Hanging with the locals

We are sleeping in a castle tonight but I’m currently too knackered to explore it beyond my bed! It’s been a big day and we’ve just arrived, hot and bothered.

It started with a climb from our lovely overnight village of Llangynhafal back up into the Clywdian Hills. The wind had settled and the views from the ridge back across North West Wales were stunning. The hills are covered with a mix of gorse, grasses and heather and the lowlands a mixture of farms and tiny villages, so it’s a symphony of greens and pinks.

It was a sizable climb (profile attached for those of you who like them) and it kept on going. Eventually we reached the highest point on the Clywdian Range which is Moel Famau. It’s 555m and there’s a ruin at its top called the Jubilee Tower. It was built to celebrate the golden jubilee of King George III in 1810. He was also known as Mad King George.

An architect was appointed and the design was a square base with an obelisk tower, as Egyptian aesthetics were the thing of the time. Sadly the architect and builder had a big fight and things stopped for a couple of years. It appears the architect was right as when it was eventually built in 1817 it only lasted another 45 years before the obelisk collapsed (narrowly missing several people) and demolished the base.

It was an imposing structure to see in the distance and the views from up there were stunning. We could see to Liverpool (East), Prestatyn (North) and Snowdonia (West).

Three odd things I want to share:

You’ll notice in the pictures there’s a kind of patchwork pattern on the vegetation on the hills. That’s because they mow great rectangles to provide young heather for the black grouse that breed there. They are cool birds and rare. The males are black and red and have an amazing dance-off ritual with other males even before the females arrive on the scene.

There were suddenly people at the Jubilee Tower. We have seen maybe 6 people a day so far on our walks. We arrived at the tower to find it swarming with humanity. Families picnicking and couples admiring the view. It was a bit of a shock. I also admired the fact that so many people were happy to climb the 300m slope to reach it.

The Welsh must have astonishing bladders as we have not seen a single toilet since Prestatyn, three days ago. Even at the Jubilee Tower and its carpark which must see hundreds of people a week.

After Moel Famau we had many kilometers of descent, as the town we are staying in tonight is about 5km off the trail. Luckily it’s a cute town and we are in a castle or I’d be grumpy about it. It’s called Ruthin, and the hotel is the Ruthin Castle Hotel. It was once posh enough that Prince Charles stayed here the night before he became Prince of Wales, but that glory has faded and it’s now got ‘character’. The gardens are stunning though, as are the peacocks.

The original castle was built in the 1200’s by King Edward I and then gifted to the last Welsh prince. It’s hard to imagine history on that scale. It’s been destroyed and rebuilt many times.

We have just returned after an evening of meeting the locals. We dropped into one of the Ruthin pubs. It was an old pub (read 1600’s) with a big rock outside. A plaque above the rock said that legend had it that this was the rock on which King Arthur beheaded Huail, the brother of his rival. I keep noticing Merlin and Arthur references here so must dig deeper.

One of the glories of Wales is that people are lovely and friendly and up for a chat. We had a long yarn with a Southern Wales couple from ‘the valley’ who had nothing much good to say about Wales and the bloody politicians. They left and we met a bunch of Northerner locals who dismissed the Southerners as ‘good as English’ so ignorable. Lots of very entertaining banter and bad jokes about Australian beer.

We returned to our castle for a pizza and open mic session in the gardens.

As I write I hear a blackbird chirruping outside. We met our most interesting bird so far today. A Eurasian Sky Lark up in the hills in the heather. It flies high into the air until it’s just a dot and hovers while it sings frantically. It then drops like a stone. Dozens of them all around us up on the hill. It was quite surreal.

Tomorrow another big day on the hills. I’m told this is the hardest stretch…Today was good tho.

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