The Dee Way, Part 1, Day 3 (of 5), Llandderfel to Corwen, N. Wales

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The forecast for day 3 was good from 10am, so I delayed my start until around 9:30am. It proved to be a good move as the sun soon made an appearance, if only briefly here and there. It also meant that I arrived at the Llew Glas or Blue Lion Inn in Llandrillo at exactly the right time for some “Splendid” refreshment. 😊

However, after yet more overnight snow, I decided to avoid the high level option suggested in the book and I followed the lower level, riverside alternative from Llandrillo to Corwen. This at least gave me the opportunity, at a ford, to wet my feet in the river Dee itself, which somehow seemed appropriate.

Along this and previous legs, I became very popular with quite a few flocks of sheep. Normally they soon run away, but they obviously thought I was going to feed them something. It happened so many times, I decided to take a video. I’ve posted it below, after the usual gallery, for you to enjoy!

Sheep and lambs hoping for food…

The Dee Way, Part 1, Day 2 (of 5), Llanuwchllyn to Llandderfel, N. Wales

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If you saw my ‘mobile’ post last week, you will have noticed that there was more overnight snow. And it was still snowing when I left the very nice Bwch yn Uchaf B&B. I therefore decided to skip the brief detour from the road up the hill (seen in pic 2) as it simply came back to the road about a kilometre further on. Not surprisingly, I didn’t see any cars come along the road at all.

However, in the hope of clearer weather to come, I did decide to go uphill to take in the panoramic viewpoints marked on the map. I was lucky in that the snow did come and go to give me one or two, albeit very dull, grey pictures of Bala Lake, or Llyn Tegid as it’s called in Welsh.

I rather jokingly said to a few people that it would be downhill to go from the source to the mouth of the river, but how wrong I was! There were several good climbs along the route, and the highest on this day (at 1050ft or 320m) can be seen in picture no. 13.

You may also notice certain recurring themes in these posts. One is the number of different way signs encountered. The Dee Way seems to take in sections of several different paths, including, on this leg, the Cross Britain Way and the Tegid Way. Churches are another feature, not because I’m a religious person, far from it, but they do provide a bit of occasional shelter (if open) and, for me, they hold a certain fascination. It could be their age or construction or the objects seen inside. On this particular occasion, I was touched by the relevance of the “Church Door” text, which was by the entrance to Llandderfel church. Have a read of pic 26 and see what you think.

Pubs or, more precisely, real ales are also a passion of mine, but more of that to come… 🍺😊

The Dee Way, Part 1, Day 1 (of 5), Source to Llanuwchllyn, N. Wales

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First, a little background… Some months ago now, Jude and I were browsing the second hand books in the local, Harlech gallery and I came across a Kittiwake publication called The Dee Way. It describes a walk from either Prestatyn or Hoylake, which straddle the Dee estuary, to the source of the river Dee, or Afon Dyfrdwy, to give it its proper Welsh name. The route can be split into ten ‘doable’ sections, averaging around 12 to 14 miles per day (depending upon which start point you choose).

I like to do things differently, so I decided to do the walk from the source to Hoylake, which any golfers out there will know, is the home of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, where The Open will be held this year. I think of it as my little pilgrimage. 😊 However, ten days in a row is a bit too much for me to tackle at once, so I’ve divided it into two, with the first ‘half’ going from the source to Chirk and I’ll do the second part later in the year.

I booked the accommodation about 3 or 4 weeks ago, so when the forecast was for snow and sleet, I did think twice, but decided to go ahead anyway. As you will see in the coming days, there were challenges… Not least of these was on Day 1 where, almost as soon as Jude had dropped me off, I came across some very slippery looking stepping stones (see pic 2). Not wishing to start my journey with wet feet (or worse), I took a short detour over a bridge. From there I followed a good forest track and I looked and looked for the turn off to the source, but no path was to be seen. (See pics 7 and 8). The book warns that the trek to the source shouldn’t be tackled in bad visibility, so I turned around (at the blue arrow on the detailed map in pic 36) and so began my journey east. Along the way, with no signs and again no obvious path, I had to rely upon my mobile OS map GPS to get across the lumpy, tussocky field in pic 15.

The snow soon dissipated though as I approached Llanuwchllyn (meaning the church above the lake), which is indeed where you will find St Deiniol’s church (see pics 26 to 28) and is the terminus of the Bala Lake (narrow gauge) Railway. (See pics 32 and 33).

Sneak preview of Day 2: The weather gets worse…!!

