Caernarfon to Trefor: the Long and Very Straight Road

The morning of our first full day of walking dawned very cloudy and it looked as if we would be lucky to avoid rain that day. And it was going to be a long walk, in fact it was going to be the longest walk we had taken on to date. The book value was 17.5 miles, from Caernarfon to Trefor. On the upside was it was going to be an easy walk, very flat and often on lanes. The down side was that it was going to be 17.5 miles long and much of it was going to be along side a dead straight A road. The guide book even heretically suggested that 'Some walkers may take a bus or taxi for all or part of this section'. I read this over the eggs Rhian had poached for our breakfast.

'The book says that some people take a taxi for some of the walk today Rhi, what do you think?'

She looked over her glasses at me and I could tell that she wasn't in the mood for such weakness.

'No.'

'Is that it, just no?'

'Yes'

I sighed. 'Ok, but it is a long way, what do you feel about the diversion to St Baglan's, which is maintained by the Friends of Friendless Churches, are we going to take that?'

She decided to be a little magnanimous, 'That can stay friendless, the walk is long enough as it is.'

And with that we booted up, packed our sandwiches, filled the flask and drove to the end point of the walk, Trefor. Then we drove back along the road to Caernarfon, parked, and set off to walk back down the road that we had just driven along. Twice. It's times like this that it seems like an odd way to spend a holiday. Drive down a road, turn back, drive back up the same road and then walk down the road only to have to drive back up it. Not withstanding the general insanity of the day's endeavours there was a sense of excitement at the first full walk, made all the more so by starting it at the foot of Caernarfon castle.

This is the side of the castle and the white and black building at the far end is the pub we had booked into at Easter, only to have our plans thwarted by Covid. The castle was built by Edward the First as part of the 'Iron Ring' of castles designed to subjugate the Welsh who were only allowed to enter the castle enclosure in the day time. The outer walls are still very impressive and would have looked even more so when they were first built as they were painted white. The inner buildings of the castle no longer stand and in fact were never completed. It was the site of the coronation of the Prince of Wales. I remember having to stand on the side of a road, holding a Welsh flag to celebrate a visit of the Prince of Wales to the Rhondda. We seemed to wait for ages before a Very Posh Car drove past us at some speed. I didn't really see anything, not even a waved hand or a flash of the Battenberg Ears. All in all it was a bit of a disappointment. Not so today. Today was going to be a Good Day.

Often one of the hardest things we have to do is to find the start of the walk but even we couldn't bugger up this one, starting as it did at the foot of a very obvious castle and crossing over the swing bridge over the Afon Seoint. At this point we were excited and while it was wet underfoot it wasn't actually raining. Yet.

The path took us though the country park and I was delighted to see that part of it was called Helen's Wood park.

'This is our last chance to go and visit St Baglan's church Rhi?'

'What has it got?'

'An unspoiled mediaeval interior and evocative 18th century pews.'

'Can't say I'm that drawn.'

'Nor me'.

'And we have another church with a Holy Well later in the walk, we don't want to reach an ecclesiastical peak too soon in the day.'

'Yes, we must pace ourselves.'

It is by now almost guaranteed that diversions will not be taken unless

a. The walk is very short that day or

b. The diversion is to something pretty bloody spectacular. Neither of these conditions were fulfilled plus I had a bad track record of head butting historic monuments by accident and so it was probably just as well that we trudged on.

After around half an hour of walking we had to head in land a short distance to cross the second river of the day the Afon Gwyrfai at the hamlet of Saron. Saron has a non conformist chapel which was built in 1901 and I past the time amusing myself imagining the conversations between the locals about building a chapel when there was a perfectly serviceable church up the road with evocative pews.

'You don't want to got there Blod, its Church in Wales and we are Baptists'.

'Yes, and it is Friendless.'

'Friendless is it? Well who would have thought it? And it has evocative pews.'

'Indeed it is friendless. And I expect those pews are hard on the arse. Best we stay away'

The area is a rich intertidal zone and is an important feeding site for migrating birds, sadly less interesting to us as it started to rain.

