2023 United Kingdom, Day 36: Keswick, Night 2 of 3

Bike Route: None

Walking Route: Around Keswick, about 2 miles

Accommodation: Latrigg View (Apt 1) - Hedgehog Hill (Airbnb); host Christine

Dinner: Cella Bella Italian Restaurant: pan-fried sirloin steak with potatoes and vegetables, spinach and mushroom pasta. Excellent.

How nice it was to wake up in our lovely apartment on a beautiful morning and know we had nothing we needed to do except rest. And do laundry. And plan and load bike routes for the next week. And pay bills. And buy groceries. At least none of those things involved pushing bikes up hills.

We did it all, and walked around Keswick and browsed some of the great outdoor shops. We tried on several waterproof jackets. Mine in particular had failed miserably on the few days we had rain earlier in the trip, and I had decided that if I found one I liked, I would replace it. I found a couple that looked good, but couldn't decide between them. The forecast is for this incredibly good weather to last another 10 days or more, so there isn't a real urgency for waterproofs--yet. We bought fresh local cheese and bread, and the basic breakfast items (yogurt, fruit, granola, juice, coffee, eggs, milk).

As the host seated us for dinner in the evening, he said Ken looked like someone and asked if he was related. We didn't catch the name, so Ken asked him to repeat it. The host explained that the guy worked in the kitchen--then he went back to the kitchen and brought the guy out. There was a little resemblance, and we had a little laugh and confirmed that the two were not related. That is the kind of fun personal exchange that has been so common on this trip and that we have so enjoyed. Partly it is possible because we speak the language, and partly because the Welsh and British are just so open and friendly.

Clean clothes. Plenty of good food. A quiet, clean, comfortable place to stay. Who could ask for anything more.

The main shopping street in Keswick was busy on this sunny day. We thought it was still a bit chilly (65 degrees), but the Brits were all out in their summer clothes.

Victoria-era buildings in local green slate. This is the Keswick I remember from my earlier visit.

2023 United Kingdom, Day 35: Keswick, Night 1 of 3

Bike Route: Eskdale  to Keswick 36mi 3300ft of climb

Accommodation: Latrigg View (Apt 1) - Hedgehog Hill (Airbnb); host Christine. Shower, kitchen, wifi, no washer (laundromat nearby).

Dinner: Asaya Thai Restaurant. Green curry with king prawns, stir-fried asparagus and baby corn with seafood, jasmine rice. Very good.

So, I'm not complaining, but almost every single day, when we finish biking, our ride recorder shows 20-25 percent more climbing than our route planner estimated. In this blog, I list the mileage and feet of climb from the planner, not our actual readings--because our planned routes are the ones posted through the Routes link, and our actual recordings reflect things unique to our day, like detouring for lunch or road maintenance or whatever.

Anyway, this day, our navigation devices said we actually climbed 3700-3800 feet, not 3300 feet. For a couple of hours in the morning, I was tired and maybe a little crabby. But then we biked past this little shop out in the middle of nowhere, with local ice cream and cheese and cold drinks and a garden in back with a pretty little toilet and a water spigot, and it was crowded with bikers, and you know, it just wasn't that bad.

But I was really happy to find our apartment easily, lock the bikes in the hallway, and drop our packs in our new bedroom in our new home for the next three nights.

What an absolutely beautiful town. Meghan and I were in Keswick 19 years ago, in late June or early July, hiking for a few days. We stayed in a hostel on the edge of town. My memories were of mostly rain and clouds, green slate buildings, streets full of hikers and climbers and other outdoorsy types.

Today, there are still green slate buildings and lush green trees and hills, but there is way more traffic, more shoppers and shopping, more bustle and hustle. And I still love the town and the area.

Loweswater, the first lake we saw in the Lake District.

Halfway through the day, we were still seeing the ocean as we climbed inland around the hills that mark the Lake District.

Traffic jam.

Green slate is the typical building material for this area. When Meghan and I visited Keswick in 2004, we loaded our backpacks with coasters made of the stuff to bring home. That was before we learned not to carry heavy things on long journeys. Or maybe it was when we learned.

2023 United Kingdom, Day 34: Eskdale

Bike Route: Haverthwaite to Eskdale 23mi 2800ft of climb

Accommodation: Bower House Inn (Booking.com). Standard double room with ensuite, full English breakfast included. Dinner available onsite.

