Dolgarrog; Sunday, 25 August, 2024

The weather forecast for Sunday had always been poor, so I’d already decided that I would try to spend most of the day on buses to keep out of the weather but also to do some sightseeing. Thankfully in Snowdonia this isn’t a problem as the Snowdon Sherpa buses connect together many of the key sights. I’d found them several years ago when I’d been in the area, and in the last couple of years the service has been expanded to make them even better. To add to the benefit of the regular buses, a one day ticket for all buses in North Wales was only £6.50 and that covered not just the Sherpa buses but all other services, so I was able to purchase it from the driver of the little bus that left from near the hotel just after 9am heading towards Conwy.

Conwy was the direct opposite direction to where I wanted to be going, but with only four buses in each direction from Dolgarrog on a Sunday I didn’t have much choice with my initial direction as going the other way the first bus wasn’t until nearly 11am. So I started by heading over to Conwy and then along the coast all the way to Bangor before I was able to connect with the first Sherpa bus, the S2 from Bangor to Pen-y-Pass via Llanberis, with that via point being my first port of call.

From the bus station I walked the short distance to Dolbadarn Castle located on the edge of town. These are now picturesque ruins of a 12th century castle with just the shell of the keep and the outlines of walls still visible with the backdrop of the dramatic peaks of Snowdonia (when they’re not obscured by clouds that were slowly starting to release their payload of rain.)

I headed back to the bus stop from the castle, stopping off at the Mountain Railway station to grab a bottle of water and make use of the toilets. I also noted that the trains were only going part way up the mountain due to the weather, which must have been disappointing for all the ticket sales they had planned (when I’d looked a couple of weeks earlier they were sold out right through until the end of September). From the mountain railway station I walked back to the bus stop to pick up the next S2 bus up to the high pass at Pen-y-Pass.

On the way up the weather took a turn for the worst with absolutely torrential downpours and high winds pounding the little bus as it made its way up the mountain road, but as we crested the pass at the top the worst of the weather passed for a little while, so after I hopped off I was able to take a reasonable number of photos in the dry, before the next spots of rain started at which point I retreated to the café to grab some lunch, wait for my onwards S4 bus and watch the hikers come down the pass looking very wet.

The S4 bus heads down off of the pass and all the way to the coast at Porthmadog, but I was only catching it partway to the village of Beddgelert. I hopped off the bus here to have a wander around this very pretty little village and also to have a wander alongside the Afon Glaslyn as it heads towards a picturesque gorge, bounded by the main road and the Welsh Highland narrow gauge steam railway.

After a wander along the river, and through the town, I made my way up to the railway station in time to catch the last train of the afternoon departing south down to Porthmadog and stopped to have a cup of tea in the station café before wandering back to the bus stop to pick up my last Sherpa bus of the day – the S3 back along the south flank of Snowdon into Caernarfon.

Back in Caernarfon I only had a couple of minutes to wait before the bus back over to Bangor to connect back to Conwy and then the very last bus of the night (at 18:51) from there back to Dolgarrog and my hotel.

I headed up to my room to drop off my stuff before heading back down to the hotel restaurant for a well deserved dinner, a drink from the bar and then an early night.