Snowdon | Scandal on Ben Nevis

Skerries & Wild Camping, Wales

Saturday, 7th July

Back in Christmas 2016, we got a lovely gift from our little nephew Eban – a RIB ride excursion to the Skerries, off the North coast of Anglesey, and back down to South Stack. Unfortunately, due to us living in London and bad weather when we were actually up in Wales, the trip was somewhat delayed. Thankfully, we planned a little break away to Wales for a long weekend, and the weather looked incredible – so, a year and a half after getting the gift – we were all booked in to go on the RIB ride.

Our trip started from the Holyhead marina. We were greeted by our skipper called Olly and after we were shown around the boat and the various health and safety tips, we were off – blasting through the waters, North bound towards Church Bay & Carmel Head, before venturing out to open sea, and The Skerries.

The Skerries, [are] a unique group of rocky islands with Trinity House lighthouse, built in 1716, on the highest point. In Welsh the islands are known as Ynysoedd y Moelrhoniaid, which means ‘the islands of the bald-headed grey seals’.

This Important Bird Area and SSSI has a very large Arctic Tern population (over 2,000 pairs), Common Terns and a smaller Roseate Tern population; it is also home to Puffins and Kittiwakes. This uninhabited group of islands has a distinctive cliff and maritime grassland environment.

Trinity House lighthouse

Trinity House lighthouse & the Terns

The first thing we noticed was just how many Terns there are out here, incredible! They kept swooping in and over the boat as we made our way towards Trinity House lighthouse to anchor and watch the wildlife around us. According to the internet, there’s over 2,000 pairs on the island. Just over the brow of the crags, we could also see a handful of Puffins just chilling and coming in to land from being out feeding.

Artic Tern (left) and Common Terns

A Puffin coming in to land

We spent about 15 mins anchored to a buoy just underneath the lighthouse, surrounded by crystal clear seas. All around us, chilling on the rocks, swimming casually and making the most amazing sounds were a whole lot of grey seals. So much wildlife, and never had we seen Wales to sunny!

A cheeky Seal

Look at that face!

As the RIB Ride website says; “We then begin the adventurous nine-mile open-sea crossing to the island of North Stack. Here we explore the caves and the dramatic 100m high sea cliffs of Gogarth Bay to reach the lighthouse on the island of South Stack. We will watch the Chough, Guillemot, Peregrine, Puffin and Razorbill at the RSPB South Stack Cliffs nature reserve before we return.” – which is exactly what we did.

Along the way, we spotted a circus of Puffins out at sea – Olly slowed down for us, so we could take some great snaps.

A circus of Puffins!

Startled Puffin

Being the sharped-eyed skipper that he was, Olly also spotted a few Porpoises out at sea. Down over underneath South Stack we were met by the massive cliffs, and a whole lot of guillemot and razorbills swimming casually in the sea.

A Porpoise

Guillemot (brownish) and Razorbill (black)

From here we dipped in and out of the sea caves, all while Olly was giving us the historical information about the lighthouse, and how they used to load goods onto the island before the steps were constructed etc – all super interesting. Then, we blasted over to Gogarth, a very popular bit of rock, where we could see climbers starting their climb up to the top.

Looking back towards South Stack

And that was it… we cruised back on over to the Holyhead marina – what a fantastic start to our day!

After a quick stop in sunny Rhosneigr for lunch, we cruised over to Tesco’s to pick what would be our dinner – as tonight, we were camping in the mountains.

We packed, and got dropped off at Pen y Gwryd by Dad, our destination was Llyn Caseg-fraith, inbetween Glyder Fach and Foel Goch, overlooking the mighty Tryfan in the Glyderau.

Gina in the Glyderau

Gina crossing Nant Y Gwryd

We headed on up, and had nothing but good times – the sun was blasting, the evening light was starting to fall, and it was looking lovely! We knew once we got to the top, we were in for a great night camping.

Gina on the gamfa

Fantastic evening light

We arrived at Llyn Caseg-fraith, a small lake that’s nicely located above Tryfan just as the sun had started entering its golden hour. Much to our surprise, we weren’t the only ones up there wild camping. There was another tent on the other side of the lake, and soon another guy arrived, hiding his tent behind the rocks nearby. Everyone minded their own business though, and it was very quiet all around. We pitched the tent without a bother – and began our plans of chilling to-the-max.

Our tent, overlooking Tryfan

Gina about to chill with a book

Iest, chillin’

And yeah, this was the scene pretty much for the whole evening. We ate our picnic, did some time-lapse photography with my iPhone, Gina read her book and hit the sack. It was super pleasant up there, not a whisper of wind – awesome.

