And Home, To Bed

I'm slumped.  I can't help it.  I've wedged my backpack into the window seat and I'm pressed up against it, trying to stay awake.  I don't like to sleep on trains - I'm always terrified someone's going to sneak up and steal my things while my eyes are shut - but the train is so quiet, the rolling of the wheels so soothing, and it's been such a long day.

The doors to the carriage slip open and a wide beaming face bursts through.  "Snacks?  Drinks?"  He's astonishingly tall, slightly cowed at the neck to stop his skull from scraping the roof, pushing his trolley with hunched shoulders as though utterly servile.  He's smiling the whole time, just gleeful.  He's probably the happiest person I've ever seen on a British train.  No-one seems to be buying though.  He tracks down the carriage, then reverses back again and parks in the disabled vestibule for a little rest.

A woman pops through from the next carriage - "I thought I missed you" - and buys a Coke and some crisps.  She comments on his accent, and asks where he's from.  The Gambia he says, and they chat for a little bit.  He looks happy and cheery the whole time.  I decide that all service positions should be staffed by immigrants, instead of the usual surly miseries who patrol the aisles.

Caersws passes then, a short time later, we're in Newtown.  It's another closed station building they've handed over to the local kids to decorate.  I stare out the window at a mutton-chopped approximation of a human being; I suppose it's meant to be a local historic figure, but it looks more like Prince.

As the train starts up again, the toddler across from me squeals in delight.  His mum - an enormous woman with what looks like her mother and sister - has allowed him to play on the empty seat in front.  He's clambered all over it, stood on it, bent over it, lay down on it.  He's pressed himself up against the glass to stare at the scenery, but this got boring, so he looked at the floor instead.  He poked his head between the two seats in front, and the man sitting there turns and says hello.  The boy gives him a long mournful stare, straight in the eyes, like he's analysing his soul, then turns back and screws himself into a ball on the seat.

Welshpool's just a platform and a car park.  Across the way is The Old Station shopping centre, although they'd probably blanch at such a simplistic description; it's more of a retail experience, a haven, a home of arts and crafts.  Or, alternatively, a tacky gift centre with an Edinburgh Woollen Shop.  The station building has been restored to within an inch of its life, then filled with tchotchke upon gewgaw; if they could have done done the glass in Crystal Effect Diamonique (TM) they would have done.

The principality's slipping away from me.  You can't travel north to south by rail in Wales without crossing the border; I hope they never gain independence, because that'll be a nightmare at customs.  I have to travel east, unable to simply head for home the quickest way.   The hills are getting less impressive, less special, more... English.  Fields are just fields here.  It's just more countryside.

I loved the Cambrian Line.  I'd never been on a line that was so beautiful in such a practical, unshowy  way.  Ordinary trains run through extraordinary landscapes, across epic bridges, into heartstopping towns.  Barmouth, Criccieth, Aberystwyth, Penrhyndeudraeth - I wanted to go back and visit them again.  Fill in the spaces I hadn't done right.  Go to Morfa Dyffryn when there was sun.  Visit Borth's railway museum without screaming infants.  Cross the sands to Ynys Gifftan.  Ride the Talylln Railway.

I don't know when we crossed into England, but soon we were at Shrewsbury.  I alighted to wait for the Chester train.  It's a funny one, Shrewsbury.  From the outside it's a Hogwarts of towers and stained glass.  It's an epic.  Inside it's miserable and badly laid out - I had to pass through the ticket barriers and out of the station to reach my platform.  Windows are cracked and dirty.  It doesn't look like it's been cleaned since Nationalisation.  Maybe not even then.

The light was fading as I took my final station sign picture.  Five days, four nights.  Every point of the compass.  Another Welsh trip over.  I don't know if I'll do another of these epic journeys with no purpose - I don't know if I'll have the money (I overspent horribly).  I don't know if there's anywhere that I would want to go.  I don't know if I can be bothered with the time and planning and cost.

Scrub that.  I'd do it again in a second.

The full Cambrian Lines Journey, linked for your pleasure:


Preamble - Barmouth Town
Day One: Morfa Mawddach to Llwyngwril - Tonfanau to Tywyn - Aberdovey to Dovey Junction
Day Two: Barmouth to Llanbedr - Pensarn to Harlech
Day Three: Tygwyn to Penrhyndeudraeth - Minffordd to Porthmadog - Criccieth to Pwllehli
Day Four: Aberech - Borth - Aberystwyth to Machynlleth - Home Again


The Official Cambrian Lines Website, so you can plan a visit for yourself

Left of Centre

I was predisposed to like Aberystwyth.  I used to work with a girl named Emma who'd both studied and met her husband there.  Consequently she had dozens of fond memories of the place which she was happy to share.  She made it sound like a great, jolly, pretty town.

