Wales (3)

Thursday morning we decided to head northwards. The intention was to visit Porthmadog and Portmeirion, travelling up on the slightly inland A470 and then drive back down the coast on the A496. Being another sunny day, the drive north through Machynlleth and Dolgellau was very pleasant and showing us a variety of scenery from rolling pastures, wooded hills, and sub-alpine terrain. Heading along the coast of Tremadoc Bay we called in at Portmeirion and had a bit of a look around but decided not to actually go into the purpose built village. It is regarded by sum as a 'folly' of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis who built the place about 75 years ago.

Porthmadog was a suitable place for lunch although the little cafe we chose wouldn't have won any awards. We pushed on through Porthmadog to Tremadog intending to circle back east off the A498 and pick up the road heading south-west through Maentwrog (B4410). However, our Collins road map let us down once again and we only discovered our error just before reaching Beddgelert while waiting at a road works traffic signal. Ho - hum! Ah well, checking the infamous map once again we could see that continuing north-east would actually take us past Mt Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) and then we could loop across to the east through Capel Curig and Betws-y-Coed. From there we could turn south again.

As it turned out, I enjoyed the drive although Pat wasn't so chuffed as she was on the side of the car next to the steep drop-off into the valley below. We stopped at a viewpoint which had a good outlook of Mt Snowdon and also the valley to the south of where we were. The sun was still shining but there was a lot of black cloud around which gave some peculiar lighting challenges - particularly looking back down the valley to where the sunlight was reflecting off Lake Gwynnan.After leaving the viewpoint we headed north east past Pen y Pass on on to Capel Curig. On this section the road is mainly following the high valleys with substantial mountains on either side so it is very beautiful. (You might have guessed that I like mountain country).

We didn't linger in either Capel Curig or Betws-y-coed but turned south towards the slate capital of Blaenau Ffestiniog and, a little further south, Ffestiniog. Since we had taken an unexpected detour it was a bit later in the day than we had anticipated so we decided just to head back down to Aberystwyth the way that we had come. The return journey was somewhat slower than our northbound trip as, for many miles, we were following a house on the back of a truck and there were very few places where it would have been viable to overtake. The driver certainly seemed to know his job as he negotiated narrow lines and one-way sections through villages caused by parked vehicles. Even travelling behind the truck it didn't take too long for us to get to Aberystwyth again to round off another day.