The evening colours

Sunday, 8th July

We awoke to another beautiful, cloudless sky morning. We had a leisurely breakfast, chilled some more, before packing up the tent and sleeping stuff. The goal for this morning was to head up Glyder Fach, over to Glyder Fawr, and down into Nant Peris the other side of the mountains – where Dad would then pick us up in time for lunch.

Everything on the way up to the Glyderau went super well, we were cruising – enjoying the views.

Morning Gins!

Looking back at Llyn Caseg-fraith

Unfortunately, on the way down the slippery scree of Glyder Fawr, my knee (which I’d been having physiotherapy for for the past 3 weeks) totally gave way. I went down and yep, this was agony. It took me about 2 hours to get down, whereas it should have taken about 30mins – this wasn’t good – as Dad was down in the valley waiting for us. Dad suspected that something might have been up, but he continued to wait until Gina went ahead and met up with him, while I took my time getting down safely. Damn knee!

We got back home, I iced my knee for a few hours, and went over to meet the newest addition to the family; little baby Erain. Then headed over to Pant Du for some lunch and apple juice – which was great! We then decided to take a trip to our fave beach, Llanddwyn for the evening, to chill in the sea (legs only) whilst the sun gently went down.

All in all – a pretty awesome trip back home for the bank holiday!

Birds / Pics / Wales Hiking — No Comments
30
May 16

Cymru/Wales

So we had a long weekend on our hands, and the first weekend in a long time that i didn’t have to work, so a great opportunity to head up to Wales and have some fun. In addition, we had just acquired Terrell, our new bff, so everything was set up beautifully. The only problem was that the forecast was stubbornly showing downpours for the whole three days, but that as well got sorted shortly before the weekend, and we were ready to go.
On Friday night of course the whole of London town had the same idea to get out and we got stuck in traffic for hours, eventually arriving at our destination super late, after what would probably have been a nice drive through Snowdonia, had it still been light when we were doing it.

But on Saturday, we woke up into glorious sunshine and were happy to be there. We decided to once again go up Snowdon, which we don’t do very often as it is kind of a tourist highway, and especially on the top there is too many people due to the train. But, it is still a nice walk via many of the routes, and from time to time should be done. We decided on the Ranger’s path up and down to Rhyd Ddu, a trail we last did several years ago in lots of snow and frost (&sun). This time, the sun was with us as well, and already arriving to the trail we had some doubts about our choice as all the parking spots were gone, a clear sign that the combo of long weekend and sun brought all the boys to the yard to play. We decided not to be discouraged, found an alternate parking spot and took a hike up from there through a nice farmer’s land to meet up with our ranger’s path. From there, we saw quite a few people, but it was not too terrible, and the walk was very nice overall.

Shortly before summit we got immersed into a thick fog/cloud that wrapped the top of Snowdon, and upon arriving at the top we met the real crowds who had gotten there by the cog train. With no views and the crowds of twerps there was no reason for us to spend much time, and we quickly retreated down to Rhyd Ddu path, which was mercifully sparsely populated, and descended into the sun again. The rest of the walk was lovely and uneventful. Later we bought all the stuff for a four-bean chilli and fell asleep quickly, all sunned out for the day.

Wyddfa

Down to Rhyd Ddu

On Sunday, with great weather continuing, we wanted to finally take out our sea kayaks. But for that we needed to run a number of errands, from picking up Iest’s kayak from the bodyshop in Anglesey, to buying and installing roof racks for Terrell, to getting a number of missing items like life vests and stuff. So by the time we were ready to go, it was mid afternoon. We didn’t mind very much though, as the days are long and it was warm and sunny, so we took them down to Aberdesach and set out for some paddling around. There was a bit of wind, so we had some nice mild chops to play with, and I was awesome and Iest will need to get better if he wants to keep up with me. But at least i had some time to take nice macro beach pics while waiting for him to catch up. Beautiful day overall.

On Monday we needed to make our way down to Llundain again, but since we have Terrell we were much more flexible and decided to first go to Beaumaris for a trip to Puffin island. I wanted to go on kayaks but Iest was a scaredy cat and so we went on a little boat with other people. It was nice though as well, as the skipper knew a lot about all the birds and animals and showed us everything. We saw:
– Shags: check
– Puffins: check
– Guillemots: check
– Razorbills: check
– Cormorants: check
– Loads of seagulls: check
…and of course seals, who were very cute as always, just chilling on the rocks in the sun.
Afterwards, we started to make our way down home, stopping over to give Terrell a proper shower, which he needed after the weekend. Surprisingly enough, we didn’t get stuck anywhere in traffic on the way, and had quite a pleasant trip.

