Rambling Pete

Date: 22-Aug-2009

Map: Landranger 123

Weather: Afternoon sunshine, clouding over later

 

From a car park near Mount Pleasant up to Mynedd Gwaith, back down to the col and up to Garn Ganol, down and up to Tre’r Ceiri Hillfort, back down and around to the start: 5 miles by Satmap Active 10 gps

Number one daughter’s wedding was looming large at the end of the month; I had arranged to meet several walking companions up in Langdale to go up Jack’s Rake on Pavey Ark. But as usual this summer the fickle weather had other plans, and the promised sunshine turned to bucketfuls of water. But every cloud has a silver lining and all that, so I abandoned my golf sticks and took the opportunity of a good weather forecast for the weekend and set off down to the Llyn Peninsula for a little stroll instead.

 

Three sculpted standing stones at the start of the walk

 

The first two hills in view

 

The Welsh language centre is down below here on the coast

On the way down I decided to cut down to Rhydd Ddu and have a look at the Nantlle Ridge in the sunshine, as I’d only ever seen it in the rain. So I stopped and took some pictures of the glorious views and vowed to come back later in the year – 3^rd time lucky I hope. We drove down the peninsula to Porth Tocyn and dumped my bag, had lunch and then scarpered back up through Abersoch to the Rivals walk – the 3 hills are close together and called Yr Eifl. This was a 5 mile stroll and very easy going, but I was surprised by the views it afforded. I parked the car just beyond the village of Llithfaen and Mount Pleasant, the road continues down to the Welsh Language Centre. There is a recently installed sculpture of three standing stones – presumably representing Yr Eifl, with a granite plinth with some Welsh verse inscribed. A nice start to a nice walk, in nice weather, nice. The first two of the rivals - Mynedd Gwaith & Garn Ganol are in view from the start and the wide path with a steady gradient up towards it. The land to the west drops steeply down, but you can’t see the cliffs from up here, and down below in the bay is a small hamlet. There is a lot of work going on to restore the buildings of the National Welsh Language Centre at Porth y Nant. The old quarrying and mining works and buildings are much in evidence, almost typical of the landscape in North West Wales.

 

Strong mauve colours of the heather

 

Mynedd Gwaith approaches on the left

 

An easy track up to the old quarry

The heather was a splendid mauve against the golden grasses, but off the path the ground was very boggy after the summer rains. We plodded up the hill at a leisurely pace to reach the col between Mynedd Gwaith and Garn Ganol, with the views to the head of the peninsula opening up – absolutely glorious. The old quarry works have taken a big bite out of this hill in the past, and they have installed a communications tower on part of the site. There is a concrete ramp and stairs leading up to the mast, but also an old stone stairway to the left side, but now mostly in ruins. This led up the side of the old quarry and made progress up the steep hillside relatively easy, despite being a bit tumbledown in places. A stone cairn marked the top of the hill and there were great views all around – down the rest of the peninsula to the hillfort hills of  Garn Boduan and the bigger Carn Fadryn, both nicely shaped conical hills. To the North West the Snowdonia range towered above all and looked impressive from this distance. I also got a good view of the next objective and the distinct path rising to the top. It was very peaceful up here, a few hares haring around and a pair of Buzzards floating on the breeze, shrilly calling to each other, with the underside of their wings looking like eyes staring down. I quickly made my way down the old steps/ rocks and over to the new stairway and down to the col. Then it was a steady plod up to the top of Garn Ganol, the second hill of the day – it was steep enough to raise the heartbeat. I stopped for a breather now and again and to wait for my OH to catch up, and had a look over the old settlement remains lying around – not much to see just old stone wall lines in amongst the heather. Looking back to the first hill you can see the extent of the quarrying that has gone on here in the past, and it has chewed up a good portion of the hillside. To the right is the small town of Trefor nestled down on the coast far below.

