Traws Eryri Day 3 – Trawsfynydd to Betws y Coed

by Alan Cole · Published Friday, October 9th, 2026 · Updated Friday, October 9th, 2026

Day 3 started damp and dreary, with heavy rain outside the window, but it promised to clear a little later. We waited for the Costcutter downstairs to open and then went to buy breakfast. Breakfast was fairly traditional for me: a pot of porridge and a yoghurt and granola pot. Mike went for a slightly more outlandish Pot Noodle and a pot of porridge!

All of a sudden, whilst getting ready, I started feeling unwell. My chest hurt, and I felt sick. It wasn’t a great start to the day, and I certainly wasn’t feeling my best as we loaded up and got ready to set off on our bikes.

The rain had at least stopped, and we headed out along damp roads, retracing our steps along the main road for a mile or so before turning right and fumbling our way through a little lane beneath a fallen hawthorn tree. From there, we headed off onto some slippery, muddy slopes through the fields. We were making our way towards Tomen-y-Mur, a Roman fort dating to the 1st century AD. It started raining again, so we stopped to put on our jackets and take a photo of the fort’s mound. The weather put us off investigating further, but having read a booklet about it in the hostel, we felt we knew enough about it. We continued on to sections of Sarn Helen, the Roman road.

The next section of the Traws Eryri took us winding through small back roads, across the main Blaenau road, through Bont Newydd and then onto the B4391 and the long climb to the Cwm Cynfal viewpoint. I’d ridden down here once before and, thanks to the weather, it had been one of the most miserable hours or so I’ve spent on a bike. (Read about that ride here.) Today wasn’t the nicest of days either, as it was now raining steadily, but it was much better than the last time I was here.

We stopped to take a look at the waterfalls and then turned off the road onto the smaller road towards Penmachno. Again, I’ve driven along here loads of times. It’s a lovely, remote, hilltop road that weaves its way through endless bog. It’s a fairly featureless landscape, bleak and barren at the best of times, but beautiful in its own right. The kind of place I love.

Today, it was a little dreary, but the going was easy and the rain was now on and off. I still wasn’t feeling great, so after the long climb, I continued to take it easy as we made our way across the moorland road. We had a big descent coming up, all the way down through the valley to Penmachno. It was fast at times, but we were being a little cautious as it was damp and slippery in places.

Once at the bottom, the weather improved. We were out of the clouds, and there were even some hints of blue sky. By the time we reached the Penmachno trailhead, the sun was out, so we made a little detour into Penmachno itself, where we bought some lunch supplies and sat in the sun beside the church with a coffee. This gave us a chance to dry out a little, so we soon packed our waterproofs into our bags and headed back to the trailhead. Penmachno is a trail centre that I’ve ridden a few times, but today we would be doing a large loop around it on forest roads.

It seems a shame that the Traws Eryri doesn’t use any of the singletrack at the trail centres it passes through, but I guess that’s to keep the route accessible to more people and suitable for gravel bikes. The option is there, of course, to take in some of the more interesting trail-centre sections if you want. Had I been feeling better, we probably would have done just that. However, it had been a wet day, Penmachno is always wet underfoot at the best of times, and I was still feeling out-of-sorts. I didn’t feel like making too many detours or adding extra miles.

Instead, we followed the official Traws Eryri route up a long fire-road climb and then out onto a large loop around the forests. It started raining again, so our jackets went back on. Eventually, we looped around until we were pretty much above the village of Penmachno again. To be honest, this loop seemed a little pointless. It gave us some views back up the valley we had cycled down earlier, but that was about it.

We continued on around the contours of the hill until views opened up to the north and west. Here, we could see the unmistakable outline of Moel Siabod, with Yr Wyddfa to its left and the peak of Tryfan poking out to the right. It was lunchtime and the sun was shining, so we decided to stop for lunch with a view. We sat on the floor eating our sandwiches, but suddenly the temperature seemed to plummet. Shivering, we quickly packed up and headed off down the hill, trying to warm up.

At the bottom of the hill, we came across Ty Mawr Wybrnant, a National Trust property that is the birthplace of Bishop William Morgan, the first person to translate the whole Bible into Welsh. We stopped briefly to see if the toilets were open, but everything was closed. The property was nicely sheltered, with well-kept grounds, and it was lovely and warm in the sunshine. It would have been the perfect place to stop for lunch, and there was even a picnic table. We should have been more patient rather than stopping at the top of the hill, where it was cold and windy!

I was still feeling ill and weak and could really have done with a toilet, but there wasn’t much I could do about it here, so on we went. We followed a country lane before getting off our bikes to push up a steep, rocky, slippery bridle path. This took us onto a nice descent, including a short section of singletrack, down to the Afon Ledr and the perfectly situated Tan-aeldroch campsite. It looked like a lovely campsite beside the river, quiet today but no doubt a little busier in the summer. Signs mentioned a sauna on site and, better still (for me at least), there were toilets!

We stopped for a while, and I made use of the facilities. Then it was time to push ever onwards.

We joined the road for a while towards Dolwyddelan and took an odd little path that led us first to a small back road, which climbed steeply up the hillside on tarmac, before joining the rocky surface of Sarn Helen once again.

This section was really nice. The sun was shining, the Roman road was fun to cycle along and, although it was a bit of a climb, the gradient was fairly gentle. It took us all the way to Llyn Elsi, a scenic mountain lake and working reservoir high above the village of Betws-y-Coed. Despite being so close to Betws-y-Coed, I’d never been here before. We stopped for a while at the viewpoint and memorial. There were more people here than we had seen elsewhere, and had we not been quite so close to our end point, we might have lingered longer. But with the end of the day’s ride in sight, and me still feeling unwell, we soon set off for Betws-y-Coed.

We actually took the wrong track for a short distance. Only a few hundred metres, but enough for Mike to fall off two or three times! At least this time they were only minor spills, with a soft landing.

From here, it was an easy route around the lake, followed a long, fast descent on fire roads through the forest and then onto the road alongside the River Conwy. Before we knew it, we were in Betws-y-Coed, sitting at the Stables bar. I had a cup of tea and a ginger beer in an attempt to feel normal again, while Mike had a Guinness.

Our home for the night was the Coed-y-From Guesthouse, just a little way up the hill. It was a nice building, and the room and facilities were good too. The owners and staff weren’t the friendliest, though. The plan had been to check in, shower and then head into town to peruse the range of outdoor shops in Betws-y-Coed. I decided I should probably try to get some rest and just chill out in the room, so I left Mike to do the retail therapy on his own.

Probably a good thing, too, as I would have spent far too much money and ended up having to carry lots of new kit the following day!

We headed back to the Stables for dinner and then chilled out in the room. Tomorrow looked set to be very wet indeed, but hopefully I’d be feeling better by then, although I wasn’t convinced that would be the case.