My friend Dennis had organised an activity weekend not far from us just outside of Dolgellau. It was intended to be a fairly informal affair. Basically the call put out via Facebook was one of ‘we’re going camping here on these date and will be doing some stuff. What we’ll do will depend on the weather and how we feel but come along and join in, or come along and do your own thing.<\/p>\n
A weekend for friends to get together and go biking, walking, white water kayaking then chill around the fire and catch up, make new friends and generally have a laugh.
\nAccommodation can be camping (tent or van), B&B, holiday cottage or bunkroom (6 beds per room and shared kitchen).
\nAll prices are very reasonable and each sleeping arrangment is a few seconds from each other.
\nPlease take a look at their website for further details and book yourselves in…I will NOT be handling any money, organising accommodation or arranging activities for anyone.<\/p>\nPlease…Feel Free to Invite Others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I of course was up for this and at first we thought that Anna and Morgan might come along too. Unfortunately Anna had to work and hasn’t been feeling up to such things lately anyway, and Morgan doesn’t seem to need too much of an excuse to not be ‘active’. So, in the end it was just me. As it’s only a 40 minute drive away I too was wondering if it was worth all of the pfaff of camping, especially as the forecast seemed to be getting wetter and wetter. I don’t mind camping\u00a0in the rain, I just\u00a0don’t like the drying everything out afterwards.<\/p>\n
I decided in the end to pack my tent and camping gear but keep my options open by driving up on the Saturday morning and making a decision once I was there. I could camp if I felt like it or drive back and sleep at home and then drive up again for the Sunday.<\/p>\n
Mountain Biking<\/h2>\n
I therefore met Dennis and a few others at Coed y\u00a0Brenin on Saturday morning. Sophie\u00a0and gone walking up Cadair Idris and we were all off for a mountain bike ride. We started out on the Minotaur Trail and it wasn’t long before it was clear that I was going to be ‘leading the ride’ I did of course wait for everyone at the end of each section but even on this easy, smooth route it was quite a wait at times. One of our group was out on a mountain bike for the first time though so just\u00a0didn’t know what to expect.<\/p>\n
With that simple route out of the way it was off onto the more challenging Dragonsback Route.\u00a0I’ve done this a number of times and it’s not actually that difficult but it was still a bit of a shock to the system and to the confidence of our mountain-biking newbie! He stuck with it though and we gradually made our way around the route. We had hoped to stop at the caf\u00c3\u00a9 halfway round for a rest and some coffee and cake but it was closed. We therefore missed out one loop instead taking a steep road climb to save some miles and some time as many in the group were now getting tired. We finished it off with some nice bits of singletrack and one more climb but missed out the final climb and singletrack once we’d crossed back over the river. Again, most people were quite tired by now and just wanted to get back.<\/p>\n