“Lost” not the T.V show, but really really LOST in Wales (actually not lost at all!!)

During our previous days travel around the village yesterday Chris and I had stopped at a visitor centre and picked up information on some of the nice ‘3 hour’ walks that were around the region. We had decided against doing the ‘extreme hiking enthusiast’ walk that we had first looked at and instead thought that a 3 hour walk would make for a nice day. So, off we went today, armed with the very informative pamphlet, complete with big write up and directions and a map. We felt ready and prepared as we pulled into the car park and hoist our little day pack containing our rain jackets, lunch, water, beanies, spare socks, sun cream and other goodies onto Chris’ back. We head off following the directions perfectly “cross the dangerous road to the church, go over the stile and walk through the field” Perfect, easy, done. “At the next stile continue on through the field to the next stile” Done again “continue on, you will come to a little wooden bridge, here take the left hand path” Righto, done. “You will come to an open moor, here you have fantastic views of Mt Snowdon and Mt somethingarather” (Okay, it’s not really Mt somethingarather, though it’d be kind of funny if it was. I just don’t know what the other Mt name was… Moses, Mosaic, somethinglikethat) Okay, done. So far it was all going smoothly, we were following the directions perfectly and it was all lovely. The views were amazing, the weather nice, our moods jolly… But then, something went wrong, very very wrong.

I don’t like to place ‘blame’ but somewhere along the line, someone got something incorrect in a major way. I’m not sure if it was the mad welsh man who drew the map and the ‘directions’, the Englishman who then had to translate them into something readable and sensible to the rest of the population, the proof reader or the person who had to print them off, but poor old Chris got all the blame that day. We came to a path that forked, the left hand side looked rather beaten, boot and Mt bike tyer marks all over it and the right hand side of the path looked a bit soggy and therefore, less ‘taken’ shall we say? So, which path do you suppose we went? Yes, the right, of course the right, the directions was clear in stating the right. So, off we went. My mood by now was still jolly, though a little tentative I admit. I had my gaiters, boots and walking trousers on, but I’m still a girl and not a big fan of the muddy, soggy mires that stretched ahead of us. But, off we trooped. We got higher and higher on this hill, it became chilly and my god did it ever become bloody bloody windy! It was like walking smack bang into a freaking cyclone. It was scary, you couldn’t hear anything other than this shrill shriek of the wind, I could see that Chris was trying to talk to me but I couldn’t hear him unless he came up and then yelled into my ear. My nose ran like mad and I had to hold onto my brand new, Marino wool beanie for life. The wind pushed and pulled us about but we struggled on until we came to a spot where the wind died down and we were slightly sheltered. Here we had a beautiful view of a lake spread before us. It was gorgeous to look at and we would have loved to have sat down for lunch and a rest, but the wind made it cold and impossible to stop for too long.

So on we trudged, but now something was telling me we were heading in the wrong direction and my tummy was turning in knots and I knew that something was not right. I don’t know how I knew, or why, but I just did. The map directions then became rather unclear and confusing, we’d followed the other notes and directions perfectly, to the tee, yet now, it was a real “WTF” moment. Now we were reading directions that said “now, the lake will be passing on your right, you will come to another stile, follow this through another field, you will come to another stile” etc and there were none of these too be seen as far as the eye could see. Chris, appearing all jolly and ‘adventurous’ encouraged me to keep on walking, yet I tried to say time and time again “no, it’s the wrong way, we’re not going the right way, something is wrong here” but, I kept being told “oh, I’m sure it’ll all pick up” We walked on, yet I began to stress, the stress turned to panic, the panic turned to hyperventilating and then tears and a little ‘break down’ We were no longer anywhere near where we were meant to be, we were no longer on the map and we no longer could make sense from the freaking map, it made no sense what so ever. It was horrible. We were now walking down the middle of little streams as it was wetter on the soggy, boggy moors, we were walking through some little forest, we were walking down extremely little narrow paths that I’m not convinced were for humans. We had to jump down large embankments where I hit my head more than once on silly tree branches, all the time having my panic attack. We were so far from where we’d first come now and by now we should have been returning to where we’d left the car, we’d been walking almost 2.5 hours or more… Then we saw it, a little road where there were some little, derelict stone homes which looked as if they could have possibly still been in use… and then I saw a man in red. Oh, it was a happy moment. Chris suggested we stick to the path, I shook this advice off and made a very fast descent towards the road, tripping and near tumbling down the embankment in the process. By the time we got to the road though we’d missed the man in red who was taking photos, but I didn’t care, we were near civilization, albeit very very remote, slightly run down, not so convinced the homes were even in use, civilization. We walked along the road and by now Chris was admitting that we had somehow, come off the map and wasn’t 100% sure where we were, but would not admit that we were lost. He had the GPS out, looking confused and was suggesting that we get back on the track and head off in a direction that I wasn’t convinced with at all. With his suggestion I became very annoyed and I didn’t say very many nice things, and being someone with a very stubborn streak made a point of storming off, yelling not such choice words over my shoulder, in the other direction along the road telling Chris I was going to find someone who could tell us exactly where the hell we were and that I couldn’t understand why no man could stop and ask for directions.

