Walk with us :: The Nantcol Waterfalls

Hi there everyone 😀

This post is the last from our July visit to the lodge, where we packed loads in, including some fabulous walks … this one was a real favourite.

As you will know … Martin and I both love waterfalls. When driving through Llanbedr on our way to Barmouth we’d seen the signs for the Nantcol Waterfalls a number of times. One time we’d even driven to the car park to see what we could see.

Having done plenty of research it was somewhere we definitely wanted to visit and, with a number of options for the length and difficulty of walk, we had it on the cards for our July visit.

As usual our plan was to have a look … see how we felt … and just do what we felt comfortable with.

It was a glorious day … and it was a lovely drive to the car park at the Nantcol camp site … though there are some pretty narrow lanes. It was £4 to park and we were soon ready for the off …

The minute we left the car park we were by the river and within a few feet we could see people in the water cooling off. It looked lovely … and very easily accessible …

We just followed the path along the river … not really knowing where we were going, but just knowing we needed to see more. It wasn’t long before we saw the first real falls … with more people enjoying swimming and splashing about …

From here the path veered away from the river a bit and was quite steep and rocky in places … but we just kept going …

The views at the top were absolutely fabulous …

We didn’t really have any plans as to how far we would go but just kept following the fairly obvious path … which led us back to the river …

The river was pretty low as we hadn’t had rain for a fair old while, but it was still pretty and there were lots of places where it was very easy to get in. A paddle would have been just heavenly but we hadn’t come prepared for that …

The path took us away from the river again …

… and we found ourselves on the ‘blue’ route, with the path snaking off through the ferns …

… before coming back to the river again …

Suddenly we came to a spot where there was a huge open rock on the left and what looked like cascades on the right. Martin opted for ‘Pride Rock’ as he called it and I headed for the cascades …

He said the view looking across to the main waterfall was amazing and I will definitely go that way next time. I’m guessing the falls were a fraction of their usual selves and I actually climbed up the face of them, rather than taking the path …

It was an amazing spot and totally unexpected. This is the view from the top … looking across to ‘Pride Rock’ … it was just stunning … and looking very much like an infinity pool from this viewpoint …

Having had a sit watching the falls for a while we decided that, rather than retracing our steps back along the river, we would continue on the blue circular route, which took us across some open ground with fabulous views of the mountains …

It was just after here where it all went a bit pear shaped for me for a bit and I had a really funny turn. I think I’d just been too energetic in the sun for too long and I just had to lay down.

Luckily after a bit of a rest and a cool down I felt a lot better and we were soon on our return leg which took us down through the woodland and round the back of the camp site. I was so busy focusing on putting one foot in front of the other there were no photos … until we got down to the bottom … where I couldn’t not take a photo of the stile. Fortunately there was a gate … so I didn’t have to climb over it …

It was then just a short walk back along the river to the car park … where I sat in the car for a while with the aircon on full blast … before we gathered our picnic and found a spot in the shade to refuel.

In spite of my ‘episode’ it was a lovely walk. The river, the waterfalls, the mountains were all absolutely beautiful and I can only imagine what it would be like after plenty of rain.

We will definitely be back to find out … with hopefully a little less sunshine … and it’s not often you will hear me say that 😀 

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An Ah-maze-ing Summer 🌻

Hi there everyone 😀

It has become a bit of a tradition for us to spend a couple of days taking Bobby, my 9 year old nephew, out over the summer holidays.

As time goes on, and he gets a bit older, more time goes into thinking about what we can do or where we can spend our day.

It needs to be something that we will all enjoy, including mum, as she often comes with us. We tend to like it to be outside, weather permitting, not too expensive and, ideally something we haven’t done before.

None of us had ever visited a maize maze and this year that seemed to fit the bill perfectly. In fact, we liked it so much we did it twice. 

