Legs and Borders

Last day of my version of the Snowdonia Way,  it was mostly easy road walking with few hiking moments thrown in the mix today. First I've walked to Bethesda and I arrived here at breakfast time, the town itself was a bit run down and somewhat empty, I've bought few things to eat at Tesco and carried on to Bangor. Bangor turned out to be almost complete opposite of Bethesda, there was a festival in town, there was music everywhere, you could buy every plastic thing ever produced from the street vendors and Postman Pat's and Batman's vehicles were parked just outside the cathedral. Families were enjoying crazy golf, bubbles and a dance show set to some 90s music. I've soaked in the atmosphere for about half an hour and carried on hiking. An hour later I've crossed the bridge to Anglesey Island and arrived at my final destination of  Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch the longest town name in the world (there were few things with longer name...

I've made a decision to ditch the plan of following Snowdonia Way and decided to create my own version of it. Why you might ask? Well the map provided by the app "Hiiker" was severely outdated (the bridge in Trawsfynydd has been decommissioned four years ago and it was still part of the path) parts of the trail were severely overgrown and non existent and the final straw for me way that Snowdonia Way did not include climbing up on Snowdon and instead it was meandering around it. What's the point coming to Snowdonia and not climbing it's premiere mountain? I've packed my gear in the morning and had quite a traverse though an overgrown bog until I've reached Penrhyndeudraeth and had a lovely bagel with a latte at a Gorilla Cafe, from here I've mostly road walked to Nantmor and took a Snowdonia Slate Trail (to which I would comeback later on that day) along the river to a pretty village of Beddgelert, here I've had another coffee and cake and got few ...

Hot day, I actually arrived yesterday just in time to take a picture with the partial sun eclipse (12th of August at 19:12) above me! It turns out that you can see it in the shadows cast on the ground or any surface for that matter. I've hiked about 5 miles and stealth camped by a little stream, unfortunately it is not legal to wildcamp in Wales but apparently farmers typically won't make a trouble if you're being respectful. Either way, I'm planning to spend those few night as away from human eyes as possible. Following morning I broke camp at about 7am and carried on along the stream, a sheep tangled itself in a blackberry bush and I managed to cut it out using a sharp stone I found in the stream, it hopped away happily few minutes later with a fair bit of the bush still attached I hope the farmer will spot it and trim it before it becomes a problem again. Just before midday I've arrived at Dolgellau, a pretty historically looking town, I've ate a breakfast at...