Dinner: Bower House Inn. Very good food. Ken had a beef curry pie, I had a Moroccan lamb pie, both served with seasonal vegetables and potatoes.

Our hotel stay included breakfast. I tried a sausage bap, which turned out to be English breakfast sausage links sliced and stuffed inside a buttered, floured bun. Kind of like a bacon buttie (recall our first midmorning stop in England). I did supplement that with yogurt, fruit, and granola, orange juice, and coffee.

After that healthy start, we headed out for a shortish day with a little less climbing. Again, we were on small country roads, the scenery was spectacular, the sun was shining. Fantastic biking. The hills got steep in spots, but we were riding most of them. There were fields of sheep everywhere, the spring flowers and trees were in bloom. How lucky we were.

Until we hit the waterworks. Another back story: A few months after Ken and I were married, back in 1976, we took a three-week road trip to Mexico with a friend of his from Zacatecas. While in Zacatecas, we spent an afternoon exploring an old mine. When we tried to leave, we found the 12-foot-high gates were closed and locked. We had to climb up over them to get out. That was the first of our illegal gate episodes. We've had several since then, including a crazy one in Mallorca two years ago.

Here we were again, at a waterworks facility in England. Our bike route clearly showed us following a gravel road around the waterworks building, across a pedestrian bridge, down an unpaved road, and onto a small highway. When we got to the waterworks, we found a gate that was marked "No Public Access" and "CCTV with audio at this site." The gate was closed but not locked. We looked around for alternative routes and found none. We went through the gate.

This was not the first time we had trespassed on CCTV on this trip. We considered whether the national police were keeping an eye on us, and would at some point say, "Okay, those two have gone too far. It's time to bring them in."

But, of course, that did not stop us. We walked our bikes around the building and across the little bridge (walking seeming less aggressive than riding, and we didn't want to appear aggressive on the CCTV film). So far, so good; we were right on track according to our navigation app.

After the bridge, we dared to ride our bikes down the unpaved road to the little highway. Where we were stopped by a very firmly locked gate, well equipped with CCTV cameras and audio recording devices. Well, what to do? The highway was tantalizingly close. So we took the bags off the bikes, I climbed to the other side, Ken handed over the bikes and gear, and then Ken climbed over. Dastardly deed done. On our way again.

A little farther on, we held a pasture gate open for a lady on a bike, and she stopped, and we chatted for a really long time, and a horse rider and some bikers and a car all came through and Ken opened the gate for all of them and they were grateful, and then we biked with the lady up the biggest hill of the day, and she stopped and talked to someone else, and she caught up with us at the next gate and held it for us. Life was good.

The Bower House was a nice little hotel, full of families and kids. Luckily, they served dinner; Eskdale is very small, and it does not have any other food nearby.

After dinner, we took a short walk around the grounds and gardens of the hotel. And that was it. We were tired and ready for our rest days in the Lake District.

Fortunately, this gate was considerably shorter than 12 feet, and we were able to get over it. Unfortunately, it was clearly marked "No Public Access." And yes, we can read English. But we are apparently not very good at following rules.

The biking lady we met on gate duty said we would see vast fields of buttercups in bloom around Eskdale. She was right!

Queen Anne's Lace (wild carrot) was in full bloom along the fence lines.

We keep trying to capture in photos how steep the roads are. This comes pretty close. But the real star is the pheasant that had just crossed in front of me, at about the center point of the photo.

2023 United Kingdom, Day 33: Haverthwaite

Bike Route: Halton to Haverthwaite 41mi 2400ft of climb

Accommodation: Rusland Pool Hotel (Booking.com). Double room with private bath, nonsmoking.

Dinner: Rusland Pool Hotel. Sunday roast: roasted beef and pork, Yorkshire pudding, mashed and fried potatoes, carrots, and ratatouille.

We didn't know what to expect of our route or of Haverthwaite. When planning this part of the trip, we needed a place to stay that was about 40 miles from Lancaster, on a national cycle route, and in the direction of Keswick. Haverthwaite fit the criteria, and the Rusland Pool Hotel fit our price range. Everything else in that area was ridiculously expensive and/or not available for just one night. We didn't know why, but guessed it was a popular tourist area during a busy tourist time.

As we packed up in the morning, our host Mark took a look at our route and said it was a good one, it would be beautiful, and we should enjoy it; we would be riding through one of the poshest areas of England.