She was right.  There was a laid back, fun atmosphere to the place.  From the wide sweep of the bay, with a pier and guest houses painted the colour of ice cream, into the clogged streets behind, there was an energy and a charm to it all.  The promenade was being washed down with jets of water as I walked along it, preparing for the summer season.

I turned inland by a small square.  There was an old-fashioned pub overlooking it, and a group of students congregated on the benches.  The University does of course explain a lot of the town's vibrancy.  Aberystwyth is the end of the line, hemmed in by the sea on one side and the mountains on the other; you need to make your own entertainment.  The far Western brim.  The students had taken the town and filled it with their youthful vigour.  We were out on the edge, away from the bright lights of the rest of the country; it was a place to create your own world.

It was weird being in a proper town again.  For the last few days Barmouth had been as exciting as it got, and after that, Aberystwyth felt like a throbbing metropolis.  There were pubs and clubs and shops everywhere.  Suddenly I could see familiar names like WH Smith and Boots again.

I walked through the town to the station, a white stone building that stood imposingly over the locals.  Its off-centre clock tower was designed to be seen from as far as possible, directly down Terrace Road; I imagined harassed families running down it from the beach, buckets and inflatables flying, watching the minutes to their train tick away.

All was not as it seemed.  The station was still there, but there wasn't the proud arms of a railway company up there, or the double-arrow BR logo.  The writing along the top was A Wetherspoon Free House.  The station building was a pub now - another boozer carved out of an old building by the corporate behemoth.  Meanwhile, to the side, a retail park had been constructed on the old railway sidings, replacing engines with a Lidl and a Great Outdoors.  It was disappointing, though at least they'd named the pub Y Hen Orsaf - The Old Station.  Directly opposite was a far more offensive pub name:

Having a pub called the Lord Beeching opposite a station is like putting a giant photo of the Pope opposite an abortion clinic.  It's just offensive.  Especially since Doctor B sliced two of the lines from Aberystwyth, cutting a five platform station down to one mainline and one heritage platform.

To give Wetherspoon's their due, the building has been extremely well-restored.  The narrow rooms and areas of the old station have been maintained, with the pub gubbins inserted carefully inside, and the mustering area at the head of the platforms has been converted into an open terrace area.  I got myself a pint and sat down out there to watch the station activity.

With the boozers annexing the main station building, all the facilities had to move somewhere, and so ticketing and so on are now located along the side of the platform.  It's still possible to walk through the grand archway directly from the street into the station, but you pass an Indian restaurant instead of a moustachioed porter these days.  Passengers are pushed off to one side, following the barely noticeable sign you can see above.

I finished my pint and sauntered onto the platform for the train.  It was filling up with students clutching rucksacks, holdalls, black bin bags; for the first time in ages, I wasn't the only one on the train who looked like they were moving house.  There was a toilet on the station, which made me smile.  Years ago, I'd read the novel Stripping Penguins Bare, in which Benson, the hero, is picked up by an enormous man in the station toilet and taken to a farmhouse for a thorough seeing to.  I'd recently revisited the whole Benson series - the story of a Catholic schoolboy growing up in New Brighton -  as I'd got the long-awaited fourth book as a gift a couple of months ago.  Sadly, the newest book was a major let down; the author had gone away and convinced himself that he was writing social commentary, instead of amusing character pieces, and so it's three times as long with a quarter of the jokes of any other book in the series.

I didn't venture into the toilet; it was unseemly, and I really didn't want to find an enormous sex-crazed farmer in there.  I had a train to catch after all.

Collecting Aberystwyth meant that every station to the west of Dovey Junction was mine.  I'd conquered both branches of the Cambrian Lines - Mainline and Coast.  I was tired but deeply happy.

Eagle eyed observers will have noted that the Cambrian Lines go all the way to Shrewsbury, so really, I should have got the stations in between Dovey Junction and there as well.  To which I say - piss off.  Yes, there were more stations en route; yes, there's a part of me that wishes I could have got them too; but the geography and timetabling of the line meant that I wouldn't get home until nearly ten o'clock in the evening as it was.  If I'd stopped for stations on the way, I'd have had to stay another night, and though it was tempting, I wanted to get home to my own bed and my own telly.

Instead, I made just one more stop - appropriately to the self-styled Gateway to the Cambrian Coast Line.