 

The comms tower with an old path up the left side of the fencing

Looking down and across to Garn Ganol

The wonderful view to Snowdonia from Mynedd Gwaith

 

The view down the Llyn peninsula to the SW coast

 

Another view across to Garn Ganol with Tre’r Ceiri Hillfort in the background

As we got higher the views up the Llyn peninsula became ever better, and the path became ever steeper towards the top as it passes over the scree below the summit. The last pull to the top crosses over some loose bouldery scree up to the summit and the unusual Trig point comes into view. It has some ironwork on top of it shaped in a figure 4 with the letters A and H attached to it – it reminded me of the ironwork on Texas ranches, but I’ve no idea what it represents – possibly some radio ham type of thing?  There is a nice summit shelter to hop into and snuggle down out of the wind for some refreshments, and I took plenty of time to enjoy the all around views. They were far reaching today and all of Snowdonia, The Rhinogs and Cadir Idris were in sight, as well as the next objective of Tre’r Ceiri Hillfort – a mixture of purple and grey – stone and heather.

 

Zooming in to Snowdon in the distance

Mynedd Gwaith is not so big now

 

The summit cairn on top of Garn Ganol

 

Far reaching views over to the Rhinogs

I contemplated this while I munched my way through a packet of Marmite flavoured cashew nuts – fantastic. Like a packet of fruit pastilles, you just can’t eat one, eat them all! The paths off the top are not clearly marked, so I took a compass heading off the top and picked up a path that cuts away to the North East heading down a steep slope to the next col before the hillfort. You could follow the wall down and then hop over the style and up to the fort itself. But I chose the steeper flank of the hill and followed a narrow track down through knee high heather and across the occasional boulders. At the bottom of the slope between the two hills the ground became a bit boggy across to the hillfort, and we needed to hop across reed clumps in places. This part would be a real splodge in the winter months, but still worth it I think. 

 

The route down and over to the hillfort

 

You can see the outline of the walls of the fort

 

Approaching the walls

The Tre’r Ceiri hillfort is a scheduled ancient monument, and one of the best preserved, most spectacular stone hillfort in Britain. On the approach up to the fort you can see what appears to be a massive dry-stone wall, and it is a couple of metres wide in places. There is a distinct flagged entrance between two high walls, probably just about big enough to get an Ox and cart through. A very atmospheric place with the interior of the fort holding the remains of up to 150 hut circles – some better preserved than others. Many of the circles are huddled together, which provided some protection against the weather I suppose – I wonder which side of the fort the loos were on?

 

The fort entrance – not that wide really

 

And a picture looking back from the inside of the fort

 

Well preserved hut circles

 

The width of the dry stone wall

Apparently the Romans pinched it for a while before being turfed out, a readymade fort and not a bad posting I suppose. The stone work is a little bit loose and the advice is not to walk on the walls or hut circles to help preservation. We wandered through hut circles to the crest of the fort with a vista of Snowdonia facing us – there are the remains of a Bronze age burial cairn as well – what a way to go. After a good mooch around we walked down to the south west to exit the fort & make our way downhill on a clear path through the resplendent purple heather – it reminded me of Burnley FC on a good day.

 

Fantastic views from up near the cairn

 

Looking down the full length of the peninsula

 

Looking up to the fort from the SW

 

A part paved path eased the way down

As the path came out onto grassland there was a big boulder by the path, which may have been a marker stone in the past. It has some rock carving on the underside, that must be a fair old age as there has been plenty of weathering since and lichen growth covering it – it’s almost like a big A. The gorse and heather looked great together, and we followed the farm track down to the first house before turning uphill towards the car. One more surprise lay in wait – a group of three granite plinths, inscribed with an outline of the surrounding landscape, naming all the hills in view – great work and very informative.

 

Which led to a farm grass track down to the first houses

 

The gorse contrasted vividly with the heather

 

Almost back to the car

 

The new information plaques

Shortly after this point we returned to the start at Nant Gwrtheym – the Welsh Language and Heritage Centre. Then it was back to Porth Tocyn for a lovely nosh, but next morning it was back to reality – rain, mist and traffic. Walking in Wales – brilliant whatever the weather.

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