We did enjoy it, and it was beautiful. We were on quiet country lanes most of the day, cycling past huge, beautiful homes and estates and horse farms. Just before Haverthwaite, we stopped in a crowded little town, Cartmel, and had ice cream in a little garden behind the shop. On the way out of town, we were slowed by a traffic jam with horse trailers and big cars parking and backing up across the road. Then we passed a huge race track, with tents and flags and banners, and people, and horses all over the place. Sunday at the races. Bank Holiday weekend. Seventy degrees and sunny. Quite festive.

The hotel was old and a little frumpy, on a noisy main highway, with paper-thin walls, but it was clean and we were glad to have a place to shower, eat, and put our feet up.

My motto: Never pass up a public toilet. This one was next to the police station across the street from a little park where we stopped for coffee and muffins about five miles into our ride.

In England and Wales, you are never far from the sea. Our route to Haverthwaite followed the shores of a huge estuary; every few miles we would catch a glimpse of enormous sand flats along the coast.

A pasture full of little boy cows.

2023 United Kingdom, Day 32: Halton (near Lancaster)

Bike Route: Conwy to Llandudno Junction 2mi 60ft of climb

Train Route: Llandudno Junction to Lancaster, about 6 hours

Bike Route: Lancaster train station to Halton 4mi 200ft of climb

Accommodation: Private room and ensuite in Halton (Airbnb); hosts Sarah (called Sadie) and Mark. Help yourself at the breakfast bar to fruit, cereals and croissants/and or bread. Spreads, jam, butter, milk and juice are all in the fridge, help yourself to coffee and tea on the kitchen worktop. Dog named Cordy.

Dinner: The Greyhound. Pepperoni pizza and a scampi basket. Just okay.

We had a leisurely morning, checking out around 10:00, stopping at a bakery, and eating breakfast on the pier in the sun. By 11:00, I had picked up our tickets from the machine at the train station and we were trying to figure out which platform our train would arrive on. A station worker looked at our tickets and suggested that we take a later train, which would require just one change instead of the two we had booked. Sounded good to us, so we settled in for another half hour of waiting and then boarded with just a few other people.

As we approached Manchester, more and more people got on the train, until there were crowds jamming all the aisles and doorways. An announcer on the speaker system apologized for the overcrowding, and said two cars would be added to the train at the next station. Apparently, the railroad wasn't quite prepared for the Bank Holiday crowds. (This was Saturday of the UK's big end-of-May holiday weekend, similar to our Memorial Day Weekend.)

We switched trains in Manchester, and made it to Lancaster about an hour later than planned but much more rested than we would have been with the original itinerary.

The bike ride to Halton was easy and pretty. We followed a gravel path through city parks and along a river to the suburbs, and found our accommodation at the top of a steep hill just past a pub that was open. As it turned out, that pub was the only place to eat, or even get groceries, within several miles.

Our hosts were a wonderful, welcoming couple expecting their first baby (a boy) in just a few weeks. They grew up in Halton, moved away to go to university and work for a while, and returned during Covid. Sarah is a freelance book designer and proofreader, Mark is a project manager. They have been renovating their old house, and it is very nice, fresh, and open. We were given access to a lounge, the kitchen and dining room, and our own bedroom and bathroom. The bikes were locked in a garden shed.

We quickly washed up and headed back down the hill for a simple meal in the back garden of the pub.

Wales in the rearview mirror; Lake District through the front windshield.

2023 United Kingdom, Day 31: Conwy

Bike Route: Llanberis to Conwy 24mi 1700ft of climb, plus 10 miles roundtrip from Conwy to Llandudno

Accommodation: Bright and airy ensuite bedroom (Airbnb); hosts Amanda, Kev, and son. At the top of a steep hill outside Conwy, on a quiet residential estate. King-size bed, with an ensuite shower room and walk-in wardrobe, TV, tea-making facilities, and easy check-in. Small outside area for your private use which is a real sun trap in the morning. Access through a side door, through a small utility room. Lock on the door for your privacy. Ideal location for hiking and sightseeing. Microwave and minifridge in the bedroom.

Dinner: The Castle Hotel. Brochette starters, chef's special mussels in wine and cream sauce, smoked haddock risotto, and creme brulee.

Ken's 73rd birthday!

After a restless night, we were up with the sun at 4:30. We were really in an idyllic spot, in a little cabin in the woods, with light filtering into our bedroom through floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls. We did try to enjoy it, but that pesky passport issue was causing a little tension.

