Wales North

Rather than head further north right away, we drove back to Newport (near St David’s) and spent a couple of hours hiking our around a headland on the Coastal Path. Skies were mostly clear and breezes were light and views were excellent. We then returned to Solva, a small village near St David’s and did another hike involving some field & hedgerow walking through fields and returning along the Coastal Path. The return track was certainly the best part of the walk.

After our walk, we headed east and north and ended up in the small village of Cenarth, apparently famous for it’s salmon run in the Tiefy River and also for it’s coracle museum. It was a quiet night, but damp in the morning with the usual dew. The sounds of the gently flowing Tiefy River were nice to hear during the night.

A short drive brought us to Aberystwyth, a coastal town noted for it’s universities and the National Library of Wales. After setting up camp in the local “holiday park” we drove up the valley and did some walking – not on the walk we had planned, but nice none-the-less. After a walk through some of the town and a pub supper, it was time to retire for the night. Skies were clear overnight, but by morning, it was foggy/cloudy and the tent was partly wet again.

Since skies weren’t really cooperating, we decided to visit castles and gardens for the day rather than head for Snowdonia. Accordingly, we visited Powis Castle & Garden near Welshpool and Chirk Castle & Gardens near Chirk, just south of Wexford. Both gardens were excellent. The castles were interesting as well, but the highlights were certainly the gardens.

In Chirk we also had a look at a couple of aqueducts built by Thomas Telford, a famous engineer.

Camping for the night was a few miles up a small valley west of Chirk at the small hamlet of Glyn Ceiriog. Nothing but the calls of birds in the night disturbed our sleep.

The morning seemed decent, so we headed for Mt Snowdon.

The hike up was successful and is described in a separate post.

We spent the day after visiting a couple of gardens, including one of the best we’ve seen so far, the Bodnant Gardens south of Conwy.

Our next direction is east, back into England and to the Peaks District, east of Manchester somewhere…..