For once, the station wasn't the main attraction.  I was here to meet the closest I have to a showbiz pal - Mike Parker.  Mike's the author of the absolutely fantastic book Map Addict, the story of his obsession with the Ordnance Survey.  It's always great to read a book that makes you think, "it's not just me then".  He writes lovingly and generously about his affection for the mapping giants, covering its history and infusing it with personal stories.  I enjoyed it so much, I did something I have never done before - I sent him a fan letter (well, a fan e-mail).  We struck up a correspondence and, when he was in Liverpool with his partner before Christmas last year, we met up and had a few pints in the Ship & Mitre.

Now I was in his neck of the woods, so he offered to return the favour.  He met me on the platform and immediately offered to take the obligatory sign shot.  We picked a heritage sign round the side, for a bit of variety.

As I write this, Machynlleth is underwater; terrible floods have swept through the town, driving people out of their homes and closing businesses.  (I have checked that Mike is okay; he lives outside the town, so all he's lost is some foxgloves).  Back in May though, it seemed to be yet another pretty Welsh town.  Mike filled me in on its history and sights; he's from the Midlands originally, but has turned native, learning the language and writing extensively about the country and its people.  He's even written about Dovey Junction in his book Real Powys.  He pointed out the town clock, for example, erected in the 19th Century by an unloved English landowner and now damaged.  Unfortunately, the builder was so unloved, they've had problems raising the money to refurbish it...

Our first port of call was Y Plas Machynlleth, the local civic centre, where Mike had to prepare his AV equipment (not a euphemism).  It was the Machynlleth Comedy Festival, and he was performing a standup routine later.  Through trial and error we set up his laptop, then headed back out into town for a pint.

It became clear that Machynlleth wasn't like other Welsh towns I'd been to.  Criccieth doesn't have a comedy festival; Tonfanau can only dream of an arts centre.  Machynlleth attracts thinkers, liberals, frontiersmen and women; it's a town that embraces life at a slight angle.  On the outskirts is the Centre for Alternative Technology, promoting eco-friendly developments and innovations, as well as researching new ones.  The people who waved hello to Mike (and he was very popular in town; we couldn't turn a street corner without him bumping into someone he knew.  It was like walking down the road with Sean Connery) were all a little different - a bit rough round the edges, a bit more easy going.  It's a town that's got its feet firmly planted in an organic compost heap.

(It does also have an Aga Shop, the only one I've ever seen outside of Chester; I guffawed, only for Mike to confess his devotion to his recently purchased Aga.  I don't think they're ovens, I think they're gateways to a cult, like those tests the Scientologists perform on people to get them through the door.  I suspect if I'd gone inside I'd have emerged with a five burner cooker and a strange devotion to Xenu).

We chatted over a couple of pints, before Mike had to go and give an interview to Radio 4.  Told you he was a glamorous showbiz person.  I tottered in the opposite direction, back to the station.  Outside I took an up the nose shot, just for completion - every other station got a photo with my nose hairs in it; why should Machynlleth be left out?

The station building, incidentally, is a lovely little thing.  Like much else in the town, you can feel the respect and care the residents have for their environment; they have put some effort into preserving their locale.

Trains for both branches of the Cambrian Line meet and part at Machynlleth.  The trains to England from both ends join up here (ignoring poor old Dovey Junction in the process), making an extra-long train to cross the border.  I clambered on board and chose a quiet seat for my journey home.

P.S.  Mike was worried I wouldn't know how to pronounce Machynlleth, so he sent me a handy pronunciation guide:

Thanks Mike!

The High Walk

There's a railway museum at Borth.  The station's been cleaned up, restored, and volunteers now run an exhibition inside.  It's free to visit, though of course donations are welcome.

Not that I went in.  I'd been looking forward to visiting the museum throughout my trip, but my train was also carrying about 4000 screaming, mewling, overexcited young schoolchildren, barely being kept in check by already weary teachers.  They catapulted off the train onto the platform and I realised with horror that they were all headed to the museum.  I left the station quickly.  There was no way I was going to try and take in historic exhibits while little Chelsea and little Jade tried to pick the plaque off the wall with a compass.

Plus - and I'm sorry for being indiscreet - I needed a pee.  I headed down to the seafront, following the public toilet signs.  I'd noticed throughout my trip that North Wales is seemingly overflowing with loos; almost every village seemed to have one.  I'm not an aficionado by any chalk but it was nice to see that the council was still providing some public services, unlike back home, where the question "is there a public toilet near here?" is generally answered with "it was closed in 1988, but there's a shop doorway over there".

