In Search of Waterfalls

Hi there everyone 😀

The forecast for the second day of our first lodge visit for the season was for more good weather. After that things looked to be taking a turn for the worse with plenty of rain on the way … so we really wanted to make the most of it while we could. 

We decided to head out a bit further afield … in search of waterfalls.

A couple of years ago, when in Betws-y-Coed, we bought a book about hidden waterfalls in North Wales. We’d been a bit reticent about trying the majority of the walks as our fitness and mobility levels weren’t brilliant … but with our new found enthusiasm for getting out and about we decided to give a couple of them a go.

We started off by heading for Trefriw and our route took us through Beddgelert and past one of our favourite viewpoints of the mountains … where the weather was just right for a pull in …

From here we carried on up to Capel Curig and onto the A5. We headed right towards Betws-y-Coed and it was when we reached Ty Hull, or The Ugly House, that the satnav decided the main roads were not for us.

It was a long and windy single track road from here into Trefriw and, luckily for us, we didn’t meet any traffic … or there would have to have been some very nifty reversing going on. We definitely would not be returning that way 🙈

Once in Trefriw we found the car park we were looking for and decided to have a quick look in the Woollen Mill, before seeing if we could find The Fairy Falls.

The Woollen Mill is the building to the left of this photo and was full of all kinds of lovely bits and bobs and the most beautiful Welsh woollen fabric …

To find the falls we headed across the river, via the bridge you can also see in the above photo. The next photo shows the view looking upstream, again with the Woolen Mill to the left … 

We took the road opposite The Fairy Falls Hotel and walked up just a short way before finding the footpath we were looking for which would take us to the falls.

The path hugged the river and we passed plenty of cascades …

… before reaching the main event, which we were pretty impressed with …

The path carried on and took us back to the road … a bit further up from where we’d started. It had been a lovely little walk.

We headed back to the car and set off towards Llanrwst … looking for a little car park for another little walk. This time we were looking for Grey Mare’s Tail …

Again … it was a nice little walk up through the woodland and it was very easy to see where this waterfall had got its name from …

We decided to head into Llanrwst, where we parked up in the library car park and had our flask of soup … before another short walk along the river and back through the village.

It was time to start to head back for the lodge … but we made one last stop for a drink at The Swallow Falls Hotel in Betws-y-Coed. It had been closed for a fair few years and we’d not been in since it had reopened and we were interested to see what it was like.

It was absolutely lovely inside. Nice and cosy and very comfortable. We could have sat there for a good few hours just chilling and maybe sampling the menu .. but that was not for us this time …

We had a quick drink and were soon on our way 😀

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