Malham

'No summits but plenty of sights'

Date: 12 August 2012                                       Start time: 11:22

Start point: Yorkshire Dales Visitor Centre, Malham - SD899626

Walkers: Mark Illingworth, Emma Lever

Distance: 11.67miles                                       Time: 5:05:54 

Route: Turn L out of Visitor Centre car park then cross road R opposite pub and follow 'Pennine Way' S out of village. After kissing gate, follow path L into National Trust wooded area and up around Janet's Foss waterfall all the way to road. Turn R on road, walk past lay-by and take gate L into campsite. Follow path N through camp site to Gordale Scar. Retrace steps back to road, turn R and take path behind lay-by through gate. At wall, head through gate R and go uphill to stile at gap in wall. Continue N up steep hillside then follow top E to steps at top of N chamber of Gordale Scar. Descend steps down to see upper chamber then retrace up steps and take wall stile on path NW. Follow path NW through field to intersection of walls. Head over wall stile and take stoney track N towards Great Close Plantation. Take path around N of plantation towards Malham Tarn. Follow 'Pennine Way' S-SW to car park for tarn. Cross road, head to gate R then follow 'Pennine Way' S to Ing Scar Crag. After descending to valley below, follow path SSE to Malham Cove through gate stile. Turn R and walk over limestone pavement to top of stepped path down. At bottom, head L through gate to see face of Malham Cove before picking up obvious path S away from cove to meet road. Follow road back through village to car park.

Weather: Blustery though not cold. Overcast with the odd very light spot of rain. Blue sky was rare. Immediate visability was ok but long rang visibility was hazy and poor.

Notes: The Country Walking Magazine route we followed was called Malham Cove, but that takes something away from the rest of the natural wonder you walk through, by and over on this walk, so I felt a wider name was deserved.

The first stop is Janet's Foss Waterfall (Foss being the Nordic for Force). A fairly powerful downfall in the midst of a pleasant National Trust maintained wood. The pool at the bottom was a family gathering area - an enthusiastic dog splashing was more enjoyable than the noise of children though. Possibly the ruining feature of this site is its too near a road. Families, lazy people, and even pushchairs can get there. But I shouldn't let that cast a shadow over an impressive natural feature. The waterfall has a strange 'wall' behind it that looks like mineral deposits that have built up. It prevents you from standing under the fall where the fairy Janet apparently resided in a cave.

Gordale Scar deserves the star treatment it gets on the OD Explorer map. Having never been here before we weren't sure what to expect as we head through a campsite, on to a clear path, that disappears round a corner into a limestone crevasse. What we saw was a massive WOW moment. Sheer and overhanging rock faces narrowing and channeling to a water forged drop with waterfalls stepped one on top of the other. Climbers head up the beyond vertical walls of the scar. Adventurous walkers could scramble through the waterfall to the upper chamber. I sat and watched a couple of guys do it. I consider myself an adventurous walker, but this looked beyond me with all the water. I'd blame it on my heavy lunch and waterproofs loaded backpack or on Emma's lack of skills, but really, I think it looked a bit dicey and I was scared off the idea. A steep hill climb and quick stepped descent was our was to the upper chamber and this way you got great views down into Gordale Scar from high up. The limestone valley at the top was equally wonderous, if not as striking as the scar below.

Malham Tarn is a national nature reserve, but obviously not a reserve for fish because we saw a few boats out there fishing - I didn't know you were allowed to fish in a nature reserve. It would've been better if you could shoot the ducks, they were annoying me. People must feed them often as a couple of them approached us repeatedly after out sandwiches, but we managed to shoo them away. We couldn't shoo away quickly enough the puppy handled by a family of absolute clownshoes as it climbed all over Emma. We sat on the eastern shore of the tarn, which is where the footpath goes, but maybe not the best for views. Especially in the dull hazy weather with no distant visibility. We had Highfolds Scar to the north in the corner of our eyes but Great Close Hill behind might have made a more interesting visual backdrop to our picnic stop.

Ing Scar doesn't get the star treatment on the map. Its a little smaller than Gordale Scar and the dry little limestone valley it creates down to Malham Cove might well be missed by most visitors to the area aside from Pennine Wayers and those particularly keen to walk up to the tarn. This is a shame as it is no less wondrous than the rest of the limestone creations nature has given us in this corner of the Dales.

