Travel with Manfred

Travelogues from around the world

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Copyright © 1996 by Manfred P.. All rights reserved.

Nov 2, 1996

Nature and Scenery of Cyrmu (Wales)

The Man Who Walked Up a Hill and Was Nearly Blown Off a Mountain

by

Manfred P.

Keywords: Wales, Cyrmu, Great Britain, England, national parks, Brecon Beacons National Park, Snowdonia National Park, Pembrokeshire National Park, Pen-y-Fan, Snowdon, Guy Fawkes Day, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

The beauty and splendor of the smallest of the three countries making up Great Britain is it's nature and scenery. Wales has an astonishing amount of it. The country is green. No wonder with all that rain.

The Brecon Beacons National Park in the South was my first destination. It's a place of rolling hills. Soft moss, short grass, kept at minimum length by the sheep, and a few higher hills in the background. It was drizzling and the top of the hills were clouded and hidden behind mist. Wales' second highest mountain is here: Pen-y-Fen. It's a few feet short of 3000 ft, 2906 to be precise. If I am not confused than this might have been the setting for the movie "The man who went up a hill and came down a mountain" where the proud Welsh villagers added to the hill top to push it from a hill into a mountain. The park ranger discouraged me from hiking it with all the rain and no visibility. Instead I walked to a nearby hill top but even down here in the valley the visibility was poor. The ground was soaked in water, and little creeks formed wherever they felt like. Small lakes formed spontaneously as well. A farmers drove his sheep dog around on his tractor and relocated sheep.

Talking about sheep and sheep dogs. I always thought bowling was the most boring or most bizarre sport to watch on TV. I will have to reconsider this attitude. Here, they have "get-the-sheep-into-the-pen" competitions on TV whereby a farmer controls two dogs and has them guide eight sheep through a course and finally into a pen. New countries, new customs. The interview after the game with the athletes, farmers that is, is quite monotonous except when the reporter asked the farmer what he wanted to do with the sheep that roamed around loosely and cost him points. The farmer didn't say a word but gesticulated that e had a desire to slaughter the sheep and have it for dinner. Good idea.

The small roads winded through the national park and the scenery was pleasurable. I could even rescue a few shivering hitch hikers from the rain. Hitching seems to be working well. None of the people I gave a lift have been waiting long. Most roads just go into one direction, making it easy to help. Their language was a challenge. While they most likely were trying to speak as British as possible, I still had a hard time understanding them. Especially town or village names gave me a hard time. Unless they pointed at it in the map or wrote it down I had to guess pretty much which place they were talking about. The pronunciation sounded good, but the lack of vowels made it difficult for me to remember any of the cryptic looking names. I think the Welsh language has Celtic origin and uses 6 letters less than the English and uses 'y' as a vowel. Sometimes I thought I am in the Czech Republic when village names consisted of 8 consonants but no vowels. Repeat these town names 3 times real fast and then remember them for 15 minutes: Eglwyswrw, LLandudno, Trawslynydd, Tywyn, LLanwrtyd Wells, Brynmawr. And these were the easy English names, not the tough Welsh names.

When I entered Wales the street signs immediately turned bilingual. The Welsh are serious about the culture and language and strongly push for more usage of Welsh with ads and fliers. Close to the border the bilingual signs had English on top and Welsh on the bottom, but that changed quickly and in most places Welsh is on top and British English on the bottom. I thought Swedish is hard to read. I think I understand more Swedish than Welsh. The differences between English and Welsh are exemplified by the comparison of the country names "Wales" and "Cyrmu". Could they be any more different? Or how about "How are you?" in Welsh? Sut mae.

With a stop over and a little bit of relaxation at Brecon Beacons National Park I ignored the capital Cardiff and the biggest city Swansea and moved on to the Gower peninsular. Night caught up with me before I made it to the castle on the ocean. With the day light gone I chose St. Clears as my residence for the night. A small village, but with everything one's heart would desire: a couple of public houses, a fish-n-chips place, carry out Chinese restaurant, a small grocery store that was surprisingly still open, and most importantly two bed-n-breakfast places. It was still raining and the stroll through town was calming my mind. Before hitting the sack I had, as a good custom, tea and cookies. The host lady even asked if I needed some milk for a good 'cupa' tea.

The rain continued throughout the night and into the next morning. At least I saw Wales in its typical form. Tenby kept my attention for most of the morning. It's another coastal town with another castle, but it's special due to one or maybe the oldest parish church in Wales and the still existing town wall that was built besides the castle as a defensive measure. The wind was nasty and the ocean rough. The building next to the castle had some ocean related verses from various pieces of literary art; in various languages. There was a couple that I knew, such as "o thalatta, o thalatta" by Homer.

Since I could stomach one more castle I also stopped at Pembroke. That should do now again for a while. The scenic route led to St. David's. Before reaching it the ocean view opens up wide after making it over a hill. Rather dark clouds were hanging in the sky, the ocean was gray and had a grim look to it. The wind was pushy and instead of sand the beach was covered with gravel. It had a pessimistic but strong flair to it. It gave the message of "respect me and my powers". A day to stay home, heat a wooden fire in the living room and enjoy the view through the shut window.

