Monday 16 May 2011

Another Welsh mountain tarn - 8/46








Llyn Morynion - Mayday!



















And so to the last day in North Wales, the brief was... a fairly decent walk, within half hour of the house, a mixture of terrain/view and obviously near to or ending up near water. After pondering for a while and lots of checking of maps we decided on a yomp in the Rhinogs.

The walk started with a fairly level tramp through some stunning pine woodland, following a sign for waterfalls - I was getting excited by the thought of a swim under a natural waterfall! After about half an hour we found the falls - wow, they were huge, there was no way I was going anywhere near them - actually it was a trickle over a boulder, apparently it's payback for all the warm dry weather we've recently enjoyed. Anyhow we carried on to a three-way path junction, this was my chance to show just how good my navigation skills were - after all, I kept saying, I micro-nav when doing mountain marathons, this is a piece of pish. So we carried on down a track overlooking the whole valley, we came to some ruins that weren't on the map so I made a note to get in touch with Ordnance Survey to let them know of their omission, then realised we'd gone the wrong way... bloody maps! We turned tail and retraced the past half mile (!) before heading up the correct path, which took us out of the woodland into a huge mountain amphitheatre. We xould now see both Rhinogs in all their glory, and the sun was even trying to break through the clouds.

We climbed, and climbed then climbed some more before coming to another path junction, we then decided to go 'off-road' up and over a moorland saddle towards where the lake should be. It was tough going as the heather was thick and the marsh was, well, marshy. We made it down to the Llyn and by now had quite a sweat on, so we thought we'd make the most of our internal heat and go for it straight away.

I was first in and as ever it was bloody freezing, again no chance of a distance swim. Then Morgan showed how to enter the water with style, as the photo above can testify. We splashed around in the water for maybe 20 minutes, swimming down the length rather than attempting a crossing - I was to afraid of the cold getting to me :(

The water was deep, dark and murky. When you looked down while treading water you couldn't see deeper than your waist! It was quite unnerving actually, not knowing what was down there - pike, crocs, sharks or monsters!

So after messing about we got out, dried off and had lunch. Morgan and I chatted about the merits of doing these swims, saying how the diving in seemed easier the more we did. Even though this tarn was as cold as the first one we did, we felt more able to actually swim and chat while in it.

So that was North Wales, I have no idea when my next swim will be, nor where - one thing I do know is that I need to do as many as possible during the coming months, I REALLY don't want to have lots to do by October.

Cheers for reading - Tony.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Two in one day!!! 30 April 2011

This is me - not Daniel Craig :-)

Morgan, Sasha and me

Getting in


Harlech beach - 6/46

Another stunning day in North Wales, what on earth is going on here? I've never ever known it to be sunny for so long in part of the country!

Well, we had breakfast and decided on a beach day, great for me as I wanted more salty swimming. We found our way to Harlech Beach where the wind was using the sand to grit-blast your legs! We walked onto the beach and headed straight to the waterside that was a good 500m from the dunes. We got changed in front of a group of hippies, complete with them balloon pants that only western 'travellers' buy in india and cans of Carling! Here's a quiz question for you, as devised by Morgan... what are the names of the only remaining English lager producers? We could only come up with Carling and Kestrel (Super).

I digress, Morgan and I decided on a straight dash for the water that we fully expected to be chilly, imagine our surprise when we found we'd got it right, it was chilly... and some! We splashed around for a while then tried to swim with difficulty due to the temperature. We got out after about 15 mins during which time Sasha joined us for a quick splash, as we walked back to the group I saw Sharad walking towards us in just his swimmers, obviously we splashed him, then I joined him for a re-dip. We got out and stood chatting for a while, when Morgan gave that knowing nod - another dash and we were in again! However that was to be the last dip, we dried off in about a minute due to the wind, then decided to leave the hippies to have their 'moment'.


Portmadog - 7/46
We decided on a trip over the bay to Portmadog, what a place this is... a rare mix of the blue-rinse brigade, local and holidaying chavs, hippies, beer-heads and posh peeps. An amazing place to people watch, although I wouldn't watch too closely or you'll end up with a shiner (either version!). We enjoyed fish and chips on the high street - well, I had chips and gravy obviously, washed down with a can if cider - cheers Morgs.

We ambled past the harbour towards the beaches, over the headlands into stunning bays and scrambled around on rocks. We enjoyed amazing views of the Lleyn Peninsula. Again the wind was using the sand to strip layers of skin away from our legs so we decided on a brief pause against some rocks - another can of cider... cheers Morgs! It was at this point I decided on another dip.

No one knew I was going is as I made a quick dash towards the water (consequently there are no pictures). The water was just as cold this time, there's a recurrent theme developing here, but I managed to stay in a while and struggle against a very strong incoming tide. It took me about 10 minutes to swim about 100m and another minute to swim the same 100m back, I'm just grateful the tide was incoming and not outgoing!

So there we have it - two swims in a day, not bad when you consider it's still only April.