Day 0
Aberdyfi to Machynlleth: 12 miles
Song of the day: L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. by Noah and the Whale
Reason: I used to listen to this on repeat when I walked the several miles home from work in the middle of the night. Cheered me up then - and today it got me over the top of an unexpectedly steep hillside!
Oh Geez, the weather forecast for Day 1 says what?!?
So, the astute observer will notice that the date of my very first blog post says 'Day 0' - rather than 'Day 1'. Why?
Well - I'm planning a thousand mile hike. I've only reserved places to stay for the first three days. This is because I really don't know how quickly I'll want to go from place to place - but I already know the first four spots (Aberdyfi, Machynlleth, Borth, Aberystwyth) well enough that I don't need to dally - since I live here. So when the first day of my hike approached, and the weather forecast kept getting worse and worse - cloudy, then rainy, then persistent rain, then torrential rain, then persistent torrential rain with possible lightning. . .
Well, let's just say I decided that there was really nothing keeping me from starting a day early, having P pick me up in Machynlleth after I'd finished that leg, spending the night back at home, and then driving me back to Mac the next evening so I could keep my reservation and start Day 2 much drier than if I hadn't skipped Day 1 and its torrential rain altogether.
And yes, I know this is Wales and I'm going to have to deal with walking in the rain (even though this was the first rainy day in a decidedly beautiful ten day stretch of gorgeous clear spring days). But since I could avoid it, I figured there was no reason not to.
Goodbye Aberdyfi
So, knowing I'd be back that night, I said goodbye to Aberdyfi, it's colorful fisherman's cottages, its lobster traps in its flower-lined park overlooking the estuary, its fabulous restaurants, its uncannily always sunny beach and its hordes of British tourists who always seem to be eating ice cream. Seriously, always eating ice cream. It could be snowing and you'd still see people with ice creams.
I've hiked the first part of this hike a few times before on walks to Bearded Lake, but I was still surprised by a few things this time around.
First, the bluebells! So many bluebells. I heard recently that the UK is apparently home to something like 50% of all the bluebells in the world. I'd seen a few spots on the road, but on this walk I passed giant carpets of them everywhere - whole hillsides and parts of the forest were just covered in bluebells. I hadn't realized there would be this many this close to my house. This walk probably would have taken me an hour less if I hadn't spent so much time taking 200 pictures of different bluebells.
The second thing that surprised me was the cows in the road. I believe that knowing how much I hate them, the cows from my first trip to Bearded Lake were knowingly waiting at the top of the ridge for me. So that, right after the end of first lengthy steep ascent behind Aberdyfi, right when I should have been able to start catching my breath and taking in the scenery, there they were - just waiting to bother me.
After I'd edged slowly past the cows, I had a better chance to take in the scenery. It was only partly cloudy today, so the views over Happy Valley were slightly more extensive than they were the last time I was here. But I won't describe it in so much detail since you can just visit my earlier post if you'd like to know more.
But one thing I did notice this time around was Borth getting farther and farther away. You can see Borth from Aberdyfi - it's probably a quarter mile south. But it's a quarter mile across the estuary. And there's no bridge. Which means that you have to hike inland to Machynlleth and then back toward the coast to reach Borth. That's a 26 mile hike to get to a town a quarter of a mile away.
The Farthest I've Ever Been
In any case, as Borth receded in the distance (among some really gorgeous hilltop and sea views), I reached the left hand turnoff for Bearded Lake, where the Wales Coast Path goes right. I stopped here for a minute, and the thing that came to mind (because I'm a giant, giant dork) was in The Lord of the Rings when Sam tells Frodo that this is the farthest he's ever been from home in the Shire. This was the farthest I'd been walking from home, and to be honest the view also looked very much like it could have been out of something by JRR Tolkein. But then so does most of Wales.
