Mawddach Estuary Mini-Expedition

Just back from a two day mini-expedition in Mid-Wales, hiking a trail along the Mawddach Estuary from Dolgallau to the sea side at Barmouth. It's a great journey on a well kept trail (an old railway line for most of it). I'm told that the views are spectacular, but we were somewhat 'in the mists' for a lot of the time, with hoods up and rain, sleet and snow coming up the valley! Every now and then we had a few breaks in the weather, like here, at the 'toll bridge' - it's a bargin 20p to cross on foot (worth it for the 7km short cut!).

On the drive south we stopped off at Coed y Brenin to try out a GPS 'treasure hut'/'geo-cache' course which has been pre-programmed into some Garmin Units. It was quite good, but conditions were 'challenging' even for the most enthusiastic lovers of the Great Outdoors!

 

Having been dropped off, we had to follow the trail to the Kings YHA, where we would spend the night.

 

On the most part, navigation was quite literally, quite straight forward...

 

Although, not apparently, without it's dangers...

 

Having turned off the trail to walk up to the Youth Hostel, we did miss a fork in the path and nearly ended up looping back on ourselves! (Watch out for the little un-marked gate!). This was soon rectified and we arrived to a warm welcome just in time for dinner.

 

We all had a fun evening and even got a reasonable sleep as most of the students were too tired to be up all night! Next day after a big breakfast we were back on the trail. Right up until we left, it was snowing really hard, but not settling. By the time we were walking the intensity of the downpours had reduced to drizzle as we walked back to the trail past a huge Californian Redwood!..

 

It was heads down and best foot forward as we pushed on west wards, towards the coast and into the wind. We saw a few Geese, a Greeb and an Egret, but all the other wildlife that this area is famed for was very sensibly taking cover.

 

 

As the kilometers ticked by, we finally made it to the massive foot and rail bridge that crosses the mouth of the estuary to the promised land of Barmouth, where the sight of bright lights, human habitation and the smell of fish and chips picked the pace back up.

 

Finally we were at the coast!

 

And we could walk not further - we'd reached the sea. The planned 'ice-cream money' was quickly re-invested in the chip shop to warm us all up as we concluded the expedition. Great trip, terrible weather, good times....