Hills, Trains, Beer... and the stag do of Darren Neil Axe

These are three things that may or may not frequently appear on the tick list for stag do's these days. Hills, they're pretty mainstream these days and the pursuit of hill bagging seems to be one of those peculiarly male dominated persuits; one that wives can only roll the eyes at when it is announced that another bleak, rounded, mist shrouded hill must be ticked from the list. Trains; it's a well known fact that all boys aspire to be train drivers when they grow up and of course not many actually do so the rest are left with a feeling of excitement every time they hear the sound of a locomotive whistle on the wind. Beer; I'm sure there is no need to describe the association between that one and stag do's, that is except for the fact that a fine Scottish ale from the Cairngorm brewery goes by the name of 'Stag'. Enough said.

All gathered at Dolwyddelan station on the Saturday morning awaiting the train to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

It was under the notion of these three commodities that I managed to bring together 21 of my fine fellas to the small village of Dolwyddelan in North wales for my stag do in mid-March 2016, exactly 5 weeks before our wedding. For those setting out from Lancaster on the train on Friday evening it turned out to be a rather entertaining journey as even without the usual stag paraphernalia such as group antlers, we still managed to attract great interest from those around us. Firstly a drunk passenger headed for Preston on board the Llandudno Junction train (!) who took a strangely intense interest in the two physicists among us. Secondly, after missing our bus at Llandudno Junction and deciding to wait out time for the next train in the Old Station Hotel, we once again proved quite an attraction to the locals next to us who most of all seemed fascinated that we were headed for Dolwyddelan for a stag do! Luckily for them, most of the others had had relatively benign journeys and we all congregated in Y Gwydyr pub in Dolwyddelan for evening beers.

The southern portal of the Moel Dyrnogydd tunnel surrounded by the slate spoil dominated landscape of Blaenau.

Saturday morning, the chaps were awoken on the dot 06:30 to a soothing series of blasts on one of my railway whistles. The early start was to enable us to get organised for the first activity of the weekend; crawling around inside a hollow hill. We were headed for the newly opened 'Zip World Caverns' a series of ladders, bridges and zip lines in the disused Llechwedd slate caverns at Blaenau Ffestiniog. This, of course was preceded by a compulsory bit of trains, with us all catching the Conwy Valley line train through the Moel Dyrnogydd tunnel through to the aforementioned slate mining capital of the world! It was an appropriately grey and cold March morning, adding to the drama of the slate laden hillsides as we arrived triumphantly at the marvellous station where Network Rail and Ffestiniog Railway metals lie side by side. The Llechwedd Caverns are the product of the Welsh slate rush and following the decline of this heavy industry from the 1960's onwards, have provided underground tours for visitors. The development of adventure tourism within this post-industrial landscape is a relatively recent thing, with there now being downhill mountain biking, outdoor zip wires, the caverns Via Ferrata and the evocative 'bounce below', essentially a massive underground trampoline. Blaenau has long needed a boost, having originally been left out of Snowdonia National Park, and walking around the town it certainly felt like things were on the up. After a thorough training session with an instructor, we were all let loose on the main cavern exploration. It starts in a vast hollow, with a series of zip lines that gradually descend into the depths of the chasm, crossing piles of slate spoil and flooded hollows. There are then a series of narrower passageways, bridges and further traverses on solid Via Ferrata rungs that link several smaller caverns. It's all rather disorientating and every now and then large openings in the passageway walls open out on the main cavern. The tour finishes with a steep climb over cargo nets and through vertical worm-hole like passageways back to the starting point, which is suddenly reached, somewhat anticlimactically. It's a wonderful exploration, and really gets you right into the heart of this impossible myriad of man-made tunnels and caverns.

Upon resurfacing to daylight, the barren, grey landscape of Llechwedd and its fellow spoils seemed intensely bright and sharp after several hours in the relative colourless abyss. However, after a quick lunch and march up the verge of the A470 to the Crimea Pass, the drab slate dominated landscape was exchanged for the usual parched, sepia tones of the uplands in late winter. The bleak Moelwyns are one of the lesser walked ranges in Snowdonia. We were getting in the next bit of hills in by ascending up and over the lofty 524 metre summit of Moel Dyrnogydd. After this, the most direct route down to Dolwyddelan involved a rather rough tramp over tussocky grass down into the relatively more benign sheep pasture dominated landscape of the valley. After passing a series of scruffy farms, with the first of springs’ lambs bleating and stumbling around we skirted Doowyddelan Castle and back to Bryn Tirion.

Entering the abyss of Llechwedd Slate Caverns

Our beer based entertainment had been orchestrated in the form of a train-themed fancy dress night thanks to Graeme, one of my best men. This had been taken on board to varying levels of enthusiasm, and the costumes certainly provided entertainment for the owners and locals frequenting Y Gwydyr pub in Dolwyddelan village. Thankfully we had been given our own room, off to one side of the bar, within which to keep ourselves entertained and enjoy a convivial meal and drinks. Given the demand for real ale, the single pump was dry by about half time and by full time, all supplies of a bottled St Agnes (Cornwall) brewery beer had been consumed. Last but not least, a big tick was placed in the beer box.

Traversing the cableways and gantries of the 'zip world caverns'.

After an action-packed Saturday, it was agreed that a lie-in would be granted for Sunday morning. No piercing blasts on the whistle to wake up to and no early trains to catch. We took on board hearty porridge once again and enjoyed the March sunshine that was breaking through. Rowan had organised a navigational-riddle based challenge for us that involved finding toy soldiers in hidden localities around Bryn Tirion farm and Dolwyddelan Castle. It had been promised to keep us all occupied for about an hour. However some of us  (me included) manage to miss the most critical element of the briefing session (that there were a couple of decoy locations on the list and also not to take the grid references bit too seriously) resulting in much frolicking around the moorland searching for the (un-)promised little plastic soldiers for significantly longer than an hour, much to the entertainment of the ‘winning’ teams. This activity, filled with much merriment drew the big weekend to a close and a prolonged period of goodbyes and departure then followed. For those on the train (via the mid-afternoon bus to Llandudno Junction as there is no winter Sunday Conwy valley line service), there was time for a picnic in the spring-like sunshine over in Dolwyddelan. For the Lancaster folk, our train journey back north was far less eventful than the Friday, just as well as we’d had just about enough excitement for one weekend.

And there we have it, hills, trains, beer, all successfully accomplished. The countdown to our wedding now officially commences.

On the top of Moel Dyrnogydd