Friday March 25th 2016 - Easter at Felin Uchaf

A sunny morning at 8.30am saw me leaving home for my first break of the year at Felin Uchaf, the peaceful little camp site where I stayed at Easter last year. Traffic on the roads was surprisingly light for the first day of the bank holiday weekend and the drive down to North Wales was very pleasant in the sunshine. 

I reached Llangollen just before 10am, and as I'd left home without even so much as a cup of tea I parked in the town centre car park and went in search of some breakfast; the Courtyard Cafe provided me with a toasted teacake and a mug of good coffee then after a quick look round the shops I grabbed the camera from the van and took the dogs for a walk along the riverside. Even with no leaves on the trees it looked just as nice as it was when I last walked along there two years ago and I got some lovely photos.

Back at the van I gave the dogs a drink then set off on the last eleven miles of the journey, arriving at Felin Uchaf a few minutes after noon. With only a couple of caravans on the site I had a choice of pitches so opted for the one next to the end, and leaving the dogs in the van I set about building my home. There was a bit of a breeze blowing but it wasn't enough to interfere with putting up the tent so it wasn't too long before everything was set out out inside and the kettle was on for a brew.

Since my stay at Felin Uchaf last year I'd found out that there was a lake not too far from the site and while paying my pitch fees I'd asked Nan, the site owner, how to get to it. It was only about a quarter of a mile away and just a straight walk up the lane behind the site so after my second coffee of the day I clipped the leads on the dogs and set off to explore. It was a fairly steep uphill climb but eventually I came to a track on the right and I could see one end of the lake; it wasn't a very big lake so it only took a few more minutes to reach the far end. 

A small river came down through the trees and ran under a stone bridge into the lake; dotted here and there were clumps of daffodils and in the lake itself was a flat stony area where it would be nice for the dogs to play in warmer weather. Unfortunately the sun was in the wrong direction and being surrounded by trees much of the area was in shade, but I did manage to get one good photo of the lake and made a mental note to return another day but at a much earlier time.

Back at the site I found that in my absence a few more campers had arrived and I now had neighbours - a caravan on the next pitch and a tent and two campervans on the pitches across. The couple in the caravan had two lovely greyhounds and I spent several minutes chatting before retreating into the tent for the rest of the day. With no tv signal on the site I whiled away the time listening to music and solving a few crosswords, then at 9pm I took the dogs for a torchlit walk down to the site entrance and back. It was a much earlier than usual bedtime walk but having been up since 5.30am - I'd actually done two hours at work before leaving home that morning - I was more than ready for my bed, and when I finally got snuggled in there it wasn't long before sleep overtook me.