At 8:00, Ken called the police nonemergency line and connected with an officer who told him we should either wait where we were, in Llanberis, for a while and see if the officers from the day before contacted us again, or go to the nearest open police station, in Caernarfon, 10 miles away. We couldn't quite figure out how going to Caernarfon was going to help, since the people who had the wallet were in Llandudno, which was 30 miles in a different direction. We had a little coffee and breakfast, and packed up our bikes, thinking our best bet would be to proceed to Llandudno and talk to the police there. Still no call back from the Llanberis officers.

The original plan had been to leave Llanberis early (around 8:00) and reach Conwy by 14:00 because we had tickets to tour the Conwy Castle at 15:00. The passport and wallet were now priority 1, so we set aside the original plan and focused on them.

Just as I was putting on my helmet, my phone rang. It was an officer in Llandudno. He had my wallet. Yeah! It had been turned in the day before, and his colleague in Llanberis had called him about it last night. The Llandudno office would be open until 18:00 that evening, and I should come on over and get it.

Llandudno was five miles past Conwy, our stop for the night. No problem. I wasn't going to celebrate too heartily until that wallet was back in my hands, but things were certainly looking up.

It was actually a pretty and interesting ride from Llanberis to Conwy, and on around the harbor to Llandudno. We ran into a bit of an issue when the bike route we were on turned into a sandy beach about three miles from the police station. We pushed on through for a quarter mile or so, and were just going to head up a path we hoped would lead to a road when a runner caught up with us and said the coastal path had shifted in the last year or so, and no longer went all the way around the harbor. We would have to backtrack about a mile to the railway platform, and take the main highway over the peninsula.

Despite that, we arrived at the police station just before 15:00, and I pushed the buzzer on the door, and a real officer came to the window, and my actual wallet came out of a drawer. The officer also passed me a Post-it with the name and number of the kind woman who had turned it in, so I could call and thank her.

It was only a little after 15:30 when we checked in to our lovely, quiet, spacious room. We discussed going on over to the castle a few blocks away and seeing if we could get in, but Ken decided he'd rather just relax and have a nice shower and dinner. It being his birthday, that's what we did.

The dinner was lovely. Afterward, we walked around Conwy a bit, and strolled along the top of the castle walls. It was a pretty city.

Back in the room, I called the nice lady Carol to thank her for returning my wallet. She was delighted to hear that it had indeed made it back to me. She and her friend Margaret had taken a bus up to the pass for lunch. After chatting with us on the bench outside the cafe, and waving good-bye to us as we headed down the pass, they finished their meal and decided to take a little walk. That was when they discovered my wallet on the bench. They remembered that we were going to stay in Llanberis that night. Their bus home to Llandudno would go right through Llanberis, so they decided to just get off the bus in Llanberis, leave the wallet at the police station there, and catch the next bus on to Llandudno.

Of course, they discovered the same thing we did: the station in Llanberis was closed and no one answered the phone. They knew the station in Llandudno was open, so after a coffee at their favorite cafe in Llanberis, they caught the next bus to Llandudno, got off at the police station, and went in. The officer there told them the police no longer deal with lost items. Carol told him this was not a child's bucket and beach hat, it was important, and he had to take it and talk to his network and make sure it got back to me. Reluctantly, he took it, and she could only hope it would actually get back to me.

I thanked her for being persistent and thoughtful. As we hung up, she said she was going to ring Margaret right away and tell her the good news. What incredibly sweet women!

Yes, as soon as I got my wallet back, I put my name, my email address, my UK phone number, and Ken's UK phone number inside it, in a prominent location. That is something I always do, but I kept forgetting on this trip. It would have saved a LOT of headache. And yes, Ken has permission to ask me whether I have my wallet as many times a day as he wants. (We are actually now even on the passport score: there was this trip to France he made on an expired passport many years ago...)

On to the next adventure!

Wallet and passport safe in hand!

The coastal path around the harbor from Conwy to Llandudno started out okay but morphed into a sandy beach about a mile past the Llandudno train station.

The path was pretty but not ridable.

The Castle Hotel has been serving travelers since the 1700s. Its ornate neo-Jacobian facade was added in the 1890s. In planning our trip, we discovered that one of the specialties of the hotel restaurant is Moules Mariniare (local mussels in white wine sauce), which is one of Ken's favorites--so we booked a table for his birthday dinner.

After dinner, we strolled around the harbor just outside the city walls.