After that realization, I continued on and the path wound down through hills and sheepfolds as the weather got more and more beautiful, and I suddenly realized I'd failed to put on sunblock. I passed more and more sheep, fields of bluebells, and peeks of mountains to the east. Crossing the main road the path took me closer to the estuary - to where you can see the railroad bridge crossing it in the distance.
The railroad crosses the water several miles closer to the coast than the road does - making this whole area a navigational nightmare for me in terms of landmarks. We've lived here 9 months and it was just last week that P explained to me, when we were on the road south of Machynlleth that the hills I was pointing to to the west weren't near Borth, but were actually the hills right behind our house - i.e. the hills I am walking on now. In my defense its actually objectively confusing - nothing here runs straight and the water is everywhere.
Anyway, after figuring out where I was, and after following the path through what I think is a time share community where lots of people were staring at me, I arrived in Pennal - home of one my least favorite bridges to drive over in Wales. It's a one lane two way bridge that has an arch to it and a sharp turn after, with high stone wall sides. Which taken together means that you can't see if someone's coming the other direction pretty much until you are on the bridge and thus about to hit them.
I ate my lunch in small park near here watching the cars narrowly avert disaster, next to a sign announcing that Pennal had won multiple 'Best Kept Village' awards in the 80s. All I know is that the town has a nice restaurant that I think has outdoor seating in the back, some quaint churches, and a public WC that is not, I repeat NOT where the OS map says it is. So if you arrive in town in desperate need of bathroom, expect it to take a few extra minutes to find. Although truth be told, public bathrooms are such a rare find at home in the first place, I'm always so happy to see how common they are here (regardless of how hard it might be to find them!)
Yes, I get excited about public bathrooms.
The most solitary hike in Wales
The walk from Pennal to Machynlleth was particularly uneventful. Although I'd crossed paths with a few people on the walk from Aberdyfi to Pennal, I passed exactly zero other human beings the rest of the way before I got to Machynlleth. This meant that as I continued up the mountain bike paths through forests covering pits with 'Danger: Deep Mine Warning' signs on them, and my energy started to flag a bit, I felt perfectly comfortable putting on my headphones, and eventually realizing I was singing out loud and possibly occasionally dancing my way up the gravel trail.
It was a good thing too. Otherwise when the path, which followed a large gravel road that had been exasperatingly and exhaustingly creeping ever upwards towards nothing without a change for some time, suddenly turned right up a tiny sheep path that seemed to go unnervingly steeply straight up to the top of the hill like the path builders had just suddenly gotten tired of meandering and wanted to get you to the top already, I might have just given up.
But with my headphones on I danced my way to the top of the hill, and very suddenly found myself out of the forest, in the open air, and with a view of my goal - Machynlleth. The cool open air hit me, and felt - this is what I thought and this is what I will say - like if you've ever been to an Aztecan sweat lodge in someone's back yard in the outskirts of Mexico City and when you crawl out all sweaty and wanting to die someone dumps a bucket of ice water over your head and hands you a glass of tequila. It felt just like that.
If you can't relate to that description (probably not) let's just say it was incredibly refreshing.
After that, I'd like to say the rest of the walk was easy - but I'd be lying. It was actually a steep walk downhill that was difficult to negotiate, in particular on tired legs. But eventually (and with a 15 minute oh-my-god-it's-a-giant-field-of-bluebells-I-must-take-100-pictures break), I got down to sea level and hit the main road.
Of course then it was a matter of crossing my second least favorite bridge to drive over in Wales. The Pont Dyfi was originally built in the 17th century, but the current bridge was rebuilt in the early 19th century - meaning it was built for carriages, and is terribly fun to walk over with no sidewalk, high stone walls and three roads (one with a blind turn) entering onto it.
But getting over it meant getting to see one of the lovely entrances to the Snowdonia National Park (which I of course was exiting) up close and personal. It also meant I was done for the day and could go home and take a bath. All things considered, a good end to my first day of walking - except for the sunburn, which I really could have done without.