I hadn't actually used any of the loos, until now, which meant that the discovery that Borth's public toilets were closed carried with it a sort of two-fingered irony.  I crossed my legs and pushed on into the town.

It was a weird little place.  Nothing seemed to fit right.  The buildings went from 18th Century cottage to 19th century chapel to 20th century terrace without pause or logic.  They didn't match in any way.  The residents were also committed to making their homes as tacky as possible.  When they weren't painting them pink or red or clashing shades of yellow and orange, they decorated them with seashells and butterflies and gave them awful names.  Perhaps there was a contest I was missing.

Most heinous of all, Borth Zoo had been rebranded as the Animalarium, which is a nuclear strike on the English language.  I would happily have burnt down every single sign carrying that nonsensical phrase, before rounding up whatever marketing "expert" conceived it and dropping him into the leopard pen.

Yet here and there were proper gems.  A row of low, crowded cottages provided an atmospheric glimpse into the past, to when this was just a tiny shipping village.  The occasional gap between houses revealed a backdrop of green fields ramping up to suddenly-steep hills.  It just didn't work as a whole.

Down by the harbour, some bright spark had decided that Borth needed a new, glamorous, exciting building.  I imagined the quotes in the local press, the talk of a new "landmark", the plugging and pomp.  What they ended up with was a cylinder with a Nisa in it, which is, let's face it, just one step up from a Happy Shopper.

In a way it was right that in the 21st century, Borth was continuing its tradition of chucking up random buildings wherever there was a spare bit of land.  To me, it just seemed hopelessly over designed.  The only good part was directly opposite was an open public convenience, so I was finally able to relax again.

One thing Borth did get right was its war memorial.  Most towns placed their tribute to the fallen in a prominent square, or by a church.  Borth took full advantage of its position, however, and put the memorial on top of a cliff overlooking the town.  Instead of it being lost, it draws your eye upwards, proud against the horizon.  I headed up to have a look and was impressed by the way a simple stone pillar became epic when placed in the right spot.

Instead of going back down the cliff, I carried on.  There's a coastal path here which takes you from Borth to Aberystwyth, and I thought this would make a more interesting walk than staying inland.  I'd never followed a clifftop path before, so I thought it would make a decent change.

I'd failed to understand that clifftop paths are, well, on top of the cliffs.  I mean right on the edge.  I was constantly about a metre away from plummeting to my death on the rocky beaches below.  Worse, there were fences on my left the whole time, with the drop on my right.  It seemed to be a deliberately provocative statement from the farmers.  You lot can fall off wherever you like, it said, but there's no way I'm letting one of my sheep come to harm.

The path rose and fell, dropping down via rough steps to almost sea level, before steeply climbing again.  Stone slabs bridged tiny cascades of water, plummeting down the cliff side from mountain sources, and giving me a vertiginous head rush as I walked across.

Then I saw a bird, and another, and another, and I realised that the cliffside was swarming with finches.  They nest in the cliffside and they were suddenly everywhere, dive bombing for food, pirouetting through the air and then plunging downwards.  I watched them speed back and forth, tried to capture them with my camera, but all it got were black flecks and streaks as they zoomed by.

My legs started to tire with the constant changes in gradient.  The path was also muddy and hard going in places after a night of rain, sloshing against my boots and splashing my ankles.  The occasional slip and loss of footing just added to the feeling that I could crash off a cliff edge any moment.  I wondered how long it would take to find my corpse.  I'd encountered only a couple of dog walkers, plus a troupe of hardy pensioners in buttoned up anoraks, but that had been back towards Borth.  I was more than halfway to Aberystwyth now, and my only companions were livestock.  I guessed that I'd be well dead with no chance of rescue before anyone even raised the alarm.  I didn't even have a signal on my phone, so any hopes of a GPS assisted location were fantasies.

At Wallog, the view opens out.  A heavy waterfall's been bridged with a bit more sturdiness than the crossings I'd become used to, and a lovely farmhouse keeps guard.  Built on a stone-walled outcrop, it seemed like a fortress more than a home.

Perhaps it was built to protect us from what ever is at the other end of Sarn Cynfelyn.  This is a glacial moraine, a long straight ridge made up of boulders, pebbles and other rocks and only exposed at low tide.  It heads out into the sea like a road, going for kilometres and ending at a reef out to sea.  The unnatural look of this natural feature lead to local legends that it was a road to Wales' own version of Atlantis, a land that was swallowed by the sea.  There is something unnerving about it.  A slight otherworldliness.

