Back in Snowdonia, we chose a circuit from Llanberis based on two of Alex Kendall's 'Snowdonia: North' routes.
Pete's Eats soon waylaid us for welcome coffees (above).
Then we headed in a wide southerly anti-clockwise circuit to Dolbadarn Castle. En route we encountered virtually nobody until we reached the Snowdon Mountain railway where the old story I used to read to my children - 'Ivor Loses His Carriages' - turned out to be a true event today!
The folk at the Ceunant Café didn't seem bothered. They pointed out the path through the woods towards the castle.
There was lots of Stonecrop on this walk. Sue thinks it's the 'English' variety; I think it's 'White'.
Dolbadarn Castle proved to be an excellent spot for lunch. It was built by Llywelyn the Great in the early 13th century. Later that century, Dafydd, Prince of Wales, moved his court to Dolbadarn in the face of invasion by the English. He was soon killed and Welsh independence came to an end, so this place was the final administrative centre of an independent Wales.
We soon moved from walk 17 to walk 18 in Alex's book. This comprised a very scenic walk around Llyn Padarn. Here's the view back towards Snowdon from beyond a variety of homages to the slate industry, which is much in evidence around here, the green hills of Dafydd's era having been transformed into huge terraces of bare slate.
The paths to the north east of the lake turned out to be wonderful quiet woodland passages. Here, a quaint bridge led us across one of several streams.
We emerged eventually at a farm. Here's a relic for Conrad, who I think is somewhere near the east coast, re-living his youth with BC.
This 'Allis-Chalmers' is for AlanR. I'd not previously come across that name.
The next farm offered six duck eggs for £1, so we snaffled some. The ducks, very free range, were happy and showed no objection. (Sometimes they can be somewhat obstreporous.)
The end of the lake, with kayakers and views towards Snowdon, was soon reached.
From there it was an easy lakeside walk past many 'free parking' places to get back to our £5 for the day spot.
We were pleased to see various amenities encouraging water sports and open water swimming, for which the long floating pontoon in the next picture was proving very useful.
Here's the best I can offer by way of a route as Anquet's OMN software wouldn't behave today. It was about 14.5 km with some 500 metres of ascent.
On return to Porthmadog, my brother joined us for beers etc on the deck, where Sue and I later enjoyed a rare al fresco meal. We could have been in central Europe somewhere!
