It was time to leave Cornwall and head on up to Wales and Snowdonia. We had a relatively large drive on our hands, 5-6 hours, along with a few stops to make a long the way.
Our first port of call (literally) was Padstow on the way through. We hadn’t made it here the day before and as we were super early, it was not too busy. We had eaten the day before in Port Isaac, just based on bad timing, judging by the smell of Padstow, and the over proliferation of “Rick Stein” cafes, I’d recommend eating in Padstow. Instead, we grabbed a traditional Cornish pasty, had a wander and then headed onwards.
We continued to aim for AONB (Areas of outstanding beauty). And this time found ourselves in Exmoor in a tiny town called Dulverton. Again it was time for a stroll, as we pretended to ourselves that we were getting our fitness up in readiness to tackle Mount Snowdon (the Cornish pasty and ice cream before 10am would indicate otherwise!!).
It was at about this stage that we realised that we were going to be getting into our Snowdonia accommodation pretty late, so thought that we had better high tail it to Wales. The road around to Snowdonia is relatively windy and the town we were staying in didn’t have much on offer (food wise) after 7-8pm. Once we hit the border into Wales, the scenery immediately changed from the flat of Cornwall to hilly and windy country. Also into grinding gridlock of peak hour as we tackled the outskirts of Cardiff etc! Although it stays light here until 10pm or so, we were still keen to get a wriggle on.
We stopped along the way at a tiny roadside pub, in a random Welsh town for some dinner and were surprised by how busy the small place was (maybe they were surprised too, wondering where all these hungry people kept coming from!). Since COVID happened, the UK has lost over 2000 of its traditional pubs (according to Choir of Man) and continues to lose them every day. So Lesley and I call it “supporting the small town economy”!
We eventually rolled into our accommodation, quite late at night, but well fed. It was up a series of impossibly windy, hilly streets and as the sun set, felt like it was always 8.7 miles away from us! Mount Snowdon awaits, a feat for tomorrow!
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