to see the wonderful views as we wound our way down the 'Screw'.  

Little church!

We had a good look at the harbour and imagined the tramp steamers loading up their cargos of cobblestones and then proceeded on and upwards on the coastal path, the only other route out of Nant Gwtheryn which follows a cliff top route for a few miles. Having started the day by St Beuno's Church in Clynnog Fawr, we finished several hours later in Nefyn and, on the way down at Pistyll we were pleased to see yet another St Beuno's Church. This one is a much smaller building, apparently this is where Beuno went when he wanted a bit of peace and quiet. It's in a lovely spot overlooking the sea and, I learnt that it had a thatched roof until the 20th century, although all the photos I found depicted its current slate roof. A more recent claim to fame is that the churchyard contains the grave of Rupert Davies who played Inspector Maigret in the 1960's TV series. 

We're getting closer to the end of the pilgrimage, the historical links are more frequent and we seem to be moving further away from civilisation and the 21st century. Running away from the present perhaps? Well why not!

North Wales Pilgrims Way (Stage 8 - Waunfawr to Clynnog Fawr)

Any more fares please?

In London the buses are red, in Cardiff the buses are orange and but in Waunfawr the local bus company, Whiteways, painted their buses white of course! Here's a Whiteways double decker in Caernarfon some years ago. It must be some years ago because the Hepworths shop in the background would have disappeared over twenty years ago (because the clothing chain changed its name to Next) and Waenfawr (see the destination indicator on the front of the bus) changed its name to Waunfawr in the 1990's (thanks to the insistence of the Welsh Language Society.)

It was a fine bright morning for the next leg of our pilgrimage, Skip and I tootled past the Welsh Highland Railway station at Waunfawr, climbed up by Moel Smytho, and headed on mountain footpaths across the broad hillside under the shadow of Mynydd Mawr and on towards Y Fron.

The blue lagoon!

As we then left the wild upland spaces we began to encounter a landscape defined by the slate quarrying industry of the Nantlle valley. Virtually all of the quarries are now closed; however to get a real sense of the enormous extent of the industry requires a walk (or run in our case) through the vast area covered in spoil tips and ruins of pump houses and workshops heading down to Talysarn and Penygroes. Here's one of the flooded quarries above Y Fron, in this case coloured a brilliant blue thanks to mineral salts in the water, the fence between us and the cliff edge didn't seem very robust! There's a white buoy on the surface of the water (the Prisoner comes to mind!) and I think that's a crow flying overhead - the beak looks a bit small for a Raven. Or maybe it was a drone shaped like a bird, I couldn't hang around to find out because we were on a mission.

The UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites makes for interesting reading, included as might be expected are the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge and Venice and its lagoons, there are National Parks and archaeological sites aplenty and some sites have been delisted for various reasons (e.g. Liverpool). But there are less obvious choices on the list such as the Bikini Atoll Nuclear Test Site, the Fray Bentos Industrial Landscape in Uruguay and our current whereabouts, the Slate Landscape of North West Wales! This action photo is from the huge Dorothea Quarry in its heyday, the buildings are all gone apart from the Cornish Beam Engine House at the fore front of the picture, a solitary reminder of the thriving industry that once provided abundant employment.

It would take days to thoroughly explore this area and the map below shows the vast area covered by the quarry workings which are criss crossed by footpaths and old railway lines. We jogged down from the top right of the map skirting the northern edge of the biggest flooded pit shown and by the entrance to Tal y Sarn Hall into the village itself where huge quantities of slate were loaded onto the main freight line to Caernarfon to be shipped around the world.

Fancy a drop?

Nowadays Talysarn seems quite a sleepy place, on a warm May afternoon I spotted little traffic and just a couple of pedestrians,  surely a contrast to a century ago when it was a hive of industry. The old train station is the site of a bus terminal and the railway line out of town has been replaced with a by-pass. However new industries are springing up - look at this - a Welsh vineyard between Talysarn and Penygroes! Thousands of vines and apple trees have recently been planted for the production of wine, cider and apple juice - this includes 700 trees bearing the rare Bardsey Apple a rediscovered variety probably the survivor of trees planted by monks on Bardsey Island a thousand years ago.  Alas we had no time to stop and sip and stare and we carried on the remainder of our jaunt from Penygroes to Clynnog Fawr which was, by contrast, through rolling farmland. Two consecutive days of long running had tired us out and we needed to rest and recuperate.

North Wales Pilgrims' Way (Stage 7 Bangor to Waunfawr)

Cathedrals usually come a bit bigger than this!

Well isn't it funny how time slips away!    After a few weeks of cross country, half marathoning and Borders Leagueing I finally got back to getting moving again running along the Pilgrims' way. And guess what? There are now leaves on the trees and I'm wearing shorts. Vicky dropped me off where I left off previously and I shuffled into Bangor - here's the comparatively modest cathedral. This is dedicated to St Deiniol. Deiniol is a name that I was already familiar with as there was a young footballer named Deiniol Graham who was one of Alex Ferguson's rising stars at Manchester United. He was going well until he broke his arm and never played again for United. I suspect he lives somewhere round here (in the Prestatyn area) as he recently got a mention in the local newspaper in relation to a motoring offence! Apparently the reason that the cathedral has such a short stubby tower is that the locals didn't want it to be visible from the sea - at the time Viking raiders were on the prowl looking for booty and it didn't pay to advertise your presence! Just after I took this photo I was hailed unexpectedly in the middle of Bangor by our friend Lynne plus daughter and friend who had also come over from Prestatyn to walk a section of the Pilgrims Way. 

