Suddenly I remembered something. A jolt of inspiration in fact. Three years earlier, some friends of ours had stayed on a remote farm campsite with the most astonishing views. Somewhere near Harlech. After a close inspection of the map, I thought I’d found it, and so I dropped Mark a message for confirmation. “Yes that’s the one mate,” came the reply. “Amazing views and they’re really lovely people there too. It’s the best campsite in Britain.” A bold claim, but more than good enough for me. And so the deal was done.
Until this point, the only thing we were really agreed upon was that we wanted to go back to Wales. Apart from a couple of nights in Llanelli at the start of last year, we hadn’t crossed the Severn since just after I retired, twenty-one months earlier. And this time we were keen to go a bit further, to explore the often overlooked centre of the Principality, and the west coast too. I’d been to Snowdonia three winters ago on a photography expedition with Dave and Lee, but that was it. Ali had never been past Brecon, so for her it was going to be an entirely new experience.
I’d shortlisted four or five campsites, some in the high peaks of Snowdonia, others slightly further south, and could happily have stayed at any of them. It was only when I was about to take a plunge and make a booking that the memory of that photograph came back to me like a lightning bolt. A phone snap that Mark had posted on Facebook in the summer of 2020, when not long after the lockdown rules were relaxed, he’d taken his family on a grand tour in the motorhome they’d bought the previous summer. How could I have forgotten that picture? The view in Mark’s simple phone snap had made my eyes pop out, and it had taken a while to push them back into their sockets afterwards. That view! I had to see it for myself one day. He’d taken it from the site, and it was hard to imagine a better view from a camping ground anywhere.
And so one Thursday afternoon we packed the van and headed out of Cornwall, across the familiar sights of the South West, making steady progress towards the second Severn Bridge and that ever fondly received welcome to Wales - Croeso i Gymru. Of course the minute you see that sign, the motorway is usually quite frenetic, as large volumes of traffic whizz past you in the direction of Cardiff and Swansea. But a few miles later, we knew we’d be leaving the busy M4, heading north towards Abergavenny at the gateway to the Brecon Beacons, somewhere beyond which we knew of a quiet overnight park up.
The following day, we made slow but steady progress towards Harlech, along quiet roads, across a spacious green landscape, passing through Builth Wells and Rhayader, the winding Wye obscured by forests, yet ever at our side. I ignored the scenic shortcut over high ground to Machynlleth, because I thought I knew better than Sally Satnav. Which of course I didn’t. Almost all of Brenda’s gears were brought into urgent use as we climbed towards the top of a mountain pass, before she rolled carefree down the opposite side into Dolgellau. And half an hour or so later we pulled up on the seafront at Barmouth, where we removed socks and shoes and paddled at the shoreline, just to pass an hour or two before the final miles. To think that many people would simply drive from door to campsite in a single day, as much of it along the motorway as possible. I guess we’re lucky to have time on our side, but in their hurry, they miss so much beauty. Today’s journey was a voyage of discovery towards the coast, across a beautiful and ever changing landscape. Mid Wales is a basket of hidden treasures.
Finally, we drove the remaining few miles to Harlech, carefully following the instructions on how to arrive safely at our destination without losing all hope. “There are three ways to get here,” so the website said, “and two of them have caused grown men towing caravans to weep over their steering wheels,” it continued. Well not those exact words, but pretty close. We took the third route, and there were no tears. And we weren’t disappointed. Our pitch gave us a prime view of the mountains of Snowdonia and the entire length of the Llyn Peninsula. All we had to do was slide Brenda’s door open, and the world would come straight into our living room.
And just look at the sunset that greeted us on that very first evening. Golden portals beaming down from gaps in clouds to cast spotlights on the Irish Sea and lift the lone yacht from the shadows. It really doesn’t get any better than this.
