An excellent, smooth, level cycle track gave me fast walking to Bangor. Although the map depicted urban sprawl the cycleway was isolated by trees and had the impression of being in pleasant countryside. When they are properly done they are worthwhile. There is a so called national cycle route network where some quango has put up signs on normal minor roads and claiming various such as number so and so of the said network, but the way I see it is that anybody can look at a map and devise their own route, but I am all for the purpose made tracks if they are done well.
In Bangor I sat outside at a private bakery shop in the sunshine situated in an atmospherically pleasing busy pedestrian shopping street and had a good Cornish pasty, a mug of tea, and a delicious lemon meringue tart.
In a little village outside Bangor (Landygail) I came accross an elderly lady struggling to fasten her gate and I went to help. She told me it was her eighty first birthday today. Further conversation established that her husband was one Dickie Morsley who she said had been a notable rock climber in his day. The lady reminisced about Wasdale, the Lakes in general, Skye, and Scotland. Her husband was a great friend of JHB Bell(Mountaineering in Scotland), and she said he had done the first ascent of Suicide Wall which I think is in Glencoe (perhaps John P or Tom W would like to research this). That is the sort of encounter that makes these trips worthwhile.
Initial walking on Tarmac was followed by a pleasant stroll up the shoreline of The Menai Straits with sunshine all the way. One of the ubiquitous pessimists one meets on these walks that I met told me that rain was expected tonight and I must ensure that my rent was well secured.
I was aiming for a Caravan and Camping Club listed site about a mile from Llandairfrechan that I had plotted on my map from the 2011 year book. I arrived to find they only take caravans, but was told "a new site has opened up just outside the village : Platt's Farm". When I got there the lady said they had opened for Easter and closed again until later in the season, however she let me stay, and here I am now, and within a few hundred yards of the village pub where I can eat tonight.
All goes well - the main difficulty is the uncertainty of each night's stopping place.
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there are several `Suicide Wall' I know of - I think the most notorious is actually called Creag a'Bancagah wall on that crag round the corner on the Buchaille from the main route up the open corrie from Allt na Feadh
ReplyDeleteI know of Ron Moseley (Rock and Ice) but no-one of that name - I'm surprised if he was a mate of Bell's as she sounds too young to be such a guy's widow (by the way, 81 is not so far off for some still active types)