Rear view of Rhian. The advantage I have of walking more slowly than Rhian is that I get to take more photographs of her than she does of me.

At this point it began to rain, increasingly heavily, and our rucksacks needed their raincovers. I am trudging along here wishing my glasses had windscreen wipers. A lone jogger passed us, running on ahead. On his return there was rain running off the peak of his cap. We exchanged rueful grins. However, it was easy walking and neither Helen nor myself are put off by a little precipitation. Which is just as well, of course.

I have to say, though, I wish she would refrain from taking unflattering photos of me and publishing them.

It was starting to rain in earnest and I managed to step into a boggy puddle as we skirted round Foryd Bay and I needed to stop and change my socks to avoid blisters caused by wet feet. It was all a bit of a futile exercise as the boots were sodden as well as my socks.

I was testing out a new pair of Adidas goretex trainers on this walk, and I was pleased to find that not only were they lighter and comfier than my other walking shoes, they remained resolutely dry inside. The search for the perfect walking footwear is a fascinating, and potentially very expensive one.

"You need new boots, Hel," I said, helpfully.

"These ARE new!" Helen said testily, as she tottered on one foot trying to put a dry sock on the other. It was going to be a slightly testy sort of day. I sensed I was getting on her nerves and shut up.

Footwear adjusted, we continued on past the Morfa Lodge Holiday Park and past Carnarfon Airport (who knew? Well, not me) and the Aviation Museum. The weather had cleared up a little and up ahead we could see Dinas Dinlle. It was still grey and windy and I was starting to feel peckish, and like I needed a sit down and a snack. We walked along the raised path behind the beach, heading towards a large, grass-covered tump. Perhaps it was my rumbling tummy, perhaps it was the wind blowing my hair in my face and driving me crazy, but I neglected to take a single photo of said imposing tump. We both declined the open invitation to climb the thing and in fact I hardly noticed it. Even Helen, who likes to think she is some sort of shorter, Baptist, Annie Leibowitz, or Margaret Bourke-White failed to capture it for posterity. ( I was tired and cursing my wet feet and far more interested in food and a hot drink than the iron age hill fort ahead of us. For those of you more interested in such things than we were at the time, Dinas Dinlle is a fort set on top of a glacial hillock. My guidebook tells me that it is a SSRI because of important glacial deposits left by the last ice age. In welsh folk law it is linked to Lleu Llaw Gyffes a hero in the Mabinogion.)

I did manage to a take a picture of the wonderfully underwhelming Caernarfon Airport. This was first set up during the second world war. It closed after a short while but was opened up as a airfield in preparation for the investiture of the Prince of Wales. It is now the site of the Airworld Aviation museum and I held out a faint hope of finding somewhere to have a cuppa but due to Covid everything was closed.

Neither of us were familiar with this part of Wales. Having spent much of the year cooped up in our separate homes, restricted to a limited number of local routes, walking somewhere new felt strange. It felt wonderful but also disconcertingly foreign. Added to this, people were keeping socially distanced, museums were closed and cafes and pubs were only serving food outside. This all added to the feeling of otherworldliness of the place. It wasn't unpleasant as such, in fact the scenery was outstanding, but I will confess to feeling a little on edge walking in a landscape that seemed so foreign.

Once we skirted round the mound the path took us past the small village of Dinas Dinlle itself and we cut in land. The guidebook tantalised us with the possibility a short diversion to the village of Llandwrog and its pub The Harp Inn. We discussed the possible benefits of a sit down in the garden but in the end we decided that walking there and finding it closed due to Covid restrictions too awful a prospect and we chose to walk on. The walk was simple, flat and on a lane that wound its way up to the main road that we had so recently driven along.

The next section of the road was going to be a simple section of the path. The road stretched ahead of us, dead straight, dead flat and dead boring. The one good thing that you could say about it was it was impossible to get lost but it was easy to see why even the guide book suggested that taking a bus for a few miles might be a good idea. However, we had committed to walking it all and so we set off down the road, initially running next to the high, lichen covered wall of the Glynllifon estate.

