Llangollen, Wales: Brushing with the Eisteddfod

July 6, 2015

AND IT WAS raining again this morning. I wasn't sure if we'd been looking forward to riding Bwlch-y-Groes, however apprehensively. Or if we were secretly pleased we'd been denied the chance.

We could see the clouds settled on the mountain, grey and uncompromising, and we wanted neither to ride up there through them nor to hit a sheep on the way down.

There was no flat route. We still faced a decent climb, because the weather and gradient mean a few hundred metres here compares to most of a thousand back home. Certainly mentally. It may not get stony and bleak but the countryside soon becomes open and cold and raw. Snow falls readily in Snowdonia. It's in the name, really.

And so we set off as cheerfully as you might imagine on a wet Monday in Wales. The wind blew. The road shivered and then warmed itself up with a 20 per cent climb. That's what the sign said, although the natural pessimism of the British leads them to exaggerate the steepness of hills. It was steep but not as hard as it looked.

And then the main climb, the road busy, the rain falling hard, the wind blowing, the clouds on the hilltops changing from white to solid grey. It was horrible. Steph rode all the way, albeit with a couple of pauses, but I had to walk the last stretch.

The descent was a sorcerer's mix of stinging rain and wheel-catching wind. It was still horrible.

I saw the signs with their Welsh names pointing this way and that. They reminded me of a walker in these parts who found two lost and tired Australian women up in the hills.

"Can you direct us to Dolly Galoo?" they asked.

My friend looked puzzled.

"Dolly Galoo," one of the women said again.

She got out her map and unfolded it to the right square.

"There, see? Dolly Galoo."

She was pointing at Dolgellau. And we rode through there by mistake. A simple mistake and not a time-consuming one but evidence of how easy it is to go astray when you're cold, wet and tired.

Preserved station with coffee, cakes and an unpronounceable name

You're welcome to visit the signal box, the sign said, but please don't change the signals

We stopped at a small preserved railway station which offered coffee, cakes and magazines about building your own miniature layout at home. We went on through Bala, smaller than I'd expected for a town with its tourist reputation, and then with some relief into Llangollen.

Short-lived relief.

We waited while Steph went into the tourist office. When she came out, she wasn't cheerful.

"D'you remember seeing signs for the Eisteddfod when we were riding in?"

I said I probably did. I don't think I was seeing anything at all very clearly.

"Well this is where it is. And they say there's nowhere to stay in the town and no campground, but they're doing their best."

The Eisteddfod is a uniquely Welsh event, a sort of noisy arts festival that's been on the run for nine centuries. They probably played harps and read gloomy poems back then but now there are concerts and street processions and lord knows what, and it has enough Welsh hey-nonny-no that people come from all over the world. And take all the accommodation.

But we came out of it well.

You'll like it, said the woman in the tourist office. We certainly did

"Would you consider self-catering accommodation a few miles outside town?" the woman behind her counter and heaped maps asked.

We said that at this point we would consider anything.

"I've been there," she said. "It's a really high-class place. I think you'll enjoy it."

And so we rode beside the narrow canal and then over a bridge and up a short, steep and curving stone path to the most wonderful home-from-home we could have wished. And just down the road from the pub.

Today's ride: 94 km (58 miles)
Total: 1,457 km (905 miles)

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