Up a mountain in Wales

After Brussels, we caught up with friends in Birmingham. Our friend Jake grew up there and we got to meet his mom and his siblings and a few of his friends. We had 'a curry' (Birmingham is a hot spot for South Asian food) and visited a couple of pubs. There's not a lot in Birmingham, which is ok because we got out of there pretty fast and headed to Wales.

Jake, his girlfriend Viola, our pal John, Brian and I drove in our rental car to Snowdonia National Park in Northwest Wales. We stayed in Beddgelert, a small town which is actually inside the park. This seemed strange to me. As an American, I thought only park rangers and Yogi Bear lived inside national parks. But Beddgellert was crawling with hikers and cyclists and people who were enjoying rare sunny and warm weather over Easter weekend.

Beddgelert is a town with a legend. Welsh Prince Llewellyn the Great had a hunting dog named Gelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert and returned home to find the dog covered in blood and his son missing. Overcome with grief, Llewelyn killed the dog. A moment later the prince found his son, unharmed, next to the body of a wolf. Gelert had killed to protect the boy. Bedgelert is the place where Llewelyn buried his dog. But actually the whole story was made up by a man who owned a pub in Bedgelert. He needed to do something to bring in customers. At least that's what Jake told us.

In the British Isles, they calling hiking "walking." It is walking, in terms of putting one foot in front of the other. But when you are climbing rocks and hopping fences and sinking into squishy moss, I think another name is in order. 

In our case, we hiked up above the town the first afternoon, and back along a rocky river. The next day was a 5 hour trek over a mountain and down again, with no trail and no map. I had my whiny moments during the uphill part. I was whining on the inside, anyway. Any time Brian asked if I was ok, I answered with a look that said 'shut up and keep walking'.  My spirits lifted once we started climbing up rocks like actual mountain climbers, and then headed down, sometimes leaning back and scooting on all fours.

 

There is a movie called "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain". It's set in a village in Wales where the residents want to convince a surveyor that their big hill is really is a mountain. The one near Beddgelert is not a huge mountain either, but it was the only one I have ever climbed, so I am convinced. In my travel snobbery, I can compare hiking in Wales with hiking in Scotland and Ireland too. It's not as rugged and rough, but still very pretty and has at least as many sheep. And from what I saw of it, Wales is always 65 degrees and sunny. People tell me that's that not the case, but I choose to believe it's true, just like I choose to believe the legend about the prince and his dog.