The Long Way to Broughton
The final part of our trip took us to the tiny village of Broughton, close to Monknash Beach. It made for a long drive as we had decided to take the scenic inland route.
Our way took us past Dolgellau and we both felt a little pang, for we’d enjoyed our time there. As we headed towards Betws-y-Coed, the scenery became increasingly dramatic, with mountains rising above deep green valleys and grey stone villages.
A Stop in Betws-y-Coed
Our first coffee stop was Betws-y-Coed. My first impression was of a picturesque, wooded village, and a very tricky parking meter in the car park beside St Mary’s Church, where some fellow travellers came to our rescue.
We found a coffee shop right beside the historic railway station and, as we sat sipping our coffee and looking out over the platform, I thought how much my train-mad grandson would have enjoyed being there. I also got chatting to a woman from Perth, Australia, who helped me with the pronunciation of Betws-y-Coed.
Edith the Rhino, the bottle-top sculpture at Betws-y-Coed railway station. She was created by environmental artist Jacha Potgieter as a recycling/conservation project.
Rhayader
We’d previously passed through Rhayader on our journey to Dolgellau, but my sister thought it might be worth a stop on our journey to Broughton. And so it was.
It is an attractive market town in the heart of mid-Wales, standing where the rivers Wye and Elan meet. Surrounded by the Cambrian Mountains, the countryside is very popular with tourists who enjoy outdoor pursuits, and the town’s shops reflect this.
Rhayader is famous for its red kites and there is a feeding station just outside the town. But we didn’t go there, having observed our fair share of red kites in Dolgellau.
We had a bite to eat in the Old Swan Tea Rooms, situated at a crossroads, and watched articulated lorries laden with timber negotiate the corners, an impressive, if slightly frightening, sight. We had already noticed a lot of these huge lorries on the roads around Rhayader and soon discovered why: we were travelling through one of the main forestry areas of Wales. It explained both the plantations we had been seeing and the seemingly endless procession of timber trucks.
Rhayader turned out to be an interesting little town and we spent some time wandering around its shops. There were several selling antiques, vintage pieces and all sorts of things that invited a good look. A shop in West Street was memorable, partly because of the delightful young person looking after it, who was friendly, slightly quirky and extremely helpful. My sister bought some Welsh pottery and I came away with a couple of old Penguin paperbacks.
Back to the car, it was time to continue our journey. By this time I was more than a little weary, and so was the driver. We’d covered a lot of Wales in one day and had experienced some beautiful scenery, which continued to change as we travelled back towards the coast. When my sister finally parked the car outside our last port of call, not a wheel would turn again until we left for Cardiff Airport on Saturday morning. In Broughton, we walked everywhere.
And that part of our trip surely deserves a post of its own.
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