Conwy Castle is right on the harbor, and its walls extend around the city. It is considered the most well-preserved medieval castle in Wales. We were sorry to have missed our tour.

Just below the castle is the smallest house in Wales. Here's a rare tourist shot with both Ken and me in the frame.

Through this castle archway lie green hills and fields.

We found fairy bubbles in the Conwy fountain! Back story: In 2004, Meghan and I traveled to England for a three-week celebration of her graduation from the U of M. One of our first stops was Bath. In a walk around the city, we came across a fountain full of bubbles. A woman passing by pointed it out and said something about kids and fairies. We loved the idea that someone would fill a fountain with fairy bubbles for children. Later, we found out that Fairy is the most common form of dish detergent (equivalent to Dawn), and that filling a fountain with Fairy soap was a common, and annoying, teenage prank. So, kids haven't changed much since 2004.

We couldn't see inside the castle before dinner, but we were able to walk around the city atop the castle walls after dinner.

2023 United Kingdom, Day 30: Llanberis

Bike Route: Beddgelert to Llanberis 14mi 1600ft of climb

Accommodation: Idyllic Log Cabin at Foot of Snowdon (Airbnb); Serena. Cabin is accessed via a long private track. It has an open-plan kitchen/dining/living room with a wood log burner. There is a separate bedroom.. The beautiful village of Llanberis is a 10 min walk away with pubs, shops and restaurants. There is an outside area with garden furniture.

Dinner: Eryri Bar & Lounge in the Royal Victoria Hotel. Grilled mushroom burger with a salad, fried haddock with chips. The fish was good, everything else was a little soggy and bland.

Passport panic!

Well, not really panic, but we did stress out a little.

The day started out brilliantly. We had breakfast in our room and left around 10:00 on a perfectly clear, sunny morning for our much-anticipated ride over Pen-Y-Pass, one of the most beautiful routes in Wales. It just couldn't have been a more perfect day.

The ride began along the river, winding up the valley through parkland and around a couple of lakes. We passed a group unloading canoes, a van hauling a load of kayaks passed us, we waved to cyclists whizzing by in both directions. As we approached the start of the four-mile climb to the pass itself, we stopped at a pullout to take off jackets and get a good drink of water. A friendly guy sitting by his white Porsche convertible came over to ask about our holiday, and warned us to be careful on the pass because the traffic was quite heavy. We made sure our blinky lights were on, tightened our riding gloves, and clicked in.

The climb was steady and ridable all the way. We pulled out at a historical marker about halfway up and took photos of the incredible views down the valley behind us. A sweet guy there suggested that on our way down the other side of the pass, we watch for rock climbers, as this was a very popular place for climbers to learn and train. He described the particular face where Mallory trained for his Everest climb, and another face that is very technical and dangerous.

The last quarter mile to the top was steeper, but we made it without having to push the bikes--hooray!

Of course, we were a little hungry, and luckily, a cafe was serving lunch. We shared a baked potato with cheese and talked to other hikers and bikers (including an annoying biker woman who knew everything and had had way too much caffeine that morning 😉). As we soaked up the sun on a bench outside the cafe, two older women, one with a walker, joined us. They were from Llandudno, just beyond where we would be staying in Conwy in two nights. They had brought the bus up to eat their lunch and enjoy the beautiful day. They were sharp and delightful conversationalists.

After finishing our coffees, we took a final look back down the valley behind us, put our jackets back on, turned on the blinky lights, waved to the women eating lunch on the bench, and shifted into high gear for the four-mile coast down to Llanberis, our stop for the night. I had a vague feeling that I was missing something, but a quick check of the bike showed I had everything--I thought.

About halfway down, we stopped to watch some rock climbers. As we were standing there, two bikers pulled in and asked if we were Americans and were missing a wallet. They had just come from the cafe at the pass, and an older person had turned in a wallet belonging to an American biker.

Yep. I had left my wallet on the bench outside the cafe. And it had everything in it--passport, credit cards, driver's license, insurance cards... Everything but my phone number and email address. I had kept forgetting to put those in.

Back we went, up the other side of the pass. Ken was ahead of me, and by the time I was approaching the summit, he met me on the way back down, with news but no wallet. Rather than leave the wallet with the cashier at the cafe, the older person had taken it down to Llanberis and was going to turn it over to the police there.

