Two Days in Our Van | Eryri/Snowdonia National Park
I was drifting in and out of a dose as we bumbled along the winding roads heading to North Wales, my head lolling on my uncomfortably stuffed pillow in the gap between my seat and the door. The sun warmed me as it rose, creating dappled light on my shut eyelids. Occasionally I would wake enough to look out of the window as we passed through archways of trees and green fields, close cropped by their sheep inhabitants. One of my favourite things about North Wales are the groves of old, low growing oak trees, their branches and trunks twisted, growing on rocky banks of grass and bracken. These spaces feel so magical to me, I can imagine how tales of faeries and goblins came about.
It was Brochan’s birthday and we decided to use it as an excuse to have a two day holiday in our van, we set off before day break in the early hours of the morning and as we drove the sun rose, warming the land. Due to Floss being how she is (you can read a post I’ve written about her here) we have to find quiet walks when we take her with us. This can be quite a challenge at times, especially in the height of summer on a weekend! So we decided to go to some mountains we had walked in autumn 2021, on a sponsored walk through mid Wales and up to Eryri. This range was a little quieter than the area surrounding Snowdon summit so we hoped to walk in peace without a reaction from Floss.
Having stopped in a shop to get some lunch for the walk and food for the weekend we headed to the hills. We parked up on a single track road in a large lay-by and started the walk in a lush green woodland valley, cut through with a clear stream tumbling over mossy rocks.
The footpath passed over a tiny old humpback bridge before coming out of the trees and onto an almost flat plain at the foot of the mountains. Another thing I love about North Wales are the old walls cutting through the fields, the rocks coated in mosses and lichens. I find it quite incredible how some of the walls are built on such steep slopes and wonder how on earth people got all those stones up there to build them!
The walk followed quite a steep incline until we reached the ridge, it’s quite a rounded ridge and you can’t see clearly all around but there are still some beautiful views of the coast and up to the northern range of mountains and Snowdonia its self.
We followed the old wall which runs all the way along the ridge line, Cader Idris to our right and the coast to our left. The day was perfect for walking, the sun fleeted in and out of the clouds periodically creating pools of light on the mountains and casting the distant peaks into blue shadow. The ground was covered in Bilberry bushes which Floss and I stopped to pick, I taught her how to find them and she now goes hunting for them of her own accord. It’s funny how we’re so used to seeing our pets just rely on us giving them food in bowls, it almost seems odd when we see them foraging for themselves but really it’s so natural!
Along the way there was a rocky spot with views to the Cader Idris ridge so we decided to stop, make some tea and have our lunch. I’m bit of a sucker for steaming pots and mugs and I annoyed Brochan a little by taking too many pictures of the stove steaming while he was trying to get on with making the tea! I just love the look of it, feels like having some homely cosiness out on the hills. As we were eating our lunch of hummus bagels some sheep popped up behind us, they all looked quite comical standing in a row staring us down, maybe they liked the look of the steaming pot like me!
After our lunch we walked further along the ridge before decided to cutback, down the mountain and back to the valley. I was really frustrated that we hadn’t brought our tent and camping stuff as I love the windy and slightly chilly weather for camping, there’s just something so nice about snuggling down in a down jacket and sleeping bag with a steaming drink, it’s not the same in the heat. I also find it so freeing carrying a tent, just being able to walk without worrying about how much day light is left or whether there is bad weather coming in. Knowing you can just pitch up if you need to and sleep until the storm or dark hours have passed. But we hadn’t brought our tent so back to the van we must go.
We had planned on stopping in a spot we knew of up a forestry track, we drove the bumpy (not sure if we were allowed up…) track up to the top where the trees opened out to the moors and found the most perfect place to stop below an old hafod. Brochan and I are very different campers, he is the sort who feels very confident and just thinks “what’s the worst that can happen?”, where as I am a very nervous camper, I think there’s plenty worse that can happen. I was particularly nervous on this track because I wasn’t sure we were even allowed to drive up it, but also camping within view of a building (all be it a disused one) made me more worried someone might turn up and shout at us. So, much to Brochan’s dismay, we decided to find somewhere else. I still regret not staying there, though we might go back in a tent one day which feels a little less conspicuous.
