Snowdonia – riding through the Middle-Earth (day 2)
With the first morning light every rooster on the farm started crowing loudly and woke up pretty much everyone in the campsite. The farmer with two fox terriers went for a walk and collected overnight fee of £5 per tent. It was chilly outside as people started their morning zombie-walk towards bathroom. Most of them were getting ready for an all-day hike. In the pink light of the early sun, I looked around the world where I got last night. The world of eternal myths, odd creatures and legends older than the Earth itself…
After breakfast I briefly made friends with the local poultry and rode off…
…there’s something deeply calming in the emptiness of this country…
…the fast life of big city civilisation never made it to these villages…
…my scooter was happily vrooming along the empty roads, unused to something like this from everyday rush-hours in London…
…in spite of the fact that the weather was tempting me to set off for a mountain hike…
…suspiciously cloudy mountain tops put me off from climbing the highest peak of Wales, mountain called Snowdon…
…and so I took a train. All the way up to the top, an old steam mountain railway goes…
…from the village of Llaberis it slowly puffs its way up the steep mountain slopes…
…through the country of giants, evil spirits, and never-ending myths…
…on the top of Snowdon, King Arthur killed a giant called Rhudda who lies under the big pile of stones on the very top since that time…
…up into the clouds this little steam train pulled us…
…drenched shadows were trying to reach the summit…
…a felt a little bit spoiled as I was watching the blurred rainy world through the window of the train, listening to romantic sound of the steam engine…
…after fish-and-chips lunch, I decided to wander around the roads of Snowdonia…
…as usually, those roads, where the usual traffic normally wouldn’t go, too narrow, too twisty, too slow…
…such magnificent, beaten by the cruel winds and rains, yet so beautiful this country is…
…tied with the history long forgotten, residing in the strong culture of present people…
…not for people who mind the rain…
…it got dark quickly under the heavy clouds…
…I went back to the campsite to my poultry friends, completely chilled out from the day in Snowdonia. But tomorrow, another 300 miles are ahead of me. I’ll have to get back to London somehow.