Malham Cove rounds off the walk of wonders we went on and does so in spectacular style. This place, remarkably, lies off access land, but you wouldn't know it. There are people everywhere. And its clear why. The limestone pavement is the finest high level example of this type of scenery around. It isn't completely clear of grasses and certainly feature plenty of plant life in it's cracks, but the rocks are pretty bare and a little other worldly. The touristy path up, the amount of children and non-walkers would annoy me in many places, but this place isn't just a 'highest peak' like the Ben or Snowdon, its a real natural wonder. People should come and see it - all sorts of people. That's just on the top too. When you get to the bottom you get another WOW moment when you look up at the white chalky limestone cliff face. You might be lucky enough to see a falcon or two in the right time of year as well.

This truly was a walk of wonders and worth tripping around despite the crowds in places.

Criccieth to Porthmadog

'One walk, two towns and the number three bus'

Date: 9 July 2012                                            Start time: 12:13

Start point: Tyn-y-Gwynt Guest House, Criccieth - SH499377

Walkers: Mark Illingworth, Emma Lever

Distance: 9.37miles                                         Time: 4:23:02

Route: Turn L out of guest house door and follow street down to promenade / beach. Cross road at RNLI Station and take steps down on to beach. Continue from sand on to pebbled coastline and keep heading E / ESE. At Graig Dhu climb up headland and walk around caravan site to road. Follow road NE as it winds down past campsite then turn down first road on your R. Follow this road S and keep going forward down sandy track to beach when road turns sharp L. On beach, turn L and follow beach E minding out for cars and streams coming from caravan park which is behind dunes. Follow beach to Ynys Cyngar headland. Climb up and follow signposted coastal path above sandy cove with golf course L. At slipway, take stepped path rising steeply ahead then follow way marked coastal path along green cliff tops E past Pen y Banc nature reserve and round the estuary coastline into Borth-y-Gest. Walk N through car park then turn R to go across beach. Take slowly rising path at E of beach and emerge at road. Go L on to the road then take second R off road, that appears as a straight ahead lane. Come out on road next to harbour and disused railway area. Follow this NNE to emerge at Porthmadog harbour, head W towards bridge. Turn R on bridge then R after the bridge to the harbour train station.

Weather: Fairly warm, I was comfortable in shorts. Sunny spells but mostly cloudy. Brief light drizzle. Visibility across Cardigan Bay was relatively good, as it was back to Criccieth across Black Rock Sands.

Notes: The first thing you see is Criccieth Castle (http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/daysout/criccieth-castle/?lang=en). We took a tour and it's exhibitions of the castle before starting the walk. The castle itself is quite ruined but some interesting features remain. The two towers are the most obvious, complete with arrow loops and clearly marked floors. A chimney, some other rooms and a catapult pit also remain. The exhibitions were an alright enhancement to add the value for money factor. There was one about other Welsh castles and one about Gerald of Wales who did things during the Crusades and translated books by the looks of it.

We stopped quickly at Cudwaladers Ice Cream Cafe (http://www.cadwaladersicecream.co.uk/). That was nice, they were all over the area and this was the founding location. The only problem was I finished my tub after the last bin on Criccieth Beach and we had a mile of pebbles to walk before we reached the next bins on Black Rock Sands. 

Moel-y-Gest with its lion like shape was the background to this whole section of the walk

Black Rock Sands is an interesting beach - no whistling sand, but impressive none the less for its size alone. It was the most akin to beaches we have at home (St Annes, Blackpool etc.) of what we saw on this holiday, but one major difference was cars were allowed to drive on to and along the beach. There were also two major interruptions to the beach road where streams ran out to the sea, deep enough to go above the ankles. There was no black rock on the beach, just golden sands, so I assume the name comes from the dark cliffs at the west end of a couple of miles of sand and the rocks breaking out into the estuary on the east end. Despite what Wikipedia says, Coldplay's 'Yellow' music video wasn't filmed on this beach, but its more believable that the Manics 'This is my Truth, Tell me Yours' album sleeve photo was taken here - the wide sand, distant hills, and tyre tracks in the sand does resemble Black Rock Sands.

There was another links golf course that we got very close to, but Porthmadog's club wasn't as exciting as Nefyn's - although one green was above a brilliant little beach cove. The path that rose from this beach was a bit tougher than expected with our tired legs from days of walking, and don't be fooled by the signposts for viewing points, they aren't any better views than you get from the path.

Borth-y-Gest was next. It had a street of Balamory coloured cottages and a beach that was more estuary sludge than sand, but it actually looked quite nice with dry docked little boats. The newsagents selling beach toys and inflatables seemed rather optimistic and gave some amusement. I'm not sure what amused the gentleman who shared an observation in Welsh with us, maybe it was the dingy and alligator on sale in the shop, but maybe not. We stopped here for afternoon tea. It was a welcome break but not the most welcome I felt on the trip. Welsh was loudly spoken in the cafe behind us and a baby was making a racket in the room above the shop.