Our first visit was to the Lichfield Maize Maze at Wall and what a fabulous day we had. We arrived on a beautiful day and it all looked very nice and quiet. None of us really had any idea what to expect but we were all pretty excited to start exploring …

We were given a very warm and friendly welcome and a maze map. There were two mazes, both set out in a rain forest theme … the larger one in the shape of an orang-utan and the smaller one in the shape of a parrot. There were information boards hidden within the mazes and we had questions that we had to find the answers to. It all looked like great fun …

Before heading into the maze we had a look at what else there was to do and there were plenty of brilliant simple outdoor activities for kids of all ages …

There was a fabulous looking sunflower field that we looked forward to exploring later …

… and plenty of opportunities for instagramable shots … or in my case photos for the blog … though Bobby was not interested in photos at this point … he just wanted to get in the maze …

We started with the larger of the two mazes …

Now … Bobby did have a plan … and we did let him run with it … for about five minutes 😂😂😂. He wanted to randomly wander around the maze with no map … just hoping we would find what we were looking for … and our way out. It didn’t take long to realise that was a bonkers strategy so we did have to insist on Martin just tracking where we were against the map so we didn’t just end up going around in circles …

We did have a couple of ‘moments’ when we weren’t sure where we were … but we just happened to come across a landmark each time which helped somewhat. There was ‘bench Number 1’ …

… the viewing tower …

… and the escape route signs …

We stumbled across Bench Number 2 when we’d lost our way again and, as it was hot and we were pretty knackeroonied, mum and I decided to have a pitstop whilst Martin and Bobby went off to find the last clue we needed. Martin left a trail with his walking stick on the ground so they could easily find their way back to us …

It was then the final leg and we managed to exit with no further incident 😜

It was then time for our picnic lunch, in the shade of the marquee … where Bobby found his favourite activity of the day …

After lunch we left mum sat in the marquee whilst the three of us completed the smaller maze … with Bobby being totally in charge of the ‘mapping’ as he called it …

He actually did very well and we found everything we needed with no problem at all …

… along with some cool photo opportunities …

Once back out of the maze Bobby was more amenable to posing …

… before we grabbed ice creams and headed to look at what else there was to see … starting with the sunflowers …

… some of which were mahoosive …

It was then down to the wildflower patch …

… and a final play for the Bobster before we headed on our way …

We all agreed that it had been a brilliant visit. Really good value and so much to keep all of us occupied for the best part of the day.

It was then back home to wash our legs and feet (it was dustier than we realised in the mazes) 😲 and to cool off in the garden …

I put lots of photos of our visit on Facebook and I was more than thrilled when the Maze complimented me on my photos and asked if they could use some in their social media. All of us featured in their reels for the rest of the summer. How exciting was that …

The following week we had another day with Bobby and we had all loved the maze so much that we found another one to visit. It was just the three of us this time though … it was a bit too much walking for mum. 

We headed for the Dove Fields Maize Maze at Draycott in the Clay. It was little bit further from us than Lichfield but only about 40 minutes from where Bobby lives so not too bad …

This time Bobby was on the ‘mapping’ from the very start …

… and apart from one or two ‘blips’ …

… he did amazingly well and we found everything we needed to complete the challenges.

Whilst there wasn’t quite as much going on as there had been at Lichfield … it was still really good with two mazes and a huge field set up with all sorts of simple play activities for children.

After our picnic Bobby and I left Martin sitting at the picnic bench whilst we checked out the games. We had so much fun …

I laughed so much playing swing ball that I nearly had a middle aged lady accident. I know it sounds bad but I just kept hitting the ball and Bobby wasn’t quick enough to return it so it kept hitting him on the head. I know … evil auntie or what 😂😂😂

There was a pirate ship …

… and an old tractor …

We could easily have spent all day there just playing … but we decided to head off to the garden centre at Bretby for Crazy Golf …

… and milk shakes …

We’d had another fabulous day and I can’t wait to go back to the Lichfield Maze for Halloween … just need to make sure Bobby puts it in his calendar 😜

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