There was a different kind of spooky experience further on.  My stomach was starting to rumble - I hadn't eaten all morning, as I'd left Pwhlleli long before breakfast was available - and now it was nearly lunch.  The map showed a caravan park directly on top of the path, so I guessed they would have a shop.  Maybe even a cafe.  I began to structure a fantasy where I bought a hot dog and chips, garlanded with soft onions and a yellow stripe of strong mustard.

It stayed a fantasy.  The caravan park was determinedly empty.  Catering outlets were shuttered, bars locked up, shops closed.  The little funfair for the kids looked like it should have been in Scooby-Doo.  This wasn't just a low season; this was a potential murder site.  I shuffled through, and was nearly out the other side of the park before I saw a sign of life - a teenage girl, wearing too-small hotpants, her hair like a raggedy Amy Winehouse and her eyes coated with thick paint.  She was criminally underdressed for the windy day, and I guessed that she was just finishing up the night before, taking the walk of shame to the bus stop.

The clifftops here were different to the ones to the south.  Instead of being open, they'd been planted with high pine trees, turning the walk into a woodland stroll.  I could still see and hear the water below, but now there was the coolness of the trees, the smell of the forest.  They'd been cut back severely in places, leaving scarred splinters behind.

As I climbed over each hillock, I'd thought, this has to be it.  I'd seen a tongue of Aberystwyth poking into the bay a long time ago, but every time I'd clambered over a rise in the cliffs, the town had remained tucked away.  It was somewhere in the distance, but it seemed to want to stay hidden from me.  Finally I staggered up a path and heard voices round the corner; a group of middle aged tourists, talking about the Queen's Jubilee.  I'd reached Constitution Hill, which forms Aberystwyth's southern border and which was one of the sites of the Jubilee beacons.  The group were just admiring it when I lurched off the side path, startling all of them, not least because after six hours of walking I must have looked like a recently revived zombie.

I mumbled an apology for making them jump and blustered past.  Constitution Hill is a long established pleasure ground, the kind of place that Victorians visited so they could promenade and have illicit rendezvous.  The world's largest camera obscura sits on its peak, while a variety of lesser amusements - crazy golf and the like - have been built in bright coloured sheds around it.  The most important attraction, as far as I was concerned, was a cafe.  I treated myself to a hot chocolate with gooey marshmallows and a pepperoni pizza.

When I was little, and my mum was baking, she would let me gather up all the offcuts to make "biscuits".  After she'd sliced out the jam tarts or the pie crust, I would get all the pieces left over and squish them into a ball.  I'd knead it, stretch it, roll it out with a rolling pin, then do it all again, because let's be honest, it was just edible Play-doh to me.  I'd cut it into tiny shapes with a pastry cutter and then stick them on the edge of the baking tray, where they'd harden into dry, crunchy, occasionally blackened fragments of unpleasantness.  A dob of jam on each one and voila!  I'd made a tray of biscuits for my dad to "enjoy" when he got home from work.  Bless him, he'd labour through them all, while I watched happily as he snapped them in two with his teeth and forced down lump after lump of grey misery.

The reason I am sharing this childhood vignette with you is because I am sure that there's a similar cooking process involved in that cafe's pizza dough.  It was a dry hardened base that shattered when I put the fork into it.  Each mouthful of stodge clung to the back of my throat, while almost rare onion brought tears to my eyes.  The pepperoni was cold, the tomato sauce almost certainly Tesco Value, and I frankly doubt the cheese had ever come from a cow.  It was what pizzas were like thirty years ago, when we were so pleased to be trying something different we weren't bothered if it actually tasted nice or not.  I was so hungry, I forced my way through every claggy piece, pausing only to pull the odd unwilling bite away from my gums with a finger.

With my stomach, if not satisfied, then at least full, I left the cafe and made my way to the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway.  I was spared the walk down the hill to the town thanks to Victorian engineers, who built a funicular to take people to and from the top.  They carved a channel into the rock and laid two tracks into it.

A train had just come in, disgorging a Brummie mum and her three sons.  She was clearly shaken by the experience.  "I'm not doing that again," she huffed.  "We're bloody walking back down."

I'm not sure what terrified her so much.  Perhaps it's the sixty-degree fall down the hillside, a fall so deep the carriage is basically just a series of steps.  I'm a well-known wuss when it comes to heights, but I didn't feel my usual dizziness as the train started its descent.

The funicular was originally powered hydraulically, but in the twenties it was converted to electricity, meaning your passage is silent and stately.  It's so smooth it almost feels as though the town is rising up to meet you, rather than you going down to Aberystwyth.

