On Monday 16th, after a big breakfast, we walked down the road from Woodlands Campsite to the Devils Bridge. It is the strangest bridge I’ve ever seen, in fact it’s not just one bridge, it is actually three bridges, one built on top of the other over the Mynach Gorge. The bottom one is a stone bridge which, according to legend, was built by the Devil sometime between 1075 and 1200 AD. The next bridge used the bottom one as a support to build a new one in 1753AD. When that was considered unstable a new iron bridge was built over the top of the other two in 1901. In such a narrow gorge it looks very cluttered.
From below the bridge, there is a meandering footpath that leads down through the narrow ravine to lots of viewpoints over the Mynach Falls. The falls are split over various levels squeezing a torrent of water through the narrow gorge; it’s 100 metres of seething, foaming water tumbling down hill to join the Rheidol River. In places, the steep muddy pathway involved climbing up and down staircases; one of them, the ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, contained one hundred rather dizzying steps which led down to the bridge over the base of the waterfall and past the ‘Robbers Cave’.
It took us about an hour to reach the end of the track at the Hafod Hotel, from where we walked back round the corner, over the Devil’s Bridge and returned to Eileen still waiting for us at the campsite.
With the wild and windy weather obviously not going to let up all day, we decided another walk was not on the agenda and instead we would drive the coastal route to Harlech. So we drove back towards Aberystwyth and then headed north through Tal-y-bont to the Dovey Valley. At Machynlleth, we turned south-west and followed the Dovey River along the south western point of Snowdonia National Park to where the river joins the sea at Aberdyfi. It was a beautiful scenic drive and it was lovely to see big hills building to the north-east of us. We briefly walked across the beach to watch some windsurfers and sailboarders but, beaten back by the wind, we quickly hopped back in to Eileen.
From Aberdyfi we continued north through Tywyn and back out to the coast at Llangelynin where the road clung to the hill above the very edge of the coast. We pulled up in a lay-by with views across the estuary of Mawddach to Barmouth and turned on the gas for a warm drink and cake before driving inland towards Dolgellau and back along the opposite side of the estuary.
At Barmouth we hopped out of the van for a few photo opportunities, but it really was too cold and windy to enjoy a stroll across the dunes, or the beach. ‘White horses’ were riding the waves all the way out to the horizon and Rodney was sandblasted at one point near the harbour, so we continued on to Harlech.
At 4pm we checked in to Min-y-Don Touring Park, neatly set between the castle and the beach. We considered walking up to the castle, but the rain moved back in and an early dinner of lamb shanks seemed far more appealing. So we spent another evening listening to the rain outside, while Eileen rocked from side to side in the wind.
