To The Lodge via Ironbridge & Capel Celyn

Hi there everyone 😀

After six weeks at home, punctuated by our long weekend in Pickering, it was mid-June and time for us to head back to the lodge. This time mum was with us and, after a hectic few weeks, we were really looking forward to getting back to our little oasis of quiet and calm.

We’d had some glorious weather whilst we’d been at home but the forecast wasn’t brilliant for the week we were away. In spite of that I was really hoping to have my first outdoor swim of the year so had everything crossed for at least a couple of nice warm sunny days.

We had a reasonably early start as we’d decided to call in at Ironbridge Gorge on the way. It’s somewhere mum’s never been and it’s not much of a detour from our journey at all so it’s seemed a good opportunity for a bit of a pitstop.

Martin and I have been before so knew what to expect but we drove across a couple of bridges before finally parking up at the car park for the bridge … and at each one mum asked … “is this it?”

Fortunately when she did finally see it she was impressed 😀

The bridge is in a beautiful setting and it was a lovely day so it was really pretty looking over to the village on the other side …

The views along the river from the bridge were pretty lovely too …

Once across the bridge we headed left and had a wander down the Main Street …

… before making an about turn to retrace our steps … which gave our first real view of the whole of the bridge …

We took the upper path and had a good look from the other side …

It was then time for a bit of a refreshment stop so we sat and had drinks and bara brith in the sunshine, before making our way back to the car to continue our journey …

We had another pitstop along the way. This time we stopped at Capel Celyn on the banks of Llyn Celyn. It’s a little chapel that was built in remembrance of the village that was flooded to make way for the reservoir …

It was a lovely little spot and we had our picnic lunch in the paved area around the back which was a real sun trap …

We didn’t stop for long and were soon on our way again for the final leg of our journey.

After a slight detour along the front at Criccieth … it just has to be done … it wasn’t long before we were back at our home from home and we were soon unpacked and settled in with everything crossed for plenty of sunshine.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️