Day 109
Fairbourne to Tywyn: 10 miles
Best Part of the Day: Kneeling on all fours on the side of the road
Reason: It made sense at the time. It was raining.
So, Fairbourne
So, after glowing about the views from Barmouth yesterday, I may have neglected to mention they're pretty much just as beautiful from Fairbourne. Sitting on the southern side of the Mawddach estuary, the views of the rail bridge, the estuary, and the whole coastline all the way up to Bardsey Island can be really spectacular on a nice day.
It's these views and the narrow-gauge (and I mean narrow gauge, since my foot barely fit between the tracks - it's only 12 inches and it's the smallest in Wales) railway that draw people to Fairbourne, a village originally created as the estate of a flour company owner. Of course there was also the Gorsafawddacha'idraigodanhe-ddogleddollônpenrhynareurdraeth-ceredigion staton on the Fairbourne line - which means "the Mawddach station and its dragon teeth under the northern piece of the Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan Bay" and was created to compete with the longest station name in Anglesey. It beat Llanfair PG by nine letters.
Anyway, if you're wondering what the dragon's teeth are, they're giant pyramidal concrete blocks on the beach, originally put there as 'tank traps' during WWII. Walking along the back of the beach just behind these, I saw the tiny toy steam train go past, and I hit the end of the coast for a while. Unfortunately at the southern end of Fairbourne the beach becomes rather vertical, and all the narrowly available horizontal space is entirely taken up by the railroad and the road. Thus, the trail cuts back up and inland for a while.
While I say 'unfortunately' there was really nothing unfortunate about it. Besides a tiny bit of rain and a few bits of path that were actually streams due to the recent rainfall, the path not only boasted spectacular views of the Mawddach Estuary, Barmouth, and the entire northern Cardigan coastline, there was also a quarry lake, and several stone circles. While the latter were sometimes behind fences, the sheep, sea and mountain views in the distance behind them, all seemed to come together to create a picture of quintessential Wales. Which is good, since it's my second to last day of walking.
Yarn-town Central
After lingering a bit in what were effectively the highlands below Cadair Idris, the path continued back down toward the low lying village of Llwyngwril, which sits on a flatter piece of land that drops more smoothly into the water. There are lots of caravan sites, and a small church here - but the thing that definitely stands out are the giant knitted scenes everywhere.
I first ran across this when P and I were looking around Aberdyfi for a place to rent, and we drove through Llwyngwril. And both of us saw a giant knit head over a bridge at the same time, and both were interrupted from saying 'What the f*** was that?' by several other giant knit items that made it clear this was a thing.
Anyway, as I walked through this time, I got to see a few of the knit things up close - there was the Owl and the Pussy Cat, the Pied Piper, and Blodeuwedd, the Welsh maiden made of flowers, from the exceedingly Welsh set of legens the Mabinogian (which I just finished reading, by the way). It's really a cute little trail to follow through town - although if you don't get angry about the fact that someone apparently stole the giant knitted Welsh dragon from it's place in town - then I don't know what's wrong with you. Also I don't know what's wrong with someone who thought it would be clever to steal a giant knit dragon that someone put a ton of time and effort into.
Internally raging about this theft after having read the news article about it on the bridge in town, I again found myself trudging up a fairly steep hill inland, as once again the path has to leave the coast to the road and the train tracks. Passing the site of a ruined fort, the wind, of course started to pick up. Eventually I found myself on a road that basically crested the hill, and I could barely walk in a straight line for the wind. It may seem an old story by now, but I'm still shocked when this wind seems to come out of nowhere.
But lucky for me, it was just wind - I could see the scattered clouds and rainshowers being quickly pushed inland off the Irish Sea both in front of me and behind me. So I was pretty glad that at least I was dry.
I continued through some fields where I was momentarily chased by a sheep dog, but eventually found my way to a little road near Rhoslefain. All was well, the inland views here were lovely and green and full of livestock and the hills around Cadair Idris. Then all of a sudden all hell broke loose.
After having passed Rhoslefain, the path turned onto a road that lead to Tonfanau train station. I passed a few buildings, and the hedrowed road had fields on either side, the sea in front, a ridge to the left. All of a sudden, a cloud blew off that sea out of nowhere, and the day became night. Then it started to rain. Really, really heavily.
I quickly figured out which direction the rain was coming from (and by that I mean because of the wind the rain was literally falling right to left, and barely down), and so I looked for a likely hedgerow to stand next to. Unfortunately the hedgerows here weren't all that tall, so I quickly found the highest one around, and stood next to it. But it turns out, it really was too short to provide any rain protection.
Which is how I found myself on the side of a one lane road, crouched on all fours, shoved up against a bush trying to keep what had turned into a torrential downpour off of me. And honestly, it worked. When the rain had passed, I was almost entirely dry. Except of course, for my feet. Which, when I stood up, I suddenly realized had been acting as something of a dam for a giant stream of water that would otherwise have been rushing its way down the hill I was crouched on. And as soon as I stood up, it did, soaking my feet entirely in the process
If I'd actually been a little quicker about it I could have weathered the storm at the Tonfanau train platform, which was literally just around the corner. But as it was, I arrived at the station, having managed to miss the train by about 15 minutes. So I spent the next hour and 20 minutes trying to dry my shoes and socks on the side of the platform, while wondering why exactly there was even a stop here (I think this used to be an army base of some sort, as the red brick ruins filled with sheep using them as windbreaks would attest to). And also telling myself that despite the fact that Tywyn was only a mile away, and Aberdyfi only about 4 miles beyond that, that somehow it was totally reasonable that I should be taking the train back in the opposite direction, toward Barmouth, at the end of the day.
But when the train eventually came, I was really just happy to get into it - whatever direction it was going - as another giant black cloud seemed to be racing the train to get to me first.