Going to ynys Puffin

Shags

Seals

Cormorant

Birds / Pics / Wales Hiking — No Comments
30
Mar 16

Wales Easter

As usual, we headed up to Wales for Easter. Hurricane Katy was also heading up, so we had to give up kayaking plans, but otherwise we were totes on the top of our game – hiking, sea, sunsets, birds, oen bachs and family time, all check! Plus, awesome time with my macro lens.

We did a nice little hike up the Roman steps to Rhinog Fawr, down by Harlech. Saw a Red Grouse on the way too.

Up Rhinog Fawr

Down Rhinog Fawr

Red Grouse

Sunset before the storm, from Dinas Dinlle.

Sunset

Also a nice hike our fave Yr Aran, the Vatican way this time, with some nice views on the snowy Snowdon ridge.

Gina and Yr Wyddfa

Cwm Llan a Yr Wyddfa

Up Aran

Up on Aran

Down Aran

Spectacularly windy trip around Morfa Nefyn, sort of sunny though. No seals!

Morfa Nefyn

Macro throughout. Getting really good at it, should be selling them for postcards!

Oen bachs everywhere!

Oen bach

Cŵl / Pics / Travel — No Comments
06
Apr 13

Wales Easter

After a long absence from this blog (note the gap on the right between April 12 and February 13 – loads of stuffs happened in that time btw; but if stuff happens and nobody blogs about it, has it really happened? I might still be able to reconstruct some of it and backdate it), I think it’s time to clean up the spiderwebs here and update the journals a bit.
Easter came late this year, and even then the winter was still having a tight grip all over Europe. Freiburg had been insanely grey, depressing, cold and gloomy for four months straight, and the sun hadn’t been showing any signs of reappearance. It was tiring and made me grumpy almost non-stop. I was looking forward to having a week off over the Easter of course, but wasn’t having high hopes for seeing the sun along that time, as the UK was reporting loads of late snow, killing the sheep in Wales and Scotland. And on top of that it turned out that I would have to fly to Helsinki for some work meetings straight from the vaycay. But anyway, vaycay is vaycay, I grabbed my new book, and packed a suitcase (which had to have work clothes in it, so was very jam packed, and was getting progressively heavier along the trip somehow – objectively verified by all the airport check-ins).

Wednesday 27th March
Train to Frankfurt, flight to Dublin, no special events. In Dublin Iestyn picked me up from the airport and the day got better. Amazingly, there was sun in Dublin! I don’t think I saw Dublin otherwise yet. (It was still very cold though.) At Iestyn’s place, there were loads of pressies waiting for Gina, just because she likes getting pressies – now that’s my kind of man! We went for a lovely dinner in this noodle/sushi place, can’t remember its name. (Yamamori Noodles). Real cheese cake served for dessert! (I have to say this, because here in Germany they have a “cheese cake” that’s not actually a cheesecake, more like quark cake. It’s not bad, especially now that I know what to expect and not get my hopes up, but I still wish they called it something else.)

Thursday 28th March
We got up early, caught a taxi down to the ferry docks, and yes, it was snowing. The sea was calm though and whilst on the way between Dublin and Holyhead we actually started seeing blue skies and sun from our premium window-based seats! Because the wifi was slow, I started playing with my new compact camera, which I brought for the trip, to get familiar with the settings and such. I also made a trip up on the boat deck, which was in the sun, but extremely windy, and there were no white recliners or parasols or anything like that you would expect. It was cold too.
In Holyhead we caught the train to Bangor, and in Bangor the bus to Caernarfon, and in Caernarfon the bus to Groeslon… it was all very very tiring. But at the end we made it and got a bit of rest. Iestyn decided though that he needs a new pair of shoes (he’s a little princess like that), so we headed to Betws-y-Cwwd (or whatevs) for him to get hiking boots in the outdoor store (as his heavy ones are still in the ‘burg, and he wanted a lighter pair anyway). He also got there a new hat, just like my riot red, except his is bittersweet brown. He flirted with the sales guy a little and got a 10% off the shoes – I could learn something here!
As it was Thursday, pub quiz was on, which I was looking forward to, although it was in a whole different place than usual (and by usual I mean when I was last in Wales a couple years back). Neil and Michaela and her friend joined us, and it was fun, except for the picture round which was crap and was not actually a picture round. Unfortunately, they took ages between the quiz and the results, so we gave up and left, and don’t know how we did.
We watched something from bed, I cannot recall exactly what it was, but I totes watched the whole thing until the end.

