Traverse of the Rhingo’s: Day One
Do you have that one friend who says to you, "Let’s go for a little hike - it will be fun?" But their indication of fun is 31-kilometer hike in the middle of rural Wales. Nowhere near civilisation.
Well, that would be me, I am that friend.
However, this time when I asked this, I had two wonderful friends who were just as keen as I was and said, "When do we leave?"
Sarah and I decided to commemorate her leaving for New Zealand with a hike and wild camp, something we do best and enjoy together. I had a guidebook on Eryri (Snowdonia) which had an interesting-looking route. It was 2 days traversing the Rhingos mountains. It looked manageable, and so I showed the route to Sarah, who agreed and then roped in our friend Dave.
Upon looking at the route in the book, we decided to check OS maps to plot the route, and this is where we found a route that skipped the first 600+ meter mountain. As this route contained a lot of elevation, we decided to opt for this route; we would soon find this to be the worst decision we made.
Ferns, Glorious Ferns.
With our bags packed in the back of Dave's car, we had set off from South Wales on our adventure. Stopping only at the famous stop of Builth Wells, Burger King, for the well-deserved pre-scran. Our destination was to be a seafront car park in Barnmouth; despite living in North Wales for a large chunk of my life, I had never visited. The beach, even in the moody weather, was lovely.
We arrived in Barnmouth, packed up, got our bags and set off to the Train station, which would stop in a town called Talsarnau. This would be the starting point for our trek.
Naive, excited for what's to come, we set off from the station on what was about to become one of our most memorable trips to date.
Talsarnau to the starting line
We walked along roads until eventually turning off onto public footpaths. Some paths were very pretty, and others, the ferns were so tall you couldn't see Sarah or me. This made me panic with the thought of every outdoors person's least favourite bug, the tic!
Thankfully, we made it through the otherside unscathed. No tic removals needed.
The path led onto some paths through flatter farmland, and the view from here was incredible, the lush green fields and the sea in the backdrop. I love this part of Wales. We stopped for snacks and pictures with the backdrop. All happy smiling faces. We carried on, eventually taking a wrong turn, which looked like someone's home. The family was all eating dinner and just watching these lost people (us), embarrassed, we managed to redirect ourselves and got back on course.
Slowly but surely, with the sun going down behind us, we started to see the peaks of mountains in the distance. Signifying the start of the long two days we had in front of us.
What we struggled to see was viable, comfortable flat ground to sleep on, ground that wasn’t rocky or paved and ground that wasn’t a mossy sopping bog. Searching in the lowly lit sky, as the sun was going down, and the sky was grey with cloud. We eventually found a spot by a little lake.
The grass was lumpy, yes, but it was better than any of the other alternatives.
All in agreement that this would be our camp spot for the night, we set up the tents and prepared food.
With a view of the lake and jealousy on my face, and Sarah’s due to the camp food Dave had brought. We sank into the night, watching the sky fade to darkness, cosy in our tents, awaiting the excitement of the day ahead.
We went to sleep under the stars, unaware of the disasters coming our way.
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