Llandrillo

My!  This is a magnificent walk and we can't wait to do it again in summer with packs on our backs, staying at inns along the way to Oswestry…  Romantic dreams perhaps, but the majesty of the landscape and the sense of freedom we felt made dreaming easy.

At the edge of the sleepy village of Llandrillo, 8m ENE of Bala, the road to Cynwyd & Corwen bends northwards and at the bend the drovers' road forks to the right by a chapel (SH 036372).  The going is gentle and on tarmac for a few hundred yards, then the serious climbing begins as the road becomes a stony path worn down to bedrock (#1).

Near the crest, the beeches thin out, the grassy uplands are dotted with sheep (#2) and splendid views begin to unfold.  There's a brief encounter with a fir plantation (#3) then more panoramic stuff…until after about 3 miles you see a dip (saddle) in the hills in the 11 o'clock direction.  Pass a splendid sheepfold (#4) on the way – the dry-stone walls are in magnificent repair all along the route – and you reach "Wayfarer's" Memorial at 092366¹.

The memorial is a small steel plate screwed into the vertical rock to the left of the path that looks down into the Ceiriog Valley ahead.  The inscription on the plate reads:

ER COF AM

“WAYFARER”

1877-1956

UN OEDD YN CARU CYMRU

A LOVER OF WALES

ERECTED BY THE R.S.F.

And below the plate is a metal box with notes, room for comment and supplies for the desperate.  The whole thing was quite touching, and when we got home I looked up the RSF.  The Rough Stuff Fellowship, it transpires: started in 1955 as a cycling group and is still going with about 600 members.  “Wayfarer” was a famous member, but the RSF doesn't tell you the name his mother gave him.  Almost better that way.  I just admire the fact that people even thought of pedalling up that slope in 1955!

After breathing the fresh mountain air and having some lunch – no, I promise, NOT from the box – we returned taking the first RH fork, a route I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy.  We ended up having to walk 2 miles back to Llandrillo on a busy road.  Serves me right for leaving the map behind. 


Much better to have returned the way we'd come, soak it all up again and have Cadair Idris as the backdrop (#5).

We met some motorised bikes on the way back.  Hope they don't churn up the landscape.  The RSF would not approve.

¹ Impossible to take a photo because of the sun's glare.