A Redeye View: Nantmor, The Hidden Valley Part 2 October 2015

The weekend of October 9th, 10th & 11th saw us book a very last minute two night break in the wonderful cottage BUARTHAU set in 90 acres in the middle of the NANTMOR VALLEY,Snowdonia. We have been here before, last year and found it to be a great place to unwind and chill out away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Here, you are totally on your own, apart from a few sheep in the front fields, as the nearest neighbours are a good half mile down the single track lane. The odd walker or two pass the cottage as they do the Bedgellert 10 mile round as we did last year BLOG POST HERE This year we just had a couple of short walks, a visit to Porthmadog where there was a Victorian Weekend event on at the Steam Train station. We decided to have a ride on the train to Ffestiniog and back, something that we haven't done before and was a great way to spend a few hours seeing the welsh countryside from another perspective.
Arriving on the Friday afternoon I decided to go for a short walk up above the cottage to "Buarthau Summit" for a quick look round. Some great views to be had down to the coast at Porthmadog, over to Snowdon and the Glyderau, down the Nanmor Valley across to the Moel Meirch and surrounding mountains. After a look round and thinking it's a good place for a good look round for another day, I retraced my steps back down where we had a few beers and a curry sat outside as it was such a good evening.

Buarthau

Nanmore Valley with Moel Meirch in the distance

View down to Porthmadog

View over to the Snowdon Massif

View down to Buarthau with the crags of Yr Arddu as the backdrop

Just the job :-)

On the Saturday we had a bit of a wander up to Yr Arddu opposite Buarthau to visit Llyn Arddu, well that was the plan but because of the overgrown vegetation and quite a few false sheep tracks and boggy ground we decided that it wasn't worth doing quite a bit of scrambling up and over the crags, especially when two guys came along equipped with ropes and all the climbing gear!! They were going off in the opposite direction to us though but it seemed that we did loose any routes so it's a case of coming back for another look. We did have some fine views and some fun clambering about but safety comes first so we headed back down the same way. It was a mixture of a steep start through waist high bracken, woods, boggy ground, boulders, heather and fallen trees. Quite an adventure for a few hours

Path through the bracken

High above the valley floor

Steep climb through the trees

Over fallen trees and through the wall

out of the bracken and onto boggy ground

There is a boggy path through here along the wall

And another fallen tree

Good views across to Snowdon with Buarthau just visible bottom right of the valley

Views across to moel Hebog & the Nantile Ridge above Bedgellert

Views down to a distant Porthmadog on the coast

Sheep tracks, thick heather, boggy ground, moss covered boulders, fun for another day I think

On returning back to base we decided to have a drive out to Pothmadog and have a ride on the Steam train up to Ffestiniog as we haven't done that route before. A great few hours seeing the woods, mountains and a different side to Snowdonia.

Ffestiniog Steam Train

The Sunday saw us stopping off in Betws y Coed for a few hours and having a walk up to LLYN ELSI, the reservoir that serves the village. You can walk all the way round but today was just a walk up the steep forest track and to the memorial at the northern end of the lake that commemorates the fact that Lord Ancaster permitted the building of the dam and the use of the lake as a water supply. First time visit to this lake and what a great place it is. Today was very quiet with only a handful of people walking round and hardly any wind making a peaceful place to just sit and relax. We did have a mini skimming tournament that saw Jill come out the winner!!! Always another day :-)