Porthmadog habour with yachts and steam train was the nicest part of the destination town for our linear walk, although some architecture was interestingly odd, with external ladders appearing to be used as staircases. Odder than this was the obsession the region has with pebble dash. As you walk away from the harbour this place gets less interesting. We couldn't find anywhere exciting to eat and the only decent thing to look at was a big church on the way out of town. The closest we got to excitement was running for the bus.

Notes on Criccieth: The B&B 'Tyn-y-Gwynt' (http://www.tyn-y-gwynt.com/)was very pleasant and was right smack in front of the castle, which I thought was great. Sadly our room was at the back so we didn't have a castle view. We did have a view of the cliff that was placed right between the town's high street and promenade. The garden was alive with colour and songbirds. The en-suite was excellent, everything seemed quite new and well thought out and deliberate, right down to the binder with information on local places to eat or visit. The owner Sally was very nice and friendly. There was some mystery about her back story - she was originally from Birmingham and has adult children still living there, but there was no Mr Sally we saw and no explanation of how she got to owning a guest house in Criccieth, though I'm sure its a story she would share. She had nice dogs too. The only drawback for me was the shared breakfast table, but the breakfast was very nice. Sally did some sauteed potatoes instead of hash browns, but unfortunately there was no black pudding.

The town was quite nice, but it was made by the scenery, beach and castle. It had a few pubs but we only went the The Prince of Wales. The beer was nice, the prices were reasonable and the staff were pleasant enough.

The town seemed to do food pretty well, there were plenty of options - apart from on Sundays and Mondays when a few places were closed, which incidentally were the days we were there. Seafood and fish was prevalent, probably because the town is right by the sea. Prices weren't cheap. On the Sunday we ate at 'Spice Bank'. It was an Indian inside an old bank building. The renovated building was very nice with beams and wood panelling and big fire places. The prices were reasonable, the food was alright, but the staff were a bit too keen. On the Monday we ate at 'Poachers Restaurant' (http://www.poachersrestaurant.co.uk/). This was very nice and strongly recommended. It wasn't cheap but the food deserved the prices that were slightly higher than we would normally pay. We had the set menu - 2 courses for about £16. All the food was very nice, so much so we had to try a dessert too. The only real criticism was the drinks prices, they took the mick a little there, but I'd definitely go back if I was in the area.

I think the only thing left is the trip home. We had two stop offs - Portmeirion and Gwydir Castle.

Portmeirion is quite frankly one of the most ridiculous places I've ever been to. Its like Florence and Balamory had a love child of a town and left it somewhere it should never belong. Basically, some bloke who wears plus fours wanted to put every type of old architecture in one place where they don't really fit, paints them loads of colours and sticks loads of uncoordinated statues everywhere and anywhere with no sort of order. The bloke dresses like a cross between an old golfer and a farmer and clearly has a style of his own, but thinks this is so stylish and beautiful that the town has to be made. To afford all this he had to make a hotel and cottages to let out. Unbelievably people thought it was a worthwhile venture and here it stands today costing £10 an adult to get in to essentially gawp at the nonsense. The most ridiculous thing might have been the 'lighthouse' I think, although I could list more, like the car-train thing you do a tour of the gardens and woods in, but back to the lighthouse - it wasn't really a lighthouse, but you walk half a mile to discover this. Its only on an estuary so isn't really needed and it doesn't have a light in it so wouldn't be of use even if it was needed. If it did have a light you probably wouldn't see it from the water because the structure is so small and short and under a lush canopy of trees. It was awful and pointless. From this you'd think I didn't enjoy the trip here. Actually, it was something hilariously stupid, pointless and at times a little ugly, that I really enjoyed seeing it. The fact that so many people go and hardly any can actually think it is nice amazes me, but all should at least find it ridiculously funny and weird that it holds some wonder.

Gwydir Castle isn't a castle, its an old sort of stately home or hall or something from medieval times, but despite the name being wrong, the place is very impressive (http://www.gwydircastle.co.uk/home.htm). It has well manicured gardens with roaming peacocks and centuries old oak trees. Inside, it has been faithfully restored to its former ways with authentic artifacts from the times of its glory and wood panelling that belonged to the house in the past, was sold to someone in America thus avoiding destruction in a fire at the house, and then bought back as part of the restoration chronicled by the book Castles in the Air. It was very impressive and interesting. This was a nice way to round out the holiday and a special treat for Emma after having her walking around lots all week. All in all we liked Criccieth a lot, we enjoyed the last day trip and it was a really nice holiday. I think we should try and have a holiday like this, exploring a different area of the UK to walk that we can't just day trip to, every year.