The second carriage passed just as I was thinking what a great locale for an episode of Casualty this would make.  They've done almost every other kind of disaster; surely there hasn't been a funicular train full of tourists careening off the tracks and smashing into the station.  You could fit a dozen people in the train - enough to ensure a high body count, while leaving plenty of survivors who can reconcile with estranged family members in cubicle four.  Perhaps it's been done.  I'll send my proposal to BBC Wales just in case.

The station at the foot's like a nice Victorian villa, rather than a tourist hub; you get the feeling that the upstairs apartment was occupied by a lady adjusting her crinoline.  The train gently sidles into place at the bottom of the hill, and you let yourself out through the picket fence.  It was a pleasing way to enter Aberystwyth, one that was almost grand; I hadn't just walked into town, or jumped off a dull Sprinter.  I'd been conveyed, elegantly lowered into the streets as though descending from the Gods.  A good start, you have to admit.

One Off

Even the grapefruit pink wash of the sunrise couldn't make Pwhlleli look pretty.  Instead of bathing it in a glorious glow, the light seemed to catch on the ugliest features - the satellite dishes, the pebble dashing, the stained concrete.  It was barely six, and I was deeply regretting my decision to go to a hotel that was mainly a pub with rooms.  Sky Sports had echoed up through the floorboards until closing time.

My train was humming on the platform, letting out those odd diesel pops and grinds.  I treated myself to a table seat and wedged myself in, with only one thing on my mind: Aberech or not?

Yesterday I was clear - no.  I couldn't be bothered to go back and collect Aberech.  After a shower and a pint, my mind started to shift, and then the intervening hours had created a clammy hand at my neck.  The knowledge that I was just one station away from perfection.  The overwhelming desire for completion and closure.  I needed to go there.  I needed to just collect that one station, or I would always, always regret it.

Problem was, the fates seemed to be against me.  It was the first station after Pwhlleli, not far outside the town, and the train seemed to be speeding along quite happily with no intention of stopping.  There was no sign of the guard either.  That prickly feeling of anxiety began to crawl up my throat - not just because I was nervous about asking for the train to stop again, after the sneery woman the day before.  That request stop seemed to be slipping away.

"Good morning."  The guard appeared, professional, calm.  His blonde hair had been efficiently spiked and his uniform was clean and newly ironed.  I handed over my pass and he asked where I was going to.

"Aberech?" I said hopefully.  Pwhlleli was almost gone.  I didn't know if we had time.

"Aberech!" he exclaimed.  His efficient exterior self-destructed; he was suddenly as sweetly camp as Alan Carr at a Pride parade.

"Am I too late?"

"Just in time.  We'll have to go to the middle though."  He sped down the aisle, the increased pace giving him a mince that John Inman would have rejected as over the top, and rang the bell by the door.  We stopped only a few moments later.

Aberech looks like another country station; there are fields and trees and the twitter of birds waking.  The sheep were already excitable, making their presence felt with loud calls to one another.  Under it all though, an ambient backdrop, the gentle whisper of waves crashing.  I turned away from the platform and headed south, up and over high dunes, and reached a wide, empty beach.

The beach was rough with stones, which made it somehow infinitely more interesting than just another wash of sand.  There was a texture to it.  I walked to its centre and watched the water rise and fall.  My sleepiness had fallen away; the combination of the view and the sea breeze shook me awake.

Finally I turned back.  As I reached the top of the dune I saw another train headed for Pwhlleli, roaring past, the driver taking advantage of the early hour to open it up to maximum speed.  The station was in the distance, quiet and undisturbed.

I stumbled down the hill, trying not to slip and cover myself in the slightly moist sand.  There was a child's sock half buried at its foot.  No doubt a visitor from the neighbouring Aberech Sands holiday park; its neon sign glowed, still prominent in the half-light.

Click.  Photo taken, sign in shot, station collected.  And that was the Cambrian Coast Line completed.  Every station between Pwhlleli and Dovey Junction visited, photographed, written about.  I should have felt a sense of achievement, but I didn't.  Possibly because it had been so easy.  The whole line had been so charming and different.  This time last year, when I'd finished the North Wales Coast Line, I was a physical and emotional wreck.  Today I was aching for more.

Which was lucky actually.  Because I was heading back to Dovey Junction - probably the only person in history to have alighted at that station twice in one week.  I still had a branch to collect.

Ease On Down The Road

There's something deeply pleasing about the name Criccieth.  Just say it: Criccieth.  I don't know why, it just clicks away inside your mouth.

The station's just as nice.  It's been adopted by Criccieth in Bloom, and they've done a sterling job making it an attractive, comfortable place to dwell.  There are painted murals, some from the local school, some a little more professional, all reflecting the local area.

