Jul 12, 20232 min read

Lon las Cymru - Day 3. Less rain but more hills ⛰😂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Llanidloes to Llanbdr / 56 miles & 4500 feet

Well the weather was certainly better today but my goodness the climbing! Today we climbed through two mountain passes & spent much of the day cycling through Snowdonia National Park.

We started out from Llanidloes in the rain up through Harfen forest, before commencing a first mountain pass Rhiw Fwar - south of Machynlleth. It took us 45 minutes to get up there & less than 10 to get down I must admit I didn't realise I could cycle so slow on the up 😂😂

We then entered Snowdonia National Park for some more beautiful cycling through woods & quiet country trails. Then onward to our second mountain pass which was so steep in parts I had to relent and walk some of it!

What was amazing about this was to see the RAF jets practising through the valleys / it was just like out of a scene from Top Gun!

After we went through Dolgellau, we then had the most idyllic gravel trail - the Mawddach trail. which was around 10 miles / flat! which was absolutely idyllic after all the climbing.

The trial followed the River Afon estuary all the way to Barmouth where we went over the bridge to see the seaside!

We then had a final push climbing up to accommodation in Llanbdr.

We are much luckier with the weather today it was actually quite beautiful - we had everything - mountain passes, cycling through forests, national parks and gravel trails alongside the estuary. it was a tough day especially after the two previous days. But such an amazing route!