So off we trekked. Bumbling and bouncing all the way back down the forestry track and off to a place we’d camped at before which I knew was a public road. I don’t know why but if I’ve camped somewhere previously I always feel more confident camping there again. Maybe it’s because I know we haven’t been moved on before so I feel it’s less dangerous. But in four years of using our van we’ve never been asked to move or told not to camp, maybe my fear is a little irrational, but I can’t help it!
Anyway, our next spot was just as beautiful (maybe not quite but almost). We got there as the sun had set and everything was covered in that beautiful, blueish dusk light as we set up our bed and snuggled down for the night.
I woke to morning light streaming through the van’s windows, daylight had broken and I hadn’t got up before the sunrise! I hurried to get my camera and coat then woke Brochan with a hurried “happy birthday” (very caring I know…) and pestered him to get coffee things and blankets together to go and sit on the ridge line above us.
I marched on ahead, trying to catch the sun streaming through the patchy cloud and see the Cader Idris, looking so majestic, shrouded in cloud before it dispersed.
As we were sitting in our pyjamas, drinking our coffee (out of pans because Brochan forgot the mugs), we saw a figure dressed in black below us. They were slowly making their way up the mountainside, carrying quite a load, towards where we were sat. Brochan and I are both very reclusive when we’re in the wild, especially in our pyjamas, so we decided grudgingly to pack up our stuff and head back to the van to make pancakes for Brochan’s birthday breakfast.
We were just getting the pans out of the cupboard, when someone pulled up right behind us and preceded to sit in their car with the thumping beat of their music carrying over to us. That was it, we decided to drive on and find somewhere else. I’m not one of those people who enjoy listening to music when out in the wild, I like silence and hearing the breeze or birds, a thumping bass really distracts me and I just can’t relax. As we pulled off another car pulled up behind us, we were a little confussed as to why this small layby, out of the way, was suddenly so popular!
We only drove a little way down the road and stopped at the entrance to a forestry track. It was a place we had stopped at before almost a year ago. Back then it had been unused and a little wild. We had pumped water from the tiny stream running through the grasses and spend a very lazy morning with my parents, who had met us mid way through our sponsored walk. Today it looked very different, a huge track had been cut right through the marshes and little stream, bulldozing everything in its way and tearing up some of the trees on the edge of the forestry. It was sad to see, the stream now had oil residue gleaming on the surface, and bilberry bushes, heathers and mosses were all torn up and left to wither.
From where we were parked we could just about see the lay-by we had camped at the night before, it was slowly filling up with more and more cars and trucks. It seemed so odd! It is a beautiful place I’ll grant but I couldn’t understand why all these people were turning up at the same time!
We sat and pondered where to walk while floss was out foraging for bilberries, trying to lay our OS maps out flat in the van, which easier said than done. Eventually we decided to walk from the van and up a ridge close by. The beginning of the walk led us back past the (now packed) lay-by, people were climbing up the ridge we had been having coffee on with bags and picnic blankets…what on earth was this?!
The path led us through boggy ground and then up a steep incline where we could finally see some of the valley below Cader Idris, people were crowded at the beginning of one of the paths up Cader Idris, sitting on picnic blankets and looking like they were there for the long haul. Then it suddenly dawned on me, of course this is one of the best spots to see fighter jets practice in Wales. My parents had actually seen them fly down this valley and said it was quite incredible! I guess there must have been a tip off that they would be practicing that day or something and they were all waiting for that.
On we walked and up to the ridge, the hills were tinged pinkish from the grass heads. Cader Idris looked very majestic from this view, craggy and shaded blue. We briefly stopped to have lunch and gaze at the view up north to Snowdonia. We didn’t have time for a long walk today, needing to make the four hour journey home before it got too late, so after lunch we retraced our steps and headed back to the van and home.
