Monday 6th June 2022

When I was a child, and I used to be babysat by my Grandparents, in the room I slept in, there was a teatowl hanging over the mirror in the beside cabinet.

Back in the 70s, a teatowel was seen as an acceptable gift to bring people back as a present.

THese were simplier times, clearly.

Anyway, the teatowl was of nne of the narrow gauge railways in Wales. "The great little trains of Wales", it was called. I studied every detail of that towel, and for many year was all I know of the former slate and coal railways now converted to tourist routes. In time, I got to learn more, and have even rode on a few of them.

The best known and longest is the Ffestiniog. It used to transport slate from the mines at Blaenau Ffestiniog down the valley to the harbour at Porthmadoc. Slate isn't used mush for roofing, so demand slumped, and the railway became a tourist attraction. It is now linked with the once closed Welsh Highland Railway via short section of street running in Porthmadoc.

We had little idea what to do with the day, so I suggested a drive to Aberdovy, then a drive up the coast to Porthmadoc where I hoped we could get a seat on a train.

After breakfast we loaded the car up, and without programming the sat nav, set off for the coast.

A gentle drive along the long valley, sometimes climbing over moors and fells, dropping down agan to the wide estuary of the Dovy. Instead of following the main road to the university town of Aberystwyth, we took the coast road up Cardigan Bay. It would be slow going, but pleasant enough.

Which it was.

Sometimes the road ran beside the beach, or just above the sea as it followed the rocky shoreline, all the while heading north.

We stopped a couple of times to take shots. Once over looking Barmouth, where the wooden trestle bridge carries the railway across another wide estuary, the road would take a 20 mile detour via Betws-y-Coed​, which seems to survive on the selling of outdoor clothing and large hotels and restaurants which cater for the coach holidaymakers.

The road crawled through there, then up the valley to the north.

Then west back to the coast at to Porthmadoc, which the main road enters along a stone wall, which also carries the railway, called The Cob. No trains passed us as we trundled into town.

We turned into the station car park, there were two spaces.

Good.

Do you have a reservation?

I was hoping we might buy a ticket?

OK, park here, I think there are spaces on the last train.

I go in to the station and indeed there are spaces, so I book Jools and I on the 15:55 train, giving us 90 minutes to soak in the atmosphere, have tea and some cake, then I could go and take lots and lots of photos.

Which I do.

Tea and a sticky bun is one of the pleasures that has survived into the 21st century.

I heard the train would be coming back into the station at one, so I made sure I was at the end of the station to record its progress along the top of The Cob and into the station.

Which I do. Though there's not much steam to be seen ans the train coasted into the station.

At quarter to two, we take our seats in one of the small carriages and waited for departure. With a toot on the whistle, we luched away, gathering speed over the jointed track, going clickitty clack with the background beat of the pistons of the locomotive.

At the end of The Cob, the lines begins to climb, leaving towns and houses behind, and climbing steeping through the trees.

Sometimes the trees parted to allow views to open up, looking back down the valley, although nothing of human construction, other than the line, could be seen.

We stop at a station halfway up the line, wait for an hour while the engine was watered and goes to the other end of the train. The passengers get off and make use of the cafe, Jools and I have ice creams, of course.

The whistle goes, we get on, and the train lurches off again, though this time gravity does the work, the loco just brakes when needed.

On either side, huge swathes of foxgloves point to the sky, and from wall and cliff faces, Navalwort can be seen in huge numbers.

We reach The Cob and cruise across. Though as we pulled into the station we could not miss a train waiting on platform 1, with three locomotives ready to haul it up the valley.

A couple of us walk as quick as our fat little legs could carry us to the end of the platform to snap the train and then record its departure.

At quarter to four, three whistles sounded, and off the train went, less than half full, on a special charter.

We walked back to the car, programmed the sat nav back to the hotel, and let it guide us back over the hill, moors and fells back west.

The roads were quite empty, so I let the Audi engine sing and power us quickly back to where dinner was waiting.

We stopped at a dam to record the perfect reflections that mirrored the black mountains in its black waters.

Snap.

Back to the hotel at half six, and straight into the restaurant for burgers all round, though I skip the booze this time. The rain that had swept through all through the day, was due to dry out, and Tuesday was to be a fine sunny day.

Hopefully.