Places in Wales have funny names!
The train journey from London to Porthmadog was a bit if an epic, close to eight hours of bum-numbing travel. At least I could get up and walk around the train as I needed. Four trains meant that there were three mad dashes at different train stations to make sure I got the next one in time, which is always fun, particularly through large crowds with a bike and rucksack with you.
England is flat!
Well the bit that the train went through was (London-Reading-Birmingham). It wasn't until we crossed the border into Wales that anything remotely like a large hill was visible, that magical line meant that the land could begin to soar into the sky (not really soar as they are only about 900m high) with seemingly never ending dry-stone walls dividing the fields, hills, and mountain sides with amazing precision. What was even more impressive was that, a little unexpectedly, the train hit the coast, and weaved its was along between the hills and the beach. Yes I did say beach, and what a sigh for sore eyes it was, glorious sun and sand!
Spent my first afternoon in Porthmadog meeting Tom's family and partaking in a slow family-ride across town to see the only pair of osprey's in all of Wales. Very large birds indeed. As they are the only pair, the nest has constant video surveillance, and you can visit the porta-cabin and watch the birds in close proximity via the two 42" screens showing live footage from the osprey house! Quite weird and very Big Brother, I'm expecting a public outcry when the birds mating sessions are shown in intricate detail, all on glorious High Definition.
Today was a little more action packed, with a some rock climbing in the morning. I can see why people come here to climb, there are literally hundreds of craigs every where you look, a lot of them within a 8 Km radius of a town. It was a bit of a family climb with Josh, Tom's eight year old nephew, having a very impressive go at the route.
The afternoon saw Tom and I having some more serious fun, with a late visit to one of the local mtb parks. It seems that regardless of where Tom and Sarah travel, they are always within 40 minutes of a great mtb Trail, which is about 21 park. This time it was Coed-y-Brenin, Snowdonia. We road the Tawr Trail, which is about 22kms with 500m of rocky climbing. It took about 2 hours, which was fairly good going. Tom had the better of me for the ride, as he has the gift of dual-suspension, and if this track was anything to go be, Welsh single track is very rocky up and very rocky down. It was quote hard work on the hands, riding over 10 kms of uphill shale fire road, and 10 kms of beautifully manicured rock single track. I think I'm going to purchase a dualie when I get back to Australia :)
On a minor note, it was the first proper outing since getting my forks serviced by mojo suspension. They were fantastic, only having to adjust the air-pressure and rebound slightly. Good as new.
Pete