I know that the great outdoors is supposed to promote healthy living etc., but I don’t think we would ever be able to fully embrace this way of thinking. We all enjoy our food too much, which means all the unhealthy stuff like Full English breakfasts and the like, we are also quite partial to more than a few alcoholic drinks, so most nights we ate well and drank quite a bit. (Using the old excuse “well we are on holiday”). The only people we are hurting are ourselves, we were not causing anyone any trouble, just enjoying our holiday time, letting off steam.

So to day 12, well due to partaking in some of the above, we got up late, and basically had a relaxing morning, starting with a cup of Chai tea, then a bit of breakfast. While we were still trying to wake up we discussed what we wanted to do today? We looked at the list of walks we had made during the planning of the holiday, we had pretty well done most of the walks/climbs we had on the list. The Nantle Ridge was one Andy and Ray were keen to do during the planning stage, I also said I would love to do this, but I urged on the side of caution, due to the fact that not one of us had done any part of this ridge. I knew I would be OK with any exposed areas of the ridge if there were any, but I knew Andy and Ray would struggle. We also had to work out the logistics of the walk, as it is a linear walk. We wondered where to park the car, whether to park at the start of the walk and get transport back or park at the end of the walk and get transport to the start of the walk. Andy and Ray even talked about doing the ridge and then walking back to the car along the roads! Although we would have loved to do The Nantle Ridge, we didn’t get round to doing it. On day 11 when we did Moel Hebog we could see part of The Nantle Ridge from the summit. Other than the Nantle Ridge, we had more or less done what we had set out to do, so today was to be one of our days off.

I know that it is a lovely village but for some reason we seemed to be drawn to Beddgelert over the last few days. Yet again we ended up in Beddgelert!

On the journey in Ray and I decided to take some photos from the car as we were moving! Some of these photos turned out OK considering!

On the outskirts of Beddgelert is an outdoor pursuits shop called Gelert, we normally call in to this shop to have a look around as it has some good deals. As of 2013 Gelert was bought out by Sports Direct, saving 30 jobs within the 4 shops in Wales.

After a look around the Gelert shop, we found somewhere to park in the village. As it was around lunchtime we went for lunch at Lynn’s cafe. We cannot rate the food in here high enough, it is really good value for money and tastes good.

We headed back to the main road and turned right, and then immediate right again, which takes you along the side of the river. We then crossed a footbridge across Afon Glaslyn, and then turned right to follow Afon Glaslyn.

This was just a afternoon wander, not a full blown walk, we hadn’t taken any of our kit i.e. waterproofs, proper walking boots etc. I still had my camera with me, so started to take some photos along the bank.

After a short while we got to a bend in the river with a small shingle beach to it. How and why it came about, I do not remember, but we went back to our childhood (some say we never left it) and started to skim stones. Three grown adults, just having a laugh, and we enjoyed every minute of it.

After only about 10 minutes (although it seemed longer) we carried on along the river bank. We eventually ended up at some rapids. We took some more photos and we just generally chilled out.

We returned back to the cottage, we knew that tomorrow would be our last chance of this holiday to go and get a decent walk or climb in. That evening we reviewed what we had done and talked about what we wanted to do for our last day out in the great outdoors.

I talked of a route I did many years before with Colin, and said I wouldn’t mind having a go at doing that again! I knew it would be a solo walk, due to Andy and Ray’s lack of confidence on exposed ridges. It was agreed and plans were made.....

The Route? See 21st July 2005.