Quite late on Monday evening, I arrived back home after a weekend away in North Wales. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to forewarn you of this latest adventure but I intend to share a short summary of our events in this post.
As time goes on (and I’m still writing about the days I spent up in Derbyshire, last month), I’ll have more detail for you. In the mean time, here are the highlights.
A couple of months ago, I was invited to join a group with a final tally of four others, on a countryside escape amidst the uncertain ‘void’ that separates our short summers from the ever-lasting winters. With an interest in tackling the Three Peaks, we set our sights on Mount Snowdon – with no need to tackle them all in twenty-four hours of madness, we decided to spend the long weekend in North Wales, instead of racing along motorways to climb mountains by night.
I’m going to say bluntly that I passed on the opportunity to climb Snowdon, as I awoke on the Sunday morning feeling much less than 100%. As it happens, those who did complete the challenge seemed to enjoy it and I have every intention of trying again next year – almost fortunately from my own perspective; it was incredibly cloudy at the top with mist and fog consuming the middle regions, meaning those much-sought-after views would’ve been unobtainable, had I pushed myself too hard just for the sake of being there at the time.
We’d intended to ‘do the mountain’ a day earlier. But after a good four-and-a-half hour journey on the Friday, no-one was up for an early start and, by the time we did reach the intended car park (11am), it was full and there were millions of people making their way to and from the top.
So, instead, we took a detour to Caernarvon Castle (which was surprisingly, almost vacant) and then hopped on the Welsh Highland Railway’s steam train for a short journey back to Waunfawr, where we were setup in our cottage.
I approached the weekend with many anxieties about having to be social and share a four-walled space with four people I’ve known for a matter of months or less… But this wasn’t any Reality TV nonsense and I soon found myself welcoming each day, enjoying and even beginning to relax amongst the atmosphere. That’s not to suggest that I will leap at the invitation to play the game Consequence ever again – unless, perhaps, I am able to erase the memories of Sunday night’s revelations from my mind…
Bruce Willis met Rachel Weisz and… No! We burned those sheets of paper with good reason!! ;-)
We’re currently talking about going away again, perhaps in time for Christmas, with a destination that’s likely to be a lot closer to home.
One thing I have learnt is that I would love to walk more of the Welsh Coast Path. :-)
I did enjoy my second weekend in Wales for the year.