It's a great effort from a dedicated band of volunteers.  There's a part of me that's annoyed that Arriva Trains Wales can make a profit on subsidies and ticket prices but can't be bothered making their property pretty, but that seems churlish when Criccieth in Bloom are doing it so well.

Their efforts extended to the noticeboard, where there was a lovely Regional Railways poster stored under glass:

Basically, Criccieth had me right from the start.

The main street through the village was as desperate for tourist cash as Porthmadog had been, but in a much more middle class, understated way.  There were cafes and antique shops, but they weren't quite so shameless as their cousins down the line.  In the early evening spring sunshine, everything looked pleasing, charming, dappled.  I rounded a corner and came across a tiny square shaded by trees.  It reminded me of small towns I'd been to in Europe - the heart of the village, a place where old men gather to play chess.

A couple of turns through the streets, and I could see the beach in one direction, and the castle in the other.  I didn't even know Criccieth had a castle so that was a bonus.  There was a medieval square at its base, with brightly painted houses and shops.  I was being romanced.  The only downside was more Criccieth in Bloom planters and posters.  I suspected that my somewhat laissez faire attitude to garden maintenance would not be tolerated here.

Down on the front itself there was a row of tall houses, pastels and creams, looking out over a perfect view of Cardigan Bay.  I'd have loved to have lingered and taken it all in.  Perhaps bought a Ninety-nine and sat on the beach.  But it was gone five o'clock, and I still had two more stations to get, so I pushed on.

 
The seaside road narrowed to a track, then to a path, then I was walking through fields and between hedgerows.  I was following the Llyn coastal path, which circles the whole peninsula, and which had been carefully signposted and laid out.  One of the glories of this country is our dedication to walkers; the way we are careful to lay out paths and routes for us to enjoy.

Annoyingly, I wasn't alone on the path.  A middle aged man joined it just before me and, even more irritatingly, he walked at more or less the same speed as me.  It meant that I was shadowing him, unable to speed up and overtake, unwilling to slow my pace and fall back.  If I was him I'd have been a little nervous.

Of course, standing behind him and taking a photo didn't make me look any less psychopathic.

Fortunately, he turned off the path, wandering onto a deserted beach and standing at the water's edge.  How nice, I thought.  How pleasing.  Then I suddenly thought of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, where Tracy attempts to commit suicide by walking into the sea on a deserted beach.  I kept glancing over my shoulder, hoping he didn't suddenly pull off his shoes and leg it into the water.  I wondered what I'd do.  Given that (a) I can't swim and (b) I'm not exactly the strongest guy around, I couldn't see myself dragging him out to safety.  Finally I turned a corner and he was left behind, gazing out over the bay.  I hope he's ok.

Now I had a few miles of coast walking ahead of me.  It had looked fine on the map, but now it seemed like something of a slog, with a rucksack slung across my shoulders and a day's stomping around in my legs.  The path rose and fell, sometimes practically in the water, sometimes high above it.  I clambered over stiles into fields of cows, who moo'd loudly as I passed.  I don't know if it was a greeting or a warning.

I rounded a hill, and came across a man pulling a t-shirt on, while his girlfriend stood to one side with dry clothes.  It seemed that he'd been swimming in the river and was just changing back.  Of course, I'd missed a sneaky glimpse of penis, as always.  I have an unerring ability to walk in just after anything interesting happens.

A couple of bridges over lacklustre streams, and then I was crossing the railway line again.  I'd already seen the train from Pwhlleli passing in the distance.  Across the railway, a farm had carefully screened off the public footpath from their yard, building a big wall and putting up clear signs to stop misguided ramblers.

It was something of a relief to finally reach a metalled road, and with it, a clear open footpath.  My ankles were starting to ache from the trudge across the wet soil, so to clump along a proper path was a pleasing change.

It was short-lived.  Lawks but that was a dull road.  It was new, so there were no old trees or hedges along it.  It was in a dip, so I couldn't see the hills behind, and it was too far inland to see the coast.  There weren't any farms or villages along it.  It was a two lane highway designed to bypass anything interesting.

I was starting to panic now.  I wasn't sure if I'd make it to the next station, and it was getting on for seven o'clock.  At this rate I wouldn't be in Pwhlleli until nearly ten.  I was sweaty and tired.  I'd run out of water, so my throat was parched.  And this damn road was so uninspiring, I could barely muster up any interest in it.  I was flagging fast.

Time for some music.

