cycling again: wales (2-8 July 2009)

I’d never really considered the topography of Wales before. I’d always vaguely assumed it had some nice rolling hills, maybe some rocks. So I wasn’t expecting the insanely steep hills that were thrown at us. Tiny little winding country lanes that would force you into your lowest gear, then to stand on your pedals in your lowest gear, then give up and struggle to push your bike up. Mostly they weren’t quite that bad though, which meant that you had no excuse to stop riding – even if you were desperately grinding away in your lowest of granny gears.

 

The town with the very silly name

 

The other thing was the sheep. There seemed to be even more sheep in Wales than in Ireland. And they all liked to talk to each other. Constantly. It probably didn’t help that our first couple of nights were in farm campgrounds, with sheep wandering round, talking to each over across our tent.

 

Entering Snowdonia National Park

 

We spent a lot of time following the National Cycle Route (Number 8 being the one that crosses Wales). We got to be suspicious of its tendency to take us up the steepest hills it could find though.

“Oh, there don’t appear to be any hills here, lets follow Number 8….. oh wait”.

 

Traffig fferm

 

Downhill in the wet on trusty Route 8