Snowdon is fun. It's a long way from Bristol though.I'm so glad we checked the weather forecast before we went, and delayed our trip by a day, or it would have been a wet and miserable climb. As it was, most of the rain we came across fell mainly on the windscreen, and we were lucky to see the glorious view from the top of the mountain.
We set off from Bristol on Monday, finally reaching Llanberis at tea-time, and set about knocking on the door of all the BnBs we passed, almost every house on each road of this little village. All were full, or said they were, except for Glyn Afon, and it is lovely. Our tiny room was clean and comfortable, with no detail spared. We even had a teddy on the bed! In need of a decent dinner, we strolled along the high street, only to discover that our options were limited. Not wanting to eat takeaway in the car, we settled down in the Spice of Llanberis, just as the rest of the customers were leaving. The waiters watched us like hawks, whipping away our plates the moment we finished the last forkful, and were clearly pleased when we left, with nowhere to head but for an early night before the climb.
A trip to Tourist Information in the morning helped us to choose our route - up the Pyg Pass and down the Llanberis Pass. The Pyg Pass is fairly steep in places. Not quite on a par with the Inca Trail, this is not a bad UK equivalent, as I'd be lying if I said our heartbeats weren't raised! But no real problems heading upwards, and a sense of satisfaction at the top, where we stopped for hot chocolate.
The path down is easy-peasy. Or so it seems, as you follow the train more or less all the way back to Llanberis. However, after a morning on your feet, by halfway down it's hard to keep the news of your aching limbs to yourself, and by the time we finally, thankfully, reached our lovely guesthouse, we'd been on our feet for around 6 hours. I started to think that the three peaks challenge might not be such a piece of cake after all!
Remembering our difficulty finding places to eat the night before, we stuck a pin in the map of North Wales and headed for Caernarvon for dinner. It's right at the top near Anglesey and has a castle, so it seemed like a good idea. We ate in the Black Boy Inn, a cheap and cheerful choice, serving '70's baskets' of things with chips. I chose chilli, and ate far too much.
We'd intended to discover more of North Wales on Wednesday, but our haphazard approach to planning didn't serve us so well this time, and we spent much of the morning on the road in the rain, stopping briefly somewhere distant and unpronounceable for a wet walk along the beach, and in Aberystwyth for another.
By the time we got back to Bristol in the evening, we felt we'd finished a driving marathon, both of us tired and achy from our mountain walking and our sitting still. We'd driven through lots of pretty villages with tiny miners cottages, and as the hours ticked by we'd come to realise that North Wales is far from here. It felt further still to me, distanced by a total incomprehension of where I was most of the time, as I could not even say the name places in my head.
But now I've followed a smelly goat up Snowdon, I feel like it was a good use of three days away. It's important to be reminded that in life, happiness is not just about reaching the top, it's enjoying the climb.