Never underestimate the power of a driving beat in your ears.  I hadn't bothered with it for the majority of the trip, choosing to enjoy my surroundings and let my mind wander, but right now all my mind was saying was "YOU'RE GOING TO MISS THE TRAIN."  I jammed the earbuds in and put on my Movie Music playlist.  The Indiana Jones theme buoyed my spirits; Anything Goes made me smile; Night Fever put a spring back in my step.

I hate to conform to the cliche, but a run of musical theatre songs that cheered me immensely.  Since I was alone in the countryside, and the cars that passed seemed to think a speed limit was a suggestion rather than a prescription, I filled my lungs and sang along.  One Night Only from Dreamgirls, I Move On from Chicago (I did both parts - like most people, I'm a better singer than Renee Zellweger and less robotic than Catherine Zeta-Jones), and, most inspiring of all, Ease On Down The Road.  The Wiz is a horrible, horrible film.  It's probably the most joyless musical ever made; everything is made as grim and unpleasant as possible.  It's impossible not to love the soundtrack though - with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Quincey Jones all working together you couldn't achieve anything less than genius.  I had to bounce along, singing the chorus, a demented munchkin who escaped from the asylum.

I was in full song when I saw the familiar and welcome sight of a double-headed arrow.  I had about ten minutes to spare.

I'm guessing that the road has become a haunt for doggers.  The council had posted signs warning that there were CCTV cameras along it - usually you only get that at the station itself.

Penychain was once the main access for holidaymakers to the Butlin's holiday park behind.  As such, it has a rather more impressive shelter than you'd expect for a country station.  A long brick building would once have held dozens of suitcase-clutching vacationers, ready for their train back to reality.

In its full 1950s pomp, I expect there were seats for the ladies, but they're long since gone.  Instead it's like being in an open shed; it feels like there should be hay on the floor and a donkey pooing in the corner.

Butlin's are gone as well.  It's now branded as a Haven Holiday Camp (they have the same owner), which isn't as evocative as Butlin's, but is also less Hi-de-Hi!.  I doubt they get many people arriving by train these days, either.

I collapsed on the platform, exhausted.  My plan had been to get the train from here to Aberech, and then walk from there into Pwhlleli.  That was before I'd been forced to incorporate Tygwyn and Talsarnau into my schedule, though.  The idea of walking along the coast as the sun set was distinctly unappealing now.  The idea of walking anywhere was unappealing.  I took a decision - fuck it.  I just wouldn't bother getting Aberech.  It was just one station - you couldn't deny that I'd earned the right to abandon it.  Three days of travel had got me every other stop on the line.

There were only two of us on the train to Pwhlleli.  We arrived as the sun turned to gold, bathing the town in a shiny sparkle.  The other passenger noticed me hanging back and asked if I was lost.  It was very nice of him but I was actually waiting for him to leave so I could take some photos.

Pwhlleli station is a shed.  Not a bad one.  It's been painted and it's been cleaned but it is, at the end of the day, a shed.  Its one feature of interest, a cafe, was closed at that time of night, leaving a big open space with nothing of interest - not even a bench.

Obviously there was no ticket office.  I should have expected it by now, but it still surprised me.  Pwhlleli is the terminus.  It's a destination in itself.  They can't scrape to a single ticket window?  Not even a machine?  I find it utterly baffling that ticket offices are seen as some kind of luxury - they help raise revenue and stop fraud.  They should be everywhere, especially at the ends of lines.

The town didn't make a great first impression; opposite the station was a giant empty department store.  It had clearly fallen on bad times, but here and there were signs things were changing.  The Ethel Austin was still vacant - not a good sign, given that they went bust years ago - but there were local shops dotted amongst the empty fronts, signs of a gentrification coming.  Around it were good working class businesses and pubs and homes.  Weirdly, it reminded me of St Helens; that same solidity and efficiency, a town that had been humbled and was rising up again.  The most incongruous parts were the new, regeneration money projects, stuck in the centre of the town and too shiny to fit.

My hotel was The Crown, a real boozer in the centre.  Its bars were filled with men watching the football on two screens, knocking back pints of lager; I was tempted to stay because Jamie Redknapp was one of the pundits, but I guessed that wasn't why they were watching.  I was checked in by a solid barmaid in her early twenties, a woman who radiated efficiency and capability.  She was feminine and calm, with a blonde pony tail and a laptop behind the bar with a fashion website on it, but I knew that if a fight kicked off she'd be in there in a moment, pulling them apart without a thought.

I headed up to my room, tired, hot, moist, and started the shower.  It was my last night in Wales.  Tomorrow I'd be heading home.  Eventually.