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October 11, 2008
Pwll Deri
Pwll Deri is a place on the west coast of Wales which Mausi visited in 1980 when touring Great Britain by train and bus with a friend. Mausi can't remember if there was a village at all but there was a Youth hostel. Mausi had phoned the night before and obtained the information that if she and her friend got there before 5 p.m. they'll have a place to sleep. Otherwise the beds would be given to someone else.
Alright! Mausi and her friend took the train to Holyhead and planned to walk from there. Asking for directions proved a bit difficult as neither of them could pronounce Pwll Deri correctly. But at last they were on the right track. Helpful people in a shop had told them it would be a walk of about 3.5 miles. Dead easy, even if you converted miles into kilometers! After walking for quite some distance they came to a signpost which said: Holyhead 3.5 miles, Pwll Deri 3.5 miles! Mausi's friend promptly threw her rucksack to the ground and announced she wasn't going any farther. In the end Mausi got her going again, pointing out that they couldn't very well camp on the road in the middle of nowhere and that they were running out of time. They reached the Youth Hostel five minutes to five!
The Welsh Coast
The Youth Hostel was quite an experience. A very small house, very close to the cliff and battered by the winds all night. Mausi and her friend were each given two woolen blankets. The blankets were so full of big holes that you needed the second one to cover the holes in the first one. And it was a cold August night. The howling noises made by the wind made it feel even colder. The next morning the weather was fine, although still windy.
Bit of a breeze blowing in the morning
Mausi and her friend decided to make the most of the day and go for walk to that lighthouse they could see in the distance.
The lighthouse looked like a good place to walk to
It was a perfect day. The only draw back was the lack of provisions. They were left with only one package of crispbread and a little bit of water. Mausi discovered that one can get extremely hungry being out in the open all day and exposed to the fresh and salty air. The walk nevertheless was very pleasant and they spent a couple of hours near the lighthouse, lying in the sun on warm heather, looking down the cliffs and listening to the roaring sea.
There's nothing like watching the sea running against the rocks...
Luckily they were able to buy a hot meal at the Youth Hostel in the eveing. Not many meals in Mausi's life have tasted as good as that one!
Posted by Mausi at October 11, 2008 01:14 PM
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