Caernarfon

Pub Quiz at the ‘Ship and Castle’

Friday 29th March
I woke up, despite Iestyn sneakily having pulled down the blinds on the window the night before when I was not looking (I had just closed the curtains), so that no daylight would come in in the morning. It was SUNNY! And I mean proper sunny, with no cwmwl yn yr awyr, complete delight! I jumped up and down on the bed until Iestyn acknowledged the day started, and crawled out of bed to toast us bagels for breakfast. After a hearty breakfast we made tea into our respective thermoses, and set out on a nice hike.

Mighty Cnicht

Retro Iestyn

Gina heading up Cnicht

We selected Cnicht, even though it’s a bit overdone (I mean we had been up there several times, we even camped up on the top one New Years a couple years back), but we decided to take the long way down, going up Moelwyn Mawr on the other side of the valley as well, making it a nice full-day walk. About last third up the way on Cnicht we hit the snow, but there was not much wind and the sun kept blasting, so it was a nice stroll. Once we were up on the ridge, the wind actually picked up, and it became unmistakably colder. There was plenty of snow up there, and it had a solid crust of ice over the surface, so once we begun climbing Moelwyn Mawr on the other side, crampons might not have been completely out of place. We didn’t have them, so we just sucked it up, and Iest did the work of blasting trough the ice with every step, so it was quite easy for me to just follow in his path. Eventually we made it on top of Moelwyn Mawr, where the wind was especially strong, freezing and biting mightily, so we didn’t linger for long, and started descending on the other side.

Iestyn ontop of Cnicht

Gina looking over towards Moelwyn Mawr

Moelwyn Mawr

Coming down Cnicht toward Llyn yr Adar

Gina, Llyn yr Adar and Snowdon

Gina Moelwyn Mawr summit

The whole loop back to the car took us about six hours (no rush) but towards the end I was already quite tired, my feet were wet and I was starvatious. It was a good opportunity to go worship Pete in Llanberis, provided he’d be open for business, which we weren’t sure until we got there, but open he was! So we made it two huge hot chocolates with whipped cream for starters and two veggie grills as per usual (not able to finish). At that point I was ready to just take a shower and drop dead in bed, but I mightily managed to watch whatever movie it was that we watched in bed, and didn’t fall asleep prematurely. Uncle buckle (utterly abysmal)!

Saturday 30th March
Sunny again! Could not believe it. Iest was still a bit overwhelmed by the walk of yesterday, so we decided to go to the beach. I wanted to go surfing, so we looked up the webcam surf, which Iest thought was not good enough. I think he would not know a good surf if it bit him in the tushy (mmm, tushy). Anyhoo, we went to Anglesey, because I like Anglesey a lot, it has first class beaches and epic view of the snowy hills.

Crepe times!

First we hit Rhosneigr, a nice (if a bit run-down) little surfing town, where we had coffee and crepes (Iest has the “Clown” variety with M&Ms and ice-cream, sometimes I really wonder…), I bought the Guardian, which of course I began reading in the car and got carsick, always happens. But we arrived in Llanddwyn, my fave beach of them all, even if there were quite a few people due to the beautiful weather. It was so epic, we walked around to the lighthouse, around the dunes and the horses, in the sun sun sun… One distressing event cast shadow over the day though, which was the painful discovery that there was no film in my lomokino!

Minature Sea Shell!

Yes, it happens even to the best of us… Iestyn of course took the opportunity to rub it in my face for the rest of the day (and week), just to make me feel bad and have some laughs at my expense. Not cwl! I miniaturised him in return. But even so, the day at the beach was lovely and fun.
Lovely Indian for dinner.

Miniaturized Iestyn at Llanddwyn

Sunday 31st March
Sunny again, unbelievable! Decided for Mr. Ellis loop, as we had to be back at some reasonable time for Easter lunch/dinner. The sun in the snow truly was blinding, and given the fact that it was a Sunday, Mr. Ellis was a bit of a tourist highway. But never mind lovely little walk anyway. The stone hideout on the top had a beautiful thick layer of ice on it, and it was cold and windy up there. Beautiful views towards the Snowdon ridge and all around. Went the second valley down from there, and finally saw a cute little oen bach close up enough, all fluffy and confused.

Heading up Moel Eilio

Ice on Moel Eilio

Snowdon from Moel Eilio

Oen Bach

Easter lunch/dinner was yum, and included mushy peas (I took Iestyn’s too), and once again on this vaycay, we overate and topped it up with ice cream.

Monday 1st April
Cloudy but still sunny patches. We decided to go to Chester, which btw is already in England (didn’t know this!). Chester was nice, even if a bit crowded, as it was a holiday and everyone went shopping. I bought a nice top myself and also a couple of dvds (turns out that hmv didn’t actually close all its stores!). Also, I bought Bon Jon Jovi’s greatest hits for the car! Ahh, memories.

