Idwal Cottage April 2016

Wayne’s Wanderers at Llyn Idwal

After much lobbying of the Wanderers planning committee, it was finally decided that we would bite the bullet and attempt a self-catering weekend at Idwal Cottage in Snowdonia, so early April 2016 saw us heading to North Wales for another weekend spent at the mercy of the Welsh weather.

Needless to say, the Welsh weather showed no mercy and when we arrived on the Friday, it was hammering it down and proceeded to do so for most of the rest of the weekend, with some let up late on Saturday afternoon. The Wanderers being the Wanderers, however, we didn’t let this get us down and we did in fact, for the first time in Wanderers history, accomplish two separate walks on the Saturday.

The original plan had been to climb Tryfan from Idwal Cottage, but it seems that we’re fated to never do that and instead we opted to take a walk in the woods around Betws-y-Coed where we at least had some shelter from the rain. The route for this walk can be seen here. When we got back to Idwal Cottage, the weather had improved quite a bit so we headed up to Llyn Idwal for a loop around the lake – no rain, but it was quite chilly still. The route for this walk can be seen here.

Saturday evening found us at the Tyn-y-Coed Inn down in Capel Curig, for our evening meal. Mixed grills and chocolate pudding featured quite heavily as I recall.

On the Sunday, some of us opted to go sliding around on zip wires at Penrhyn Quarry while the rest of us paid a visit to the Welsh Slate Museum and the Llanberis Lake Railway at, you guessed it, Llanberis.

All in all, a great weekend despite the mucky weather. Self-catering, although extra work for some, was a bit of a departure from our usual pattern, but possibly not something we’d want do a lot of, mainly due to the hassle (as opposed to the quality of the food as was suggested in some quarters) :-).

Wander On.