A Mixed Start To The Week - 11th November 2012

Walk: - 1:30pm to 4pm - 3.5 miles and 550ft of ascent

This week would be our last holiday of the year, but we can't be greedy - we've had 5 separate weeks away walking, and I've had a long weekend when myself and two friends ventured up Ben Nevis. Roll on next year...

We first came to this cottage in Dolwyddelan, Conwy, in March this year and the weather was stunning - shorts and t-shirts all week. I'm sure we won't be that lucky again - but who cares, whatever the weather you can always enjoy yourself - even if you're just sat in the cottage reading in front of the log-burner! Our walking would be curtailed a little, Donna's medical condition means that we can't now risk going anywhere too remote or exposed, and I had hand surgery a few weeks ago which didn't go that well, so I currently have limited use of my left-hand. But hey, we're on holiday :-)

Our 150 mile trip across from South Yorkshire yesterday included a 3hr visit to Chester. I'd never been into Chester before, only ever having visited the outskirts, but Donna spent quite a bit of time here last year when training new staff at John Lewis Chester - so, she knows the city quite well.

It all started so well, I was stunned at the number of beautiful old buildings, just so much history. We walked much of the city wall which was a stunning walk with some great views and again the history beneath your feet just blows you away. But....we then decided to have an hour or so in the city centre.....aaaaargh....it was like Meadowhall Shopping Mall just before Christmas. I just got stressed out at the number of people there - it only took 5 minutes to give me a banging headache, constantly weaving in and out of swathes of shoppers - not for me, so instead of dining there we grabbed a sandwich from Waitrose and sat next the the river away from the crowds. Much more civilised.

So, to the first full day of our holiday. We left the cottage at around 10am and headed for Blaenau Ffestiniog to visit the Slate Mines. I'd swapped emails with the mine last week to check that photography was allowed (it's not at Electric Mountain) and unfortunately they told me that the deep mine was closed until the day we come home! But, the tramway was still open and that as a bonus there was a mountain biking event on the Sunday.

We parked up in the car-park and I went and asked about the mountain biking - what time does it start, what's the route, where are the best places to watch. However, we were told that it's not a public event but just something arranged for mountain bikers - gutted! The guy seemed to be making every excuse for why we shouldn't venture onto the route, and why we shouldn't try to take photos. He was also negative about walkers saying that they 'get in the way'!

Anyway, we didn't waste our visit as we paid our £10.25 per person and went on the 10:30am tram to see some of the old mines - first tram of the day and just myself, Donna and a guy from New Zealand on it. We found it really interesting, the conditions that the miners worked in must have been horrendous - we don't know how lucky we are these days. After the ride down the tunnels we had a look around the mine outbuildings and headed back to the car. If you have any interest in getting to know more about the mines it was well worth a visit.

We took the short drive back to the cottage for some soup and a cuppa, then donned our walking gear to go for a short local walk to blow the cobwebs away.

Our route took us north-east out of Dolwyddelan up a steady climb on a track and along the edge of the hill up above the Afon Lledr river. We continued along the track until we reached the drop down towards Pont Y Pant station, where we then picked up the return track alongside the river back towards Dolwyddelan. We were walking (well strolling) for about 2 or 3 hours in total, the route measured out at close to 3.5 miles and almost 500ft of ascent - so a nice steady afternoon walk. A great way to start the week.