Tre'r Ceiri hill fort

What a cool final day of the holiday. We started off with a swim in Padarn, just a short one. It seemed colder than on Saturday, especially as it wasn't in race conditions. Still, it is a lake in Snowdonia. Coffee, Barra Brith and a bit of coffee and walnut cake was certainly needed.

Then we headed off to see the Tre'r Ceiri hill fort Iron Age hill fort, high above Cardigan Bay. It was grey, windy and really cold as we left the car, faced by a 2 hour walk. Fortunately, the cold water had acted like cryotherapy and my legs were feeling good. Rosemary's dad once again decided to take another path higher than we were. Rosemary is an expert navigator, being a great adventure racer, so I was sticking with her. Of course, John's path ran out, he had to climb a fence and then scramble through the heather, with Rosemary now helping.

We had now out of the wind but were ascending into the cloud. Visibility was down to around 30m but the cloud was getting thicker all the time. After going over tricky ground covered in large granite boulders, we reached the fort in the cloud. As we were starving, we found a sheltered circular ruined hut and sat down on the moss covered rocks. It was strange to think that people had sat eating where we were 2000 years ago. Slightly eerie.

I went for a wander, exploring the numerous ruined stone huts, occasionally Roman ones that could be distinguished as they were the oblong ones. We continued round the circular wall, huge by Iron Age standards, surrounding over 150 huts. It was still cold, windy and with next to no visibility. Close to the top of the hill, I noticed a bit of blue sky, then the cloud started to clear quickly.

From being enclosed in a small grey world, everything changed in less than a minute. First, a hill to the south appeared, then the aquamarine sea far below in the west, east and then South. I hadn't realised we were on the the tip of a peninsula... Amazing. The strategic importance of the fort became clear. Wow.... The fort was massive...a small town and it was 2000 years old. It was just the 3 of us standing high in a place that could easily be a world heritage centre....historically important, yet I'd never heard of it until yesterday.

We then headed off down the hill, being led by a flock of hill sheep for at least 10 minutes. The trip to the car was much quicker than the ascent. We then headed towards Pithweli and a small beach. Wow, it looked brilliant. I got my trunks on immediately and decided as my wetsuit was still wet, that it would be easier to go without. Rosemary was less keen and kept her 5 layers on.

I ran down the beach, wading in to waist deep. It was cold but not intolerably so. I knew that it was silly to dive straight in after doing so in Portobello towards the end of last October. Slowly I went into a supine position and then started doing water-polo stroke for a bit and then got my head it. It was amazing....very cold but invigorating. The tide was going out through and we didn't have much time so I swam in. Goodness, a bit more difficult than I thought but I was soon back standing on the beach with loads of people looking at me as though I was mental.

My skin felt as though I had a mild tingly electric shock going through me, but it wasn't unpleasant. Rosemary helped me get dry quickly and I got my top and puffa gilet on to prevent me getting too cold. Two swims in a day. Cannae beat it. I was so happy that it didn't bother me too much when we missed the ice cream shop in Beddgelert by 5 minutes.