'Shall I read the bit about the estate in the guide book', I asked

'Go on, I could use some entertaining'.

I started to read as we set off down the pavement 'Now an agricultural college and country park, it was once the home of the local Glyn family who later became the Wynns by marriage. In 1776, Sir Thomas Wynn was given a peerage to become Lord Newborough, Today Parc Glynllifon's 70 acres of exotic trees and plants are cared for by Gwynedd County Council with the help of Natural Resources Wales, Cadw and Welsh Historic Gardens.' ( A direct quote from the official guide to the Llyn Peninsula by Carl Rogers and Tony Bowerman, these guide books are excellent)

'Is that it'.

'Yup.'

'Not that entertaining, Hel, if I'm being honest.'

'I did what I could with the material I was given.'

We walked on a little while in silence.

'I can tell you about the lichen on the wall if you like, and how it can be used as an indicator of pollution'.

'Shall we save that for a later, I'm not sure I can cope with the excitement'

Withering, some times she is just withering! (I thought I was letting her down gently!)

The road stretched on ahead of us, dull and boring. We had a moment of excitement as we crossed the Afon Lllynfi and passed through Pontllynfi (the hint is in the name chaps) which was quiet and seemed completely closed down, adding to the feeing of 'otherness' that I was getting on this section of the walk. It was proving to be just as dull as the Guide book had inferred. Still, we had the excitement of a Holy Well to look forward to seeing, they day wasn't going to be a total right off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzZWSrr5wFI

'So what shall we do to pass the time?' I asked.

"Desert Island Discs?" I suggested. The last time we'd played this game was on our first walk in 2016 and enough time had lapsed for us both to forget our own and each other's selections of songs and a book. A fateful choice it turned out to be, but Helen agreed with alacrity and so we began.

"Go on then, Hel - first choice song?"

(At this point I should explain that we have a few conversational gambits that we employ as we walk along the path. I dare say that other walkers may well walk in silence, thinking deep and profound thoughts. Personally, left to my own internal musings, I concentrate on how much my feet are hurting, how much I would like the next village to have a cosy café which will allow some cake based refreshment and my only semi profound thoughts are increasingly persistent questions about why walking 18 miles in a day can be thought a good basis for a holiday. Conversations early in the week's walks will often centre on the iniquities of the Department for Education and OFSTED. We catch up on family gossip and keep each other abreast of the doings of friends. This is interspersed with me moaning about my feet, Rhian letting me know she is 'bonking' after a steep climb and both of us both accusing the other of having stupidly decided to take on the challenge of walking sections of the path. We often comment on the beauty, smugly elaborating on the distances we have walked and we have never fallen out with each other.)

'They change a bit, depending on my mood. One that always makes the list is Jerusalem. Reminds me of university when the college rugby team used to sing it while pissed. Plus I could run down the beach on the island, in slow motion and remember the film. It has it all'.

"Good choice. Mine change all the time too. I think I would go for "Beautiful Day", U2-" I began, intending to explain my reasons but she interrupted me with a yell:

"NO! NO YOU CAN'T! HE'S A KNOB! Absolutely NO!"

"Yes I know he's a bit of a knob but some of their stuff - !

"NO!"

"But War is a great album and - "

"No Oram! How can you possibly? Awful!"

Taken aback by the ferocity of Helen's attack and taking exception at the aspersions she was casting on my taste in music I am afraid that I took exception. I lost my temper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co6WMzDOh1o

"RIGHT! FORGET IT!" I shouted, above the traffic and put on a burst of speed I like to think Paula Radcliffe would be proud of and stormed off up the road, my Adidas Goretex trainers coming into their own. There was a slight incline and by the time I got to the top of it I was gasping a little bit but satisfied that I had put some distance between me and that woman.