We came across an elderly couple who we stopped and had a chat too. They confirmed my suspicions of “well no dear, you’re no where near these directions” “REALLY!? You don’t say!” Screamed the thoughts in my head, but I smiled and asked if they knew how we pick our track up again and we were told “well, you keep walking until you get to a gate, then go over this and go through the field, and then it’ll take you through a valley in the mountains, but that’s what we’ve been told, we’ve not done it ourselves” I didn’t really want to hear this, I wanted to hear something really factual, meet someone who had walked this track and could tell us for sure how to get back, not give us some sort of “hearsay” myth. So, I made a pact with God that I would ask the next person we saw and believe them, not doubt, so long as He could actually send someone along this deserted road. Well, God heard and sent an elder gentleman along the way, and so I kept to my side of the bargain and asked, ready to believe, this man if he knew the way home. This man answered my question, but spoke in riddles. God had sent me the mad hatter for a laugh. I wasn’t so impressed, but I was ready to believe… so, I asked if he were from around here, to which he gave us some riddle and then went onto tell us how he once visited Tasmania, had crashed someone’s engagement party, driven to Ooze etc etc. My head was screaming “PLEASE JUST TELL ME THE BLOODY WAY AND SHUT UP!” but I smiled and wade through his riddles to figure out that he too was telling us to go to the gate, follow the path, head up through the field, up towards the valley, travel on through it and then we should get a clear view of Capel Curig, the place we’d started from. Right.

So, we bid the mad hatter good bye and head off to the gate, up the path, through the field with sheep and horses, up a very very steep bloody mountain (not impressed at all let me tell you!!) through the valley only to come… back to the freaking soggy boggy moors. Hmph. Not happy, not happy at all!! So, we then had to back track our previous steps, which weren’t sooooo bad as at least we knew where we were going, but by this time the wind had picked up 10 fold from previously and I was now being blown over as I walked. For once I was glad to be above average in the weight department, any lighter and I’m fairly sure that I’d have been blown a distance. I’ve never in all my life come across wind strength like that, it was actually scary! So, we walked back towards the point at which we had actually started, and along the way had several fighter jets fly low over the top of us, this happened at least 3 times. For a moment there I thought the mad hatter might have sent us off on a hike across private military land where they do testing’s or some such thing and that perhaps they’d be testing there guns or missiles or something and then I freaked myself out and had to tell myself I was being just a tad silly now and that my imagination was perhaps going just a little overboard. We them made it back to the field in which we first crossed and the church and I had never been so relieved! I could breathe finally and relax. Chris will tell you that we weren’t lost, and perhaps he’s right to a degree. He’ll tell you we couldn’t have possibly been lost as he had the GPS and knew our exact co ordinates, but my argument was (and still is) that the co ordinates were no good to us really as A) we didn’t know the co ordinates of which we’d come and B) they couldn’t give us the names of the mountains, rivers, lakes, moors or towns that were around us. If we had to (somehow) call the police (999 for the record) we wouldn’t be able to tell them where we were exactly, but yes, we could give them the co ordinates. What was meant to be a 3 hour stroll turned into a 5 hour struggle and I’m surprised, yet glad to announce, that we were still married at the end of this ‘adventure’ Poor Chris did cope an earful of not so nice words and did cope the blame, though it wasn’t his fault, it was the map makers. It wouldn’t take much effort to tack a cats eye to a stump or something every mile or so just to let you know that you’re on the right path, but the Welsh don’t seem to think that this is very important. Oh well, I guess we made it back okay in the end, and I was mighty glad to make it back to the car where it was nice and warm and out of the bloody wind!

Oh, and once we were back to the car a Chinook helicopter flew over us. The military were well and truly out doing some sort of training that day, it was crazy busy with jets and helicopters!

written by  Chris and Emily on May 7, 2009 from Llanberis, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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