So we continued on down the road to Llanberis and located the police station. Locked up tight. There was a phone with a sign saying to call if you needed help. We called, the phone rang and rang and rang. I called the national police nonemergency number and sat on hold for 10-15 minutes. Ken reached the limit of his patience and called the emergency number and reached a real person who told him they would send an officer to meet us.

About 10 minutes later, two officers arrived. They had no report of a wallet that had been found, but they were very nice. They took our contact information and called the cafe at the pass. Two older women had found the wallet and said they would take it to the police station in Llanberis. The descriptions matched those of the two we had sat on the bench with. We were pretty sure the wallet would be safe with them, but we were also getting concerned that we would never locate them and get it back. We told the officers we thought the women had said they were from Llandudno. The officers said they would work on locating the women and the wallet, and would call us before they ended their shift and let us know what was going on. They suggested we relax and enjoy our evening. Nice advice.

We continued on to our cabin on the edge of town, up another steep hill, in the woods near a waterfall. It was a beautiful spot and should have been relaxing, but of course we were a little too unsettled to really enjoy it.

We walked back down to town for a not-great dinner at a nearby hotel, checked out the waterfall, and returned to the cabin for a restless evening. We did not get a phone call from the officers, and realized we had not gotten a police report or the officers' names or badge numbers. We weren't sure what to do next.

I checked out the website for the police station, which did not have any phone number or contact information, but instead had an online form you were supposed to fill out if you needed help. Weird, but I filled it out, explaining what had happened and asking what we could do next to follow up.

A frustrating end to a day that had started out so spendidly.

The scenery from Beddgelert up to Pen-Y-Pass was absolutely gorgeous.

The entrance to the cafe. Our lunch bench was just to the right of this pass marker.

Llanberis was a small town split by a busy road.

Our log cabin was at the top of a hill near this waterfall on the edge of town.

2023 United Kingdom, Day 29: Beddgelert

Bike Route: Dolgellau to Beddgelert 37mi 3000ft of climb

Accommodation: The Coach House (Airbnb); host Regan Sloan. Ground-floor double ensuite. Breakfast included.

Dinner: Y Bistro Yn Yr Hebog. Locally sourced food with limited menu, family owned and run. Absolutely outstanding.

At breakfast, we met our hosts' son-in-law, Sam Mutton, from Uganda. Sam runs an organization that supports biking in Uganda. In addition to that work, he leads private bike tours in the country, with profits going to support local development. He left us with his email address and the web address to his current project, the Kasanje Bike Park (www.kasanjebikepark.com).

Another place we were sorry to leave, with people we enjoyed and respected.

Another sort of long, hard day, but great riding, awesome scenery, incredible weather. Still feeling lucky.

We were looking forward to Beddgelert, which was supposed to be a small town with great B&Bs and restaurants and shops. When we pulled into town, all we saw were ice cream shops and people eating ice cream. That's not a bad thing.

Then we realized we had no phone service, and our accommodation did not appear to be at the location we had mapped in our route for the day. I had not taken a photo of the instructions for finding the place and picking up the key (I usually do that, just in case we have this kind of trouble). I did think I remembered that we needed to pick up the key at the Real Coffee Shop, but we weren't seeing that either.

After we rode up and down the only two streets in town a couple times, Ken suggested we stop at an outdoor shop where a man was standing outside watching. So we did, and we told him the name of the place we were looking for, the Coach House Inn. He wasn't sure he knew where that was. I asked him if he knew where the Real Coffee Shop was. He looked around and said, "Well, I'm not sure, but is that it?" and pointed across the street. Yep, that was it. The name was painted on the window under an awning, not on a sign out front.

After that, it didn't take long to get the key and move into our room. The inn was a little less charming than it had appeared to be from the listing in Airbnb, but comfortable enough.

At the suggestion of our host, we had made dinner reservations the day before, and we were glad we had. The bistro was very small (six tables), the service was slow, the food was wonderful.

One more highlight of our day done, we made our way back to the inn and fell asleep. We were awakened briefly when the guests across the hall arrived a few hours later, but everything quieted down pretty quickly after that.

A typical Welsh farmstead.

Bluebells are giving way to foxglove as we move farther north and later into May.

Dry-stack stone fences and buildings are common, but this is the only circular structure with a domed roof that we have seen. It was on the edge of a group of farm buildings. We are not sure what it was used for.

I’m

Ferns are open and bushes are in flower; we can see the change in seasons in the foliage around us.

The Troll Bridge.

The Troll Booth.

Part of our route followed the coastline.

The fence posts are stone, not wood. This area is full of stone and slate mines.