Tuesday 2nd April
Already time to go. We found a schedule on the internet of bus and train to get us to the ferry on time, but then we were done packing an hour before time and just went to the bus stop blindly, to see if we can catch an earlier one. Amazingly, one was going in about three minutes to take us to Bangor. In Bangor, the train to Holyhead arrived about five minutes after we bought the tickets, again totally unplanned. With all this, we ended up in Holyhead a long time before our ferry was supposed to leave. It turned out that we could just about catch the earlier one! We just had to pay a bit extra, and run a bit to actually catch it. Given that it was the faster boat (our original tickets were for the slower kind), we were in Dublin hours before originally planned. We spent the rest of the day leisurely in Dublin. Also, I brought awful cough from Wales, which was then haunting me in Helsinki and for more than a week still in Freiburg.

This is the final video from our Easter trip, including sea, mountains and the ferry:

Wednesday 3rd April
Sad, sad day of Gina leaving. Helsinki was pretty as ever (sunny until Saturday when I left!) but I was coughing and lonely.

Helsinki

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11
Jun 11

Llanberis

The Upper Lake

Llyn Peris

With the aid of the beautiful road linking Pen-Y-Gwryd and Beddgelert, the two highways running south-eastward from Caernarfon encircle the mountain mass collectively know as Snowdon. The more easterly road from Caernarfon is accompanied by the railway as far as Llanberis.

By Llanberis is meant the modern village of that name. It contains the railway station and is a good two miles from the old village. It is a common centre of the motor routes from the Betws y Coed, Bangor, Caernarfon and Beddgelert, and the quarter chosen by the great majority of tourists who make the ascent of Snowdon, the Glyders, the Elidyrs, and Moel Eilio. The village is situated on the western side of Llyn Padarn, a lake two miles in length. The lake is connected with Llyn Peris by the river Seiont. Boating can be enjoyed on both lakes, and the lakes and rivers alike afford sport for the angler. At the northen end of Llyn padarn is a picturesque stone bridge leading to a Roman camp at Dinas Dinorwic, about a mile off.

A feature of Llanberis often overlooked is the Ceunant Mawr (the ‘big ravine’) with its waterfall, well worth a visit after heavy rain, though less effective in the dry weather. The fall is about 5 minutes’ walk south of the village, up the lane on the right just after crossing the stream as one walks from the station.

At Llanberis begins the ascent of the magnificent Pass of Llanberis.

Llanberis nowadays doesn’t have a train station, but it does indeed have the World best cafe – Pete’s Eat, and by itself is worth a visit! I love how we managed to pin point exactly the first shot here, it was an epic journey, with beautiful views, sunshine, and sunglasses.

Cŵl / Pics / Retro — No Comments
15
Jan 11

Capel Curig

Snowdon, from Capel Curig

Capel Curig, beautifully situated on the Shrewsbury and Holyhead road, is one of the oldest tourist resorts in the Principality. The village is about 600 feet above sea-level and has a bracing air. It is a capital resort for anglers, for, besides the lakes at close hand, there are other good fishing waters not far away, and it is much frequented by climbers and walkers, since it is one of the handiest centers for Tryfan, the Glyders and Snowdon. The church is dedicated to St. Curig, a British recluse; hence the name of the village.

There are first class hotels, and accommodation can also usually be found, except in the height of the season, in one or other of the cottages. The village is strung along the Holyhead road for nearly two miles at the point where the Beddgelert and Llanberis road strikes off Westward. Buses pass through it on their way to or from Betws-Y-Coed or Bangor.

From Capel Curig the Holyhead road rises steadily until it reaches an altitude of 1,000 feet as it passes between the mighty Tryfan (3,100 feet) and Llyn Ogwen, the latter famed for trout and eels. At the Western end, at Benglog, is Ogwen Cottage, a haunt of climbers and anglers, and then the road begins the long gradual descent of Nant Ffrancon, “the Vale of Beavers”. But to be properly appreciated the pass should be ascended.

Capel Curig is indeed a nice wee place. It’s funny how these books always mentions the fishing potential of places. Nowadays, you don’t see much people fishing in the Llynnau Mymbyr, or any other lake for that matter. I don’t think much has changed in the Village since the days of the Red Book, as it’s still roughly the same size as they describe, but today it’s a hub for Mountaineers, as Plas-Y-Brenin is located on the road Westward towards Llanberis.

Picture wise – We have indeed managed to locate the correct spot, but there’s now an immense amount of trees growing on the South Bank, which is called – Coed Bryn Engan.

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