I fulminated between gasps, fricatives and plosives escaping me. Luckily there was no one about as any innocent passer-by would have been treated to what football commentators like to call "industrial language". I was, to put it mildly, tamping. I marched along, defiantly singing the U2 back-catalogue to myself. I wasn't going to look back.

Suffice it to say that I did, eventually calm down and slow down "on the long straight road ahead" (good old Roy Orbison and Cyndi Lauper) and she eventually caught up with me as we neared Clynog Fawr, where we had discussed stopping for a rest and shufti around the church yard.

(I was astonished at the vehemence of her response and quite impressed by the speed with which she shot off, We had already walked around 15 miles and the Old Girl put on a real burst of speed. It must have been all those fricatives and plosives. I quite often have a view of Rhian's arse but I had never seen it disappear into the distance quite so swiftly. I was impressed by her stamina if not her taste in music.)

Still walking in silence, and still with an air of froideur between us we arrived at Clynog Fawr. The village is old and attractive and had been founded by a local saint, Beuno for his religious foundation. After he died, the foundation became a popular stopping place for pilgrims setting out the the island of Bardney. The current church was built in the 16th century. Sadly, we couldn't go inside as it was closed. Instead we sat on a bench, shared a flask of coffee, ate a mars bar and still managed to sulk in spite of close proximity and shared beverage.

There was a bench. I sat down on it. She sat at the other end. I ate a leftover cheese and pickle sandwich. She ate her Mars Bar The village was silent. We were silent.

"Coffee, Rhi?" she peered at me, nervously holding out the cup. It was clearly a peace offering. I contemplated rejecting it but I was gasping for a cuppa.

"Oh go on then." The atmosphere was still arctic but across the pack-ice the polar bear of conciliation could be seen lolloping towards us in the distance. I ate my Mars Bar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-BT2yzXP8w

Because the church was closed we couldn't see the 16th century chancel screen or the alms chest carved from a single ash tree but we did find the Maen Beuno which is a prehistoric standing stone that was carved into a sundial a thousand years ago. Its amazing how vandalism becomes interesting with passage of the centuries

We managed to negotiate leaving the church yard without really speaking to each other and walked out of the village, heading south and started to look for the next bit of Beuno memorabilia, St Beuno's well. Beuno was a handy lad to have around as he was a dab hand at miraculous healing. He reached his apex when he reattached the head of a young woman who had been beheaded. A miraculous spring rose up at the site of this miracle (as springs are wont to do) and it is still there to this day. The woman went on to become a saint in her own right, St Winifred and she has her own well with miraculous powers.

We almost walked past the well and I was initially looking on the wrong side of the road. Rhian found it first and in her excitement forgave me enough to call me over.

'Is that it?' I asked her, 'I was expecting something a bit more exciting if I'm honest'

There was a long pause and Rhian looked thoughtful.

'So it would seem.'

We stood there for a while, trying to wring every ounce of excitement out of this modest offering. We had been very bored for quite a while and both of us were struggling to find the well impressive.

'Its a bit rubbish'

'Yes. People must have been more easily impressed in the Middle Ages.'

'Hmmm, you might be right. AND I bet she was never decapitated. '

'I bet she only had a a migraine'. I looked at Rhian and laughed. Beuno had effected another miracle. United by a common sense of disappointment and distrust in Welsh saints we carried on down the road.

Lifted by the general sense of forgiveness bestowed by the Saint and the fact that it was no longer raining the last section of the road past fairly swiftly. With every step the mountain range got closer and it was wonderful to see its steep sides so close to the sea. we passed through the last hamlet of Gryn Goch and turned off the road down to the village of Trefor where we had left my car.

'Just look at those mountains, Rhian! Aren't they amazing?'

'Yes, and tomorrow we will be climbing over them.'

My heart sank. My feet were sore after their soaking, my legs heavy from a 18 mile walk and tomorrow we had to climb up a mountain. And Rhian still thinks that Bono is great. (Stop it!)

Tomorrow was going to be a hard day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sERtcG-TUCU

(Thanks to U2 for the soundtrack for the day :-))