Planned Day 1: Drive to Snowdonia
Actual Day 1: Drive to Snowdonia, climb Snowdon and cycle 75 km
Dad and I discussed a cycling adventure for months, exactly where, when and for how long changing often, but we finally settled on cycling from Snowdonia to the Lake District, hiking up Snowdon and Scafell Pike at either end of the cycle ride.
Before setting off, I received the following wise words from my brother on how to enjoy a cycle trip with Dad:
(1) Ignore Dad’s packing rule of one set of clothes to cycle in, one set for the evening/to sleep in;(2) Allow Dad to create a “zone of control” wherever you stay (translation of “zone of control” – a corner in the room where his entire belongings will be emptied out from his bag and lined up neatly on the floor);
(3) Eat lots!
The night before the adventure was to begin, we were pumped and decided it would be best just to get on with it and leave that night. So, at midnight, we set off to drive to Snowdon, passing no one in our sleepy village bar a lone man walking his dogs in the middle of the road.
We drove through the night, and yet were disappointingly not the first in the car park at the base of Snowdon. Nevertheless, we bound up the mountain and enjoyed a very bleak, viewless summit all to ourselves. Being in thick cloud where the visibility was extremely poor, coupled with our isolation, was spooky and coming down, we felt we’d conquered that mountain (that is, until we reached the base and saw hundreds of school children starting the hike!)
We were back in the car park with a cup of tea by 9.30am, having successfully sold on our “all day” car park ticket. We were still full of excitement (and sleep deprivation), and we’d seen the hill our bike ride started with. There was nothing to do but start peddling...
At 1pm, having conquered the hill I’d totally over analysed, and enjoyed speeding down the fast open roads on the other side, with spectacular views of the hills all around (the sun even shone in Wales for us that day), a friendly policeman offered us advise on our rather poorly thought out route, along the lines of “oooow, you don’t want to go that way, there’s a huuuge hill. There is this other route, which takes you up a nice, gentle incline...” We followed his advice in good faith, but that pleasant, gradual hill went up continually for 16 miles!
We arrived in Denbeigh, exhausted, in the early evening. And so we’d completed day one of the 4 day adventure, which took us up Snowdon and Bowfell, and saw us peddle just over 200 miles.
If you have been reading closely, you may have noticed an inconsistency in my writing; we had planned to hike up Scafell Pike in the Lake District but ended up summiting the wrong mountain. On the morning of day 3, we arrived in the Lake District. It was a busy bank holiday, we’d not booked anywhere to stay and we didn’t have enough time to get to the base, complete the hike and then cycle back to a vacant B&B before dark. On brief inspection of the map, there appeared to be a third, more accessible car park from where to start the hike. We arrived at this car park at 1pm. We were feeling pumped and excited again, but it was short lived, as multiple people told us it was a bad idea to try and get to Scafell that late in the day (perhaps they were particularly concerned that, in contrast to their top of the range hiking kit, we were in cycle shorts and trainers!) We considered ignoring them, being macho, but we thought better of it and picked a different peak in a closer range, Bowfell, and a jolly nice view we had from the top (although, even with a map, we ended up taking a slightly unusual route and scrambling up the side of the mountain, nervously close to a steep waterfall).
If I learned one thing from our trip, it’s that every journey is unique, unreplicable, and that’s the real adventure in it. Sure, the “2 Peaks” would have been good, but Snowdon to Bowfell, via the Liverpool ferry port, was even better, finishing with a cycle past Big Ben and then home into Sussex.