A few more up and down hills and St. David's itself popped up. Not knowingly this should become the highlight of the day. The St. David's Cathedral is breath taking. Depending on your mood of course. It has the power to instill spiritual thoughts. It did so with me. The wooden ceiling is interesting and the old grave stone from people that passed away centuries ago is eerie and fascinating. Wandering through the different areas of the rather large cathedral does something to you. It even has this typical church or monastery smell. Trust me, I know what I am talking about. The whole impression and the setting with the surrounding graveyard and the ancient, 16th century I guess, living quarters is lovely. Back then it was the seat of a bishop.

Having enjoyed that cruised through the scenery, heading for the real mountains in the north. At the entrance of the Snowdonia National Park, in Machynlleth, I spend the night. It was great timing as the town's Guy Fawkes celebration, in some way the British version of Halloween, just started. As I pulled into the parking lot a gang of kids with torches passed by. A little bit of inquiry revealed that the whole town was heading towards the "big parking lot". The show had everything. It started with the magician Merlin and his flame throwing dragon showing up to entertain the crowd. Not bad. When the two guys started juggling illuminated balls one could tell that these are amateurs, but it was good fun. In between I checked out the bonfire burning some 2 yards high. Looked like a whole pile of pallets set on fire. The juggling got better and soon they switched to juggling of torches. The final highlight was the fireworks that made all the babies scream and was so load and low that as a reflex I had to close my eyes occasionally as another blast went off. I was afraid that the low flying fireballs would set the trees on fire but with all the wet weather there was clearly no need to worry. Having a great evening entertainment, it was early to bed and early rise.

The terrain got more hilly, the rivers wilder, and the waterfalls more frequent. White water rafting is the thing to do here, assuming you are experienced. Mountain biking seems to be the second sport in this part of the country. In the middle of all this is the village Beddgelert. The scenery is what I imagine Scotland to look like. From here the road climbs uphill to the mountain pass south of Llanberis. This pass must be quite popular as it is the only place where I met obvious tourists and foreigners. A trail leads from the pass to the highest mountain of Wales: Snowdon. While it sounds impressive to be the highest mountain, it is rather small in comparison to the Alps or the Sierras. The peak is 3560 feet high or should I say 'low'. That's a little bit more than 1000 meters. The trail from the pass is the short, but steep route. A second trail, longer but less steep, leaves from the town Llanberis itself. After chatting with a local and being told that it might take up to 6 hours to hike it, I opted for the easy but longer trail. There is actually a railroad that goes all the way to the top. But to my surprise it does not operate on Sundays. Not very business like. A hiker just casually remarked "The Methodists, they don't work on Sundays". Sunday is the day to rest or to climb Snowdon. All people I met on the mountain looked like serious hikers with full equipment and gear: backpack, solid hiking boots, waterproof clothing, jackets with hoods, gloves, ... The full treatment. Me: business shoes, regular pants, coat, scarf, and cap. I felt out of place, but I am known for my stubbornness. I don't give up that easily. I figure I can always throw in the towel later if it gets too tough. Assuming it would take 6 hours as told I had to hurry to make it back by day light. I was passing a dozen people or so on the not so crowded trail in the first hour. They all gave me the dirty look, or was that just my imagination? Anyway, I felt lucky and alive. Lucky because with all the rain that I had, it was pure luck that for those few hours where it really mattered, namely now, it was dry. I felt alive because I had a goal ahead of me, something I hadn't done before and something that I wasn't so sure I would reach. The wind was strong and the trail wet but not muddy. The top of the mountain was hidden in mist making it hard to judge how much further the trail went. Once I entered the misty zone, the weather turned nasty. The strong wind turned into a gale, the visibility dropped to 15 feet, and my hands were red because it was so cold. The gusty gale was unbelievable. Half an hour back I was happy about the strong, but constantly turning wind because occasionally, when blowing from the right direction, it literally would push me up the mountain like nature's elevator. Now, I hated the wind. I had never experienced anything like this. The wind was so strong that while being prepared and with my knees bent, legs apart bracing the gust, it nearly blew me over. I, on a couple of occasions, had to put my hands on the ground to get additional hold. The mist and gale combined had rendered my glasses completely useless as they were full of water drops such that I couldn't see the ground under my feet. Taking the glasses off was doable, but getting them into my coat's pocket was something that I struggled with for minutes. My coat was all over the place, in between I had use my hands to avoid being knocked over, the zipper wouldn't open and my cold and slightly stiff fingers weren't helpful either. No wonder there are deadly accidents on Everest. If I can't put my glasses away on a 3,000 feet hill, how should they fight nature's forces at 24,000 feet? With my glasses finally stored away I could see the trail right under my feet again. When reaching the top I was glad that I had not just let these little things get into my way. Since there was nothing to see, I just held on to the concrete marker for a few seconds and turned around. Shortly thereafter, on my way back, I lost my trail, but not too worry. I followed the train tracks until I got out of the mist zone again and the valley with good visibility opened up in front of me. From here I followed the tracks until I reached the trail again. The people still on their way up at least didn't give me any dirty looks anymore. The view was magnificent. I inhaled the fresh air, felt good, and let gravity carry me "home". I haven't had this "Mission Accomplished" feeling for a physical task for a long time. So, I indulged in it, even though it was a very small feat and a hike of less than 3 hours.

In the very north of Wales is Caemafon, the town where Charles was crowned to the Prince of Wales. I didn't have the time to visit the town with the famous castle. Instead I drove along the ocean eastbound towards England. It's a long way from London, but worth the trip. Nature is Wales' highlight and biggest asset. Any hiker prepared for rain will enjoy it.