Our plan was to spend two and a half days on the hills around Dolgellau and hopefully see some low flying planes in the Mach Loop.
Day 1 Sunday 11th November 2018
We did have rather a lot of ‘stuff’ with us!
We travelled up to North Wales in the afternoon and encountered very little traffic. This was our first stay at The Red Lion (Y Llew Coch) in Dinas Mawddwy. From the A470 we turned into the village and at the end of the all the houses was the pub. At the junction with Wylecop Street we turned right and just past the pub was their large car park.
We had booked a dinner for the evening and after dumping our bags upstairs we went into the bar for a pre-dinner pint. We stayed in the front bar and looked at the weather forecasts for the next day while we enjoyed our pints. I picked ham, cheese and egg for meal with an accompanying salad.
An excellent start to our trip!
Sunday evening was quiz night and we were invited to join in. We did try but questions such as when did Wales last beat the All Blacks at rugby were definitely not part of our knowledge.
Day 2 Monday 12th November 2018
I did have some difficulty sleeping because of the street light right outside my room’s window. But otherwise I had a restful night as very little traffic passed by on the road outside. We were down for breakfast at 7.30 am. The Red Lion is a rather ‘Tardis-like’ at the back. We turned right through a door into a large bar/restaurant. We walked up a ramp and through another door there was another restaurant that backed onto the kitchens.
Our lunches were in the same ‘fridge as the milk for our corn flakes. No-one else was about and after we had eaten we let ourselves out through the back door.
The weather forecast for the day was not great but we did decide to go up to the Bwlch’s car park to get our bearings.
The low level cloud and drizzle confirmed the forecast and our decision to give the hills a miss.
Cadair Idris
We carried on and after the Myndfford Hotel we looked for the car park for the Myndfford path.
We were taking our advice on locations from Simon’s book.
Page 142 told us where to go and what we might see as followed the path.
The car park had a loo and note the boot of the car is just as full as when we left Berkshire.
To join the path we had to pass the closed cafe and the ruins of the Idris family’s laboratory. I hoped that this was where they had perfected my favourite Idris ginger beer. Here’s the map of our walk for the bottom of the path.
The path in places was quite steep and ran parallel to the stream. We walked up the steps and negotiated the steeper parts stopping to take in the views behind us as well as to our side.
We paused whenever we had rain and sheltered under trees. At one stop we were passed by a man RUNNING up the path. We were also passed by while we were resting by others such as this couple with their dogs.
Once we reached the bridge we took another break and turned to go back down. in front of us we could see the clouds on the mountains and yet more rain.