Back home, Izzie is enjoying her morning walk with her ball.

2023 United Kingdom, Day 28: Dolgellau

Bike Route: Machynlleth to Dolgellau 15mi 1500ft of climb

Accommodation: Dual Aspect Ensuite Room (Airbnb); hosts Chris and Louise. Private room in new B&B; Chris and Louise just moved to Dolgellau. Breakfast included.

Lunch/Dinner: Y Sospan. Coronation chicken and a hot meat sandwich.

This was the day of meeting people. Maybe it was the sunshine, maybe it was the location. Whatever, we just kept running into people who wanted to talk. And we had a short day of riding, so we had time to indulge in conversation.

On our way out of Machynlleth, a couple of guys on road bikes passed us and waved. About eight miles later, we pulled into a little village and spotted a busy coffee shop. As we parked our bikes across the street, the two guys from Mach (as they call Machynlleth in this area) called us over. They were at their turnaround point on a day ride. One of them works for the railroad; the other joked that you couldn't really say he worked much. Anyway, they were eager to share ideas about great routes we should ride while in Wales. Some of them we had already included in our itinerary, others we won't be able to fit in but were grateful to hear about.

After the guys left, we finished our cake and beverages, and were preparing to leave when a man and his wife stopped to ask us about our bikes, our trip, and so on. They were so interesting. The wife was born in Texas but grew up in Germany and worked for the government and later the United Nations in Bonn. They moved from Germany to Wales when they retired a few years ago.

Eventually, we pulled ourselves away from the little bakery that reminded us of Martha's in Dundas on a busy Saturday morning in May, and continued up over the big hill for the day.

Even with our long coffee stop and taking the ride slow and easy, we arrived in Dolgellau by early afternoon. We could not check in until 16:00, so we decided to have a late lunch and buy supplies for a light supper. Only one restaurant was open, they had tables outside where we could park the bikes, and we ordered sandwiches.

While we ate, the couple at the table next to us struck up a conversation. They had just finished an eight-hour hike and were having tea before returning to the lodge where they were staying. They belong to a hiking association that owns lodges all over the UK. The association organizes hikes lasting multiple days, some with guides and some without, most with cooks, and members sign up for events they want to participate in. Kind of like a time share / holiday camp for adults. This couple, Frank and Anne, were from Lancaster, and left us with their phone number and instructions to call them if we have time to meet up for tea next week when we will be in Halston, near Lancaster, for the night.

On the way to the grocery store after lunch, we passed a nice bike shop. The owner was out front washing his rental bikes. We stopped and asked if he would let us borrow a floor pump to top up our tires. He brought out the pump and did the job for us, and we enjoyed a little conversation about running a bike shop in a small town.

By the time we reached our guest house, it was well past 16:00. The house was up the steepest hill yet; we barely pushed our bikes to the top, where we ended up in a traffic jam with host Louise in her car on the way down the hill, and other guests on their motorcycle on their way up behind us. After sorting that all out, we arrived, locked our bikes in the garden shed, and fell into our large, airy, clean, lovely room with private bath.

We did walk back down to town in the evening, to get ice cream for Ken and to photograph some of the interesting buildings. The town has the second-most grade II listed buildings in Wales (Cardiff has the most), thanks to a local architect who recognized the importance of the structures and fought to preserve them. Most date from the early 1800s. The main center of town is down in a valley. The higher up the valley you go, the larger and more elaborate the homes and estates.

Our hosts were incredibly nice and interesting and energetic. They have four grown, married daughters and five grandchildren ages six and under. One daughter lives in Uganda, one in Vancouver, the other two nearby. Chris and Louise worked for a mission in Nigeria for many years, and lived and worked in other places too. They bought the home in Dolgellau two years ago and opened it as a B&B less than a year ago. Louise's mother lives in a garden apartment on the top floor (the site is so steep that the third floor has a door directly out to the garden), and they rent rooms on the first floor. The entire place is in immaculate condition.

The gardens at our guesthouse were vibrant in the early morning sunlight.

Such a beautiful setting to start the day.

Fancy slate fences.

Not-so-fancy slate mine.

Contrasts.

More stone fencing.

No need for an explanation.

View from the window of our room in Machynlleth, down the driveway of the house/estate.

View from the other window in our room, down the garden to town.

Machynlleth was a busy little town early in the evening, but by 20:00, most everything had closed.

Another view from our bedroom window.