Day 33: Pwllheli to Criccieth
Solo Hiking
Kate came down for breakfast, but that’s probably all she’ll do today. Hacking and horking. Yuck. Poor girl.
Sad
I told you before that there won’t be any sun when she’s gone, and there wasn’t. The sky was preparing for afternoon rain, which I hoped to beat on my 11-mile, mostly flat hike along the beach and road. I’d say the trail brought back memories of Rhyl, but I can’t be too cruel about Criccieth and the Llyn Peninsula.
Pwllheli, on the other hand… maybe I didn’t see him at his best. The tide was low, leaving some of the sailboats in its large harbor perched on oily-looking mud. And the part of the city I walked through seemed tired, like an out-of-season and formerly popular seaside town.
Before long, I escaped to a lonely beach of pebbles and sand. I walked on the hard sand until it was devoured by the tide. I then wandered back and forth trying to find the best path across the loose cobbles, deep sand and cross slope. Finally, when my shoes filled with sand, I gave up and went to find a path through the low dunes above the beach.
The beach had some trash, which was unusual, but above, the fence bordering the adjacent grass was filled with three feet of dumped trash. Seeing it made the day a little sadder.
I stepped away from the fence and saw Bardsey Island and the tip of the Llyn Peninsula in the distance. For just a second or two, the sun briefly broke through the clouds and illuminated its green hills. The trail I love was still there. I was just passing through an opaque area.
JRR to the rescue
I only take my headphones off when I’m alone and when the road gets rough. And if I really need help through a rough patch, there’s nothing better than a long journey into the darkness with the hobbits. Narrated by Rob Inglis, of course.
My children are avid readers. I used to be. Now I read more for research and work than for recreation. Except Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I read or listen to that series almost every year, usually on long hikes, river trips, or road trips. This morning, Bilbo led me across four more miles of beach and to the inland road turnoff, where the noise of the road drowned him out.
walk down the road
I thought a lot about skipping the stretch of road. As I walked from the beach towards the 2.5 mile section along the busy A497, I noticed a railway line crossing the three large farms that had not yet given access to the Coast Path. Additionally, a sign announced that the trail would be moved to the railroad alignment in the future.
Twenty-year-old me would have done it. The current version of me thought about the possible consequences for me, as well as the trail right-of-way negotiations with the farmers. Additionally, my Trek blog overlords made me promise to be a good trail citizen, which includes not trespassing or breaking other laws.
So my sore Achilles tendon and sore feet endured another walk down the road. At least I made good time, even if I didn’t have any.
Cricket
When the road finally reached the coast, I could see Criccieth Castle on its hill, just a few kilometers away. That, and a couple of hikers far ahead, as well as the impending rain, gave me all the incentive I needed. I quickened my pace a little and headed home.
My walking sticks and I arrived at Criccieth in time for lunch. Eleven miles, without shortcuts, in just over three hours. I texted Kate, who had recovered enough to meet me at a small cafe I could see from our room.
Celtic tours to the rescue
We have been fighting the HOA of our townhouse and their roofing contractor for six months, trying to get them to fix the roof, so we can repair all the interior damage caused by leaks during a storm last October.
It hasn’t gotten any easier being eight time zones away. In fact, every time Kate sees a 400-year-old abandoned building with a sagging roof along the trail, she announces, «Look, another Red Mountain roofing contract!»
But I digress. During lunch, I went to get the latest email response from the HOA, which was already six days late. Finding nothing, I opened my spam folder to see if his email had gone missing. It didn’t, but I saw an email from our supplier marked «URGENT!!» in the subject line.
They had been contacted by David, our Anglesey taxi driver, who we had hired to take us from Porthmadog to Bangor train station in two days at the end of our trip. His car had broken down and couldn’t be repaired in time to take us.
But the next line said that they had already found us another driver if we wanted. Totally above and beyond. It transformed what could have been a crisis into a solved problem.
Walking tours along Celtic trails
That type of service deserves recognition. Celtic Trails equips and organizes walking tours in Wales and beyond. For this trip, they juggled our desired schedule, which was slower than some, but much longer than most. There were dozens of accommodations, taxi pickups and drops, and daily luggage transfers that could have gone wrong but didn’t. Well done.
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