Gone mobile…

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I’ve often wondered how easy it would/should be to create posts on the move. Given the quality of mobile phone images these days, it ought to be simple to post something semi-live… (Or is that what Facebook is for…? 🤔)

Anyway, I’ve just downloaded Jetpack on my phone and thought I’d try it out, because…

I’m currently on a 5 day walk along the Dee Way. (Today is day 2). As usual, I’ve been taking photos with my trusty point and shoot, so the full set of 5 posts will be sometime next week… In the meantime to give you a flavour for the weather today (& I hope this works), here is a picture taken from the B&B bedroom this morning and below that one from the evening before – of the Bala railway terminus at Llanuwchllyn.

Ogwen Valley Walk, Snowdonia, North Wales

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I mentioned in my (re)post yesterday that we have had some blue skies recently. As if to prove it, here are some pictures of a walk which Jude and I did last week in the Ogwen valley, up to two small lakes; Llyn Bochlwyd and Llyn Idwal.

Our peace was shattered almost immediately by the noise of 3 jets thundering through the valley. (I just about managed to capture one of them – see pic 3). The area is regularly used by RAF Valley, in Anglesey, to practice their manoeuvres. But, it didn’t stop there, as you will see (from pics 4, 7, 16 & 19) there were more planes to come, of various shapes and sizes! (Note that the last of them was taken when my camera was set to black and white. The clouds make it look like it might have been on fire but, rest assured, it wasn’t).

Nevertheless it was a beautiful walk – perhaps best summed up by the banner image/panoramic picture (no. 12), which had to be taken on my mobile phone as my camera doesn’t pan that far.

I also couldn’t resist including a picture of the cloudless skies before we set off, with Snowdon just to the right of centre in the first photo. The Ogwen valley is on the other side of that, about (30 miles/50km or) 50 minutes drive away.

I hope you enjoy this little walk, without the noise! 😊

Chateau D’Oex Balloon Festival (Take 2)

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With various ‘balloons’ featuring in the news of late, I thought I’d re-post these images, taken at Chateau D’Oex Balloon Festival, way back in January 2006 and 2008.  To my amazement, it’s almost 3 years since I last posted them, which was during the first lockdown period.  How times have changed….!

With my apologies to long time followers, who will have seen these before, but I just love the colours and it reminds me of what we’ve been missing these past few weeks – pure white, crisp snow!  (We’ve had some blue skies recently, so I can’t complain about that!)  Enjoy!

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Circular Walk around Lingmoor Fell, Lake District, England

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After two relatively short walks, Jude suggested that I went off to do a longer walk. The tops were still covered with snow, so I decided to do a low level walk around Lingmoor Fell, taking in Little Langdale. Although the first section would be similar to our first walk, I knew that the main, middle section would be ‘new’ (at least for this trip) and I managed to find a different route back from Elterwater.

Elter Water from the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, Lake District, England

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Following on from our walk up to the top of Side Pike yesterday, Jude and I decided to head in the opposite direction, along the Cumbria Way, towards Elterwater. It was absolutely freezing when we set off and we soon discovered some rather interesting ice shapes en route. See pics 1, 3 and 6.

Another rather bizarre discovery was a frying pan on the hill near Oak Howe. (See pic 13). This is not the first time I’ve come across a pan. See here for a saucepan left behind in the woods near our previous home in Evolène, (pic 13). I would bet that it’s still there!

After a fine lunch in the Britannia Inn (I highly recommend the roast pork sandwich 😋) we left the village of Elterwater and continued on the Cumbria Way, alongside the river, to have a look at Elter Water – that is, the lake of that name. (See pic 21).

Now here’s an interesting fact: Despite the Lake District being called the Lake District, only one of the 19 or so major bodies of water is actually called a lake and that is Bassenthwaite Lake. Like Elter Water, some of the others, for example, are called Windermere, Rydal Water, Brotherswater and Haweswater Reservoir. Strange but true.

Now since the return to our hotel would be more or less the same way, we decided to catch the bus! But, fear not, I shall be covering that section in a slightly different way again tomorrow… 😊

Side Pike from the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, Lake District, England

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Many of you will no doubt already be aware that the west of Britain is generally much wetter than the east. (It’s something to do with “relief rainfall” and the prevailing winds largely coming from the south west). So it was with some trepidation that Jude and I took advantage of a 5 night Winter Special break at the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel in the Lake District. We simply expected to swap Welsh rain for English rain, but we couldn’t have been more wrong! The weather, as you will see below (and in the 2 following posts), was bright and sunny, but very, VERY cold!

Our first walk would take us up to the pass between Great Langdale and Little Langdale and then to the top of Side Pike. At 362m or 1,188ft, it’s only a small ‘mountain’, but it affords fabulous views over both of the Langdale valleys. Our return would take us back down to the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel (for a quick refreshment 🍺😋) and then along the Cumbria Way to our hotel, which was warm and cosy and had the most wonderful staff.