We'll walk down the avenue till we're there!

They'd selected a fairly gentle start to their day as in the early stages out of Bangor, after an initial climb, the trail then follows Lon Las Ogwen which is a lovely cycle route built on the old Penrhyn Quarry railway line. For about 4 miles Skip and I followed this fine avenue of maturing trees feeling strong on this pleasant morning.

This was a great opportunity for me and Skip to get well ahead of the girls and we galloped along at a brisk pace. Leaving the old railway line we found ourselves at Pandy Farm, a large circular enclosure with farmhouse. This aerial photo shows what it looked like at one stage but it's rather overgrown now. If you imagine this as a clockface, Skip and I were having a breather in the stream by the trees at about twenty past; refreshed we carried on but made a serious error. About a mile further on I realised I'd left his lead by the stream. We trudged back to be met by Lynne and Co who'd caught us up! So retracing our steps we went up and up through the forest, onto the open moorland and over into the valley where sit Llyn Padarn and the busy town of Llanberis.

All the villages we've been coming through possess at least one chapel, churches though are thin on the ground which is very much a reflection of the former strength of non-conformist religion in this part of Wales. Nevertheless just before we reached Llanberis we found a rather grand church rather by accident. Here's Christ Church in the small village of Deiniolen (pop. 2,000) overlooking the lake. Coming off the mountain trail I'd lost my bearings for a minute or two, Deiniolen is riddled with public footpaths, a legacy of the slate industry, so it's easy to take the wrong route. A lofty church spire beckoned us however and we ran down a narrow path at the back of the cemetery and took this snapshot. Looks a bit more imposing than Bangor Cathedral I think,  although it's not an old church, it was built in 1857. In other words it doesn't have much in the way of pilgrimage connections! 

And so we continued down to Llanberis, past the railway station where a nice looking steam train puffed to a halt disgorging its load of tourists and round the bottom of the lake into town. A familiar  voice from behind us announced the arrival of Matthew on his bike. Matthew is an old running friend who lives not too far away and it was a nice surprise to bump into him and have a brief chat. Glad of the few minutes respite we set off on the final tough leg of the day's journey up and over to Waunfawr. That final track seemed to go on forever - 32K of yomping had certainly taken it's toll on our legs

Canal Dreams

 

Not exactly spaghetti junction!

Criss crossing England, and to a lesser extent the rest of the UK, is a huge network of canals unseen by the vast majority of the population. The bulk of the main cross country links are still in good condition but many are disused and abandoned, built over by housing estates or grazed by farm animals. In some cases there are heroic restoration projects underway and long forgotten routes are being reopened. The grandaddy of British canals is undoubtedly the Grand Union Canal which stretches from London northwards to Birmingham in the West Midlands and Leicester in the East Midlands. With a total length of nearly 300 miles this is a lot of canal! Here's a photo I took of the junction of the Grand Union with the Oxford Canal in Northamptonshire whilst enjoying an early morning jog along the towpath. Yes it looks very peaceful and idyllic but just around the corner is a hive of activity with dozens of canal boats laid up for the winter or under repair in the marinas. Other boats have paused for a while on their journey across the country. The vast majority of traffic consists of pleasure barges in contrast to the industrial cargos transported in vast quantities two and three hundred years ago. canal side 

One thing common to all canal boats is that they're narrow and many of the locks and tunnels on the older canals can only accommodate barges up to seven feet wide. In fact many of the 30,000 plus boats on the canal network have been converted from commercial barges. The canal side industry today consists of boat hire and boat repair companies but also enterprises, such as tea rooms and ancient pubs now catering for the touring folk - here's the Gongoozler's Rest Cafe near Braunston at the junction of the Oxford and Grand Union. So what's a Gongoozler you might ask! You'll just have to look it up as I'm not saying.

We were in Northamptonshire for a big family wedding and, as our AirBnb accommodation was close to the canal system we were able to show our overseas visitors some of the very photogenic sights to be seen during a canalside walk. Here's the Admiral Nelson pub where we had a fine meal and the next couple of photos are from our very pleasant walk home in the gathering dusk.

Looking for buns!

The final snapshot for this blog post is from Abingdon-on-Thames. This is where ten of us wedding guests joined up post wedding to clear heads and enjoy a jolly jaunt on the riverbank by running in the Saturday morning parkrun. We explored the town on the previous evening and found ourselves by the Abingdon Country Hall a rather grand building in baroque style built in 1683. It looks fairly sedate here (8 pm on a Friday evening here) but on special days once every few years (e.g. Royal Jubilees) a throng of local townsfolk gather outside the hall hoping to catch one of the several thousand fruit buns thrown down by the town officials - a tradition that dates back to the coronation of George III in 1761!

 

..........to another Half!

Three jolly runners!

 So fast forward a couple of weeks to  Cardiff. And it was a good 10 degrees  warmer than Cyprus for the four times postponed Cardiff University Half  Marathon, the biggest race in Wales; this year it was designated the Welsh Half Marathon Championships, so everything to run for, at least for an aged runner from North Wales! Ruby, Isaac  and myself  finally located each other in a huge crowd milling around near the start on a fine sunny morning.  Ruby was very well  prepared, I thought I was well  prepared and Isaac knew he wasn't, especially as he was hunting for safety pins to fix his number on his shirt.  We found the Welsh Athletics tent where our friend Eva kindly took this photo and she directed us to a reliable source of safety pins for Isaac. 'Comms' problems left us hanging around on the start line for over twenty minutes, an enthusiastic announcer ran out of encouraging things to say but eventually, like coiled springs, we reacted to the gun and charged off. And we all finished which was the  principal objective, Ruby had a  wonderful run finishing well under two  hours, Martin struggled towards the  end (Recovering from a cold? A poor  excuse though! But I was surprised to  finish in 1:40:00 - first V70 and Welsh  Champion.) And Isaac thoroughly  enjoyed his trot round - sore legs for a week but he's now aiming for the Newport Marathon - star man.

Bracing!

Just four days later and that brief window of warm weather was gone. On the very last day of March a bitter wind accompanied by snow had banished the' Fool's Spring' and we were well wrapped up again for our weekly Nordic Walking session on the Clwydian Hills.  This reversal of the seasons happens so often at this time of year - maybe this is the original April Fool that the weather provides us with on a regular basis. It's not just a North Wales phenomenon as all over Europe it's chillier than usual - for the second year running the vineyards of Bordeaux are seeing fires lit alongside the vines to save the new growth from being nipped in the bud by frost. It's not helping me with my attempts at spring gardening with my spinach, lettuce and rocket showing no signs of sprouting so far. I'm just glad I have a  greenhouse and my tomato plants are developing just fine. I am growing Roma tomatoes for the first time - these are Italian style tomatoes used for paste and other culinary purposes. I didn't know until after planted them that they are 'determinate' (I've read up on this!), in other words the tomatoes all ripen at the same time - just as well we have a big freezer. And just as well I'm growing Alicante tomatoes which are a more regular salad style variety which keep on producing through the summer - so I've determined that Alicante are 'indeterminate' tomatoes!

Roma at home-a! Don't they look good.

From one Half..............

Custard perhaps!

Red pillar boxes for posting mail are all over the place in Britain. But they are not confined to the UK and there are many parts of the world that were part    of the British Commonwealth which are now independent, and they too had these iconic pillars where you could    post your letters. In countries where they have been retained and are still in use, some are coated in classic pillar box red, e.g. Malta and Gibraltar; elsewhere they've been repainted other colours. In Ireland they all went green   in 1922 and in Cyprus we saw plenty of yellow ones - here you can still see the crown and the letters GR indicating that this was erected in the reign of King George VI. They're not exclusively red 

in the UK though - following the 2012 Olympics pillar boxes in the home towns of the various British gold medal winners were painted gold; we have one near us in Flint to commemorate our local hero Jade Jones who won a Taekwondo gold medal.

I'm still standing!

Some more Roman ruins, this time in central Paphos where successive stages of occupation have been gradually peeled away by archaeologists, this is the place where in the first century AD, St Paul the apostle was tied to a pillar and whipped - a very white marble pillar still stands among these ruins and apparently this is the one he was chained to. The church in the centre of the photo was built in the 13th century on the site of a much larger basilica. All very impressive and only a stone's throw away from the nightclubs and bars.

Every little helps!

I love wandering round supermarkets on our travels. Looking at what the locals buy provides a good indication as to what kinds of produce feature in their diet. Papantoniou's wasn't especially big but their fruit and veg section was rather amazing featuring a wide range of exotic fruit and veg many of which were unfamiliar to me, lots of different types of aubergine too. The fish counter was pretty impressive with lots of octopi (that is the plural isn't it?) and fancy shellfish. On the way out I spotted this sign which puzzled me a bit - I went back in and looked around and found some Sainsbury's tea for sale but that was about it. I guess the signage represents some sort of agreement that benefits the Cypriot shop in terms of attracting British visitors to do their shopping here.

Everyone's a winner!

And here we are, the real reason we came to Cyprus. A bit of a running festival, Vicky did the 5K and I trundled round the half marathon. Don't let the clear sky in the background (behind Paphos Castle) fool you - it was desperately cold, we'd run in sleet and rain and a stiff wind and by the time of the presentation I was well wrapped up, thankful that I'd brought a bag of clothes. 1:41:56 was my time and I was happy with that especially as I was able to stand at the top of the podium with an oversize trophy to wave around. Vicky was 40:19, she would have liked to have broken the 40 minute mark but, as I've said, the conditions were against us.