An Easy Family Walk around The Fairy Glen, North Wales.
Bit slow on posting this as things are a little hectic at the moment round here with work, family commitments, kids parties and my fingers in too many community events (I need to minimise my life big time).
We had a rough few days with F and his asthma not so long ago. He was stuck in hospital for a few hours and under home care for a day or two after but he came out all well (if a little grumpy and on a steroid comedown!).
We had planned to take on the much loved Moel Siabod but it looks like it’s going to be a bit of a slog so decided to skip it whilst Finn gets back on his feet.
The Fairy Glen is a short (1hr) wander down to a small but very beautiful gorge just outside of Betws Y Coed in North Wales.
Parking up, you need to be aware that this walk is on private land and their is a compulsory ‘donation’ to pay towards the upkeep of the trail. There’s an attendant who has scuttled after us on a previous occasion telling us we hadn’t paid the right amount when actually we’d paid a few pounds extra out of good faith. 😉
The amble down is simple enough, taking a left it leads to a set of steep rocky stairs that descend into the gorge down to the river side. From here you can see the exit of some of the falls further up the river. The water pools in places and it offers some great opportunity to shoot some nice long exposure photographs if you’re into it 😉
The gorge is lush and green, obviously very damp and the rocks are slippy so some care is needed with the kids. There’s an almighty big boulder thats pretty ace to climb too.
After tootling around we headed back up the steep stairs and headed left along the path that runs above the river back on the way we came then continue straight along. The trees are quite dense but you can see the flowing river below and gradually it descends to the river bank.
There are a few picnic benches and a small bad weather shelter to have lunch in. The kids plodded in some of the rock pools on the side of the river before we continued along the path back up round to the exit.
This is a great little way to spend an hour or two. I’d be tempted to spend longer down by the river in the summer months. There’s definitely a shout for some wild swimming too, though I’m not entirely sure how safe the currents are there, so dont take my word on it!
We tied our visit in with a trip into Betws Y Coed, a wander around some of the small shops there, the amazing bridge and falls, finished with an awesome light dinner in the famous Alpine Cafe (worth a review on its own, its brilliant).
Thanks so much for reading, really appreciate you taking the time to visit us. We’re pretty full on at the moment, so if you’d like to keep tabs on more places that we’re discovering then check out our Instagram and YouTube channel. I love hearing from people about ideas for places to go or hearing about your own trips to places we’ve been and featuring them over on Twitter.
No Comments