Wild camping & Muppet onesies at Llyn y Fan Fawr. Part 2 Return of the onesie.

Yesterday I left you all ( well, I say all but as far as I know maybe only one person is reading this ) with the vision of Andy in his Muppet onesie. I trust that you all slept soundly after that. Prepare yourselves for more of this wonderful outdoor fashion accessory as modelled by Mr Evans.

In between the occasional stir of the stew, we sipped ( glugged in Andy's case ) beer & watched the pot bubble away, the aroma of red wine, rosemary & thyme wafted into the air like a hug for your nostrils.

Doesn't that look tasty. 

It was, it was very very tasty, its very tasty.

With a hunk of bread & a bottle each of fine ale the stew was gobbled up in no time. I'm not one to blow my own trumpet but it was delicious but that could have just been the location working its magic. And maybe the company as we did have a laugh. Andy bought out some cheesecake & a tub of thick Devonshire cream & for the rest of the evening we chatted & watched & looked & laughed & enjoyed a fine single malt with a couple of drops of Llyn y Fan Fawr's purest.
A thin veil of