Abergwynant

Description

(D/A) From the front door of the George III facing the river, turn right and walk out to the main road. Turn right past the rear of the pub. Cross the road carefully and follow a signposted footpath leading half-left into a garden; the path winds below a house then leads up to a track.

(1) Turn left and follow the track uphill, keeping right at a fork, until you reach a triangular pond.

(2) Turn right at a waymark post onto a footpath that climbs through conifers. Cross a stile at the top of the wood into a field. Cross the field to a ladder-stile and join a track in the next field, following it to the right, then bear left between rocky hillocks to a gate in the wall of an isolated cottage (Gwern Barcud).

(3) Pass to the left of the cottage and (ignoring a hand-gate on your left), leave the garden by the far gate. Turn right beyond a telegraph pole and walk up a grassy valley. Join a track to the left of a barn and bear left past a couple of gates with ladder-stiles to a farm (Tyn-y-llwyn). Go through a gate into the farmyard and turn right through two more gates, between barns, into a field.

(4) Turn left to a stone barn at the top of the field and follow a track to the right, leading over the brow of a hill to a gate and ladder-stile by a shallow ford. Bear left and walk up the field, close to the wall on your left, to a gateway with a ladder-stile. Continue along the wall below the rocky slopes on your left to another ladder-stile in a corner towards the top of the hill.

(5) Turn right along a track with a wall on your right. The track curves left, away from the wall, with views down the Mawddach estuary to Barmouth Bridge, then rejoins the wall, passing two old mine entrances among the scree on your left. Follow the track downhill, past a gate and ladder-stile, then bend left and right to another gate and stile near a farm (Cae’n- y-Coed). Ignoring paths signposted left and right, follow the track ahead downhill, past the former school (now a bunkhouse) to the public road.

(6) Turn right and follow the lane down the valley of the Afon Gwynant to the main road (A493). Turn left briefly then, before the river, turn right onto the private road to Abergwynant Farm. At a bridge, carry straight on with the river still on your left.

(7) At a three-way fork, turn left through a gate, then keep right at the next fork to a gate into the wood. Turn left along the track alongside the river, passing a lime-kiln on your left.

(8) The track bends right, round the end of a hill, following the river, and eventually leads to the former railway bridge over the Afon Gwynant; turn right onto the Mawddach Trail. Follow the Trail for a mile and a half back to the George III. (D/A)