Sunday 27th May – Beddgelert Forest Campsite

Another beautiful day with blue skies and strong sunshine. We had decided to do one of walks from 'The Best Walks in North Wales' book. This starts from Beddgelert but we started from the campsite taking a path through the forest and then over fields until it arrived in the village close to the railway station. From here we walked through the town, over the footbridge before following the river Glaslyn. There were lots of rhododendrons alongside the path and over the hills on the edge of the village and I would normally say that they were beautiful but we heard on Radio Wales this morning that they are a real problem in Snowdonia. They are not a native species and they exude toxins from their roots that kill all of the native plants. The leaves are also toxic which means that it has no predators. The National Park authorities are waging a war on rhododendrons – the place for them is in gardens not in the wild. Having said that, they did look pretty!

Walking up the valley we passed the once struggling Sygun Copper Mine, now no longer in production but a thriving tourist attraction. As we approached the tip of the lake of Llyn Dinas we came across the low mound of Dynas Emrys. This is the legendary home of Vortigern, the Celtic King who invited the Saxons into Kent and the same Vortigern whose valley we had seen at the bottom of Yr Eifl on the Lleyn Peninsula. The legend revolves around the building of the king's castle and involves the draining of a secret lake, two sleeping dragons (one red and one white) and Merlin before he became Arthur's magician. All good legendary stuff!

As we reached the lake we turned up the hill, the start of a long steep pull up Mynydd Sygyn until we reached an abandoned copper mine. Whilst Jane recovered from the climb I went off to investigate the mine and discovered adits (horizontal shaft), a vertical shaft and the main mine working where, starting with an adit, the miners had followed a vertical seam a long way down into the mountain. Standing at the top I could hear the eerie echoes of drips falling into a pond way down below. It was very clear and the views were excellent. It took us a little time to realise that we could see Snowdon on the way up and it was only with binoculars that we could see the figures that were crawling like ants all over the summit. The views from the mine were the best and we could clearly see the ridges used by some of the Snowdon walking routes.

After a break for lunch we set off south down Cwm Bychan, the valley full of small copper mine workings and one large mine with a very business-like entrance that obviously had a small railway going into it. The remains of an aerial ropeway, used to transport the ore, lay all down the valley from here and looked for all the world like a ski lift.

At the bottom of the valley we reached and crossed the railway before following the course of the Glaslyn River. This took us through the Aberglaslyn Pass where the wide Glaslyn bubbles over the rock-strewn river bed. This is a really lovely part of the walk and many people stroll along here from Beddgelert to enjoy the beauty. When the gorge came to an end we walked through open countryside to Beddgelert.

It had been a very hot walk and we needed to rehydrate, so a visit to a hostelry was most welcome. We had also promised ourselves one of the home-made ice creams from the shop in the village and we just had time to eat them before catching a bus back to the campsite.

When we arrived back we were invited for drinks with Iraj and Angela. After showers to make ourselves more presentable (and less smelly!), we had another very pleasant evening despite the hoards of midges attracted by the heat, lack of breeze and the tasty flesh on offer!

Photos: The River Glaslyn on the way to Lake Dinas; Lake Dinas – Snowdon is the peak on the extreme left; The copper mine workings at the top of Mynydd Sygyn.