Snowdonia, 29th - 30th December 2010

Bentlawnt - Capel Curig - Rhos (230 miles)

We’d been really looking forward to getting out in The Rosabella again. A planned trip to Scotland for a wedding had been thwarted by the ‘Great Snows of December’ – if we’d gone as planned we would have been stuck overnight in a blizzard on the M6 (T was ruing another missed entrepreneurial opportunity – selling bacon sandwiches at vastly inflated prices to fellow stranded travellers).

We reckoned that we could do with a bit of exercise after the excesses of food and dearth of activity over Christmas, so we decided to head for Snowdonia, climb a mountain, investigate the sales in the gear shops and visit old friends in North Wales whilst also taking the opportunity for another night in our new van. An early start on Wednesday would mean that we could spend day one in the hills and do our visiting and shopping on Thursday.

We spent Tuesday fettling The Rosabella - we hadn’t so much as stepped inside her throughout the bad weather. We had the dehumidifier working full blast for 24 hours and a little heater warmed the cockles of her heart. We had taken the precaution of taking the cushions and bedding into the house and of draining the boiler down.

As usual, the plan for an early start went out of the window and by the time we’d loaded up, been to the supermarket for supplies and generally pithered about it was 11.30 before we were under way. Having given up hope of a good tramp up a meaningful hill we had a lovely, relaxed drive up to Betwys-y-Coed, sun shining, music on, nattering - one of those real good-to-be-alive moments.

Betwys was, as usual, packed but we still managed to have a rummage through the gear shops with K, true-to-form, being unable to come away empty handed, and T losing his glasses!

It was late afternoon and getting dark by the time we headed up the road to Capel Curig. The carpark behind Joe Brown's shop was icy but we decided that it was ideal for soup and sammos so while K put the kettle on T went and surveyed the mountain road for overnight possibilities, managing to slip and fall into a puddle while he was at it.. No appropriate pull-ins were obvious so we decided, after our snackette, to head down the the Caernarfon road to see if we could find a spot somewhere before Pen-y-Grwyd. There was a big layby a couple of miles past the National Outdoor Pursuits Centre at Plas-y-Brenin, flat, shielded from the road by an embankment - perfect.

We had a cuppa, read the paper, played cards until we realised that time was getting on and if we wanted to have supper at The Bryn Tyrch (one of our favourite pubs and one of the few that we would recommend to anyone), we would have to move, so off we went to Capel, making a mental note of exactly which fence post we were parked next to in order to return to this very comfy pitch.

Great food and drink, as usual and we headed back at about 10.30 to our home for the night. Damn! There's a car parked there! We were already in the layby so would have to just drive straight through. However, as we pulled in the car's lights came on and it accelerated out on to the road, disappearing at speed. We offered a silent apology for disturbing somebody's evening and drove to the spot we'd used earlier. There, in the hedge right next to us was what looke like a brand new Yamaha V-twin of some variety, number plate ripped off, obviously abandoned.


Bike enthusiasts ourselves we could well imagine the distress of someone losing their pride and joy so we did the right and decent thing and called the police. The controller asked us to hang around until a couple of officers turned up - we were a bit dubious, bearing in mind that the 'baddies' may come back to recover the bike, so we moved a little way down the road and sat with the lights on until North Wales Constabulary's finest showed up. We told them where the bike was and they said that they'd come back if they needed any more information from us. T had been a bit concerned that we may be told we couldn't stay overnight but they just asked us if we were bedded down for the night and wished us a good night's sleep. We stayed awake for half an hour or so, just in case, and then turned in for a good night's sleep, as ordered!




Next day we decided to forego brekkie and go for a traipse up to Llyn Idwal. As we walked up the hill the phone bleeped with a voicemail. It was North Wales police with a message at 1.00am, saying that they could find neither the bike nor us (despite the fact that their buddies had tucked us in, and that we were in a big van parked next to the road), and to give them a ring if we received the message before 3 in the morning - fat chance!!



We continued with our walk to the frozen lake and then a race back to Ogwen Cottage and a quick drive to Colwyn Bay for a good, long lunch with friends before driving home via more friends at Nesscliffe.


Llyn Idwal



 A pleasant, if eventually busy, couple of days.

(Post script: T telephoned North Wales Police ten days later to find out what had happened to the bike. They had eventually found it, it had been stolen from Trefriw and was now reunited with its grateful owner, minus a few bits and pieces - a good result under the circumstances.)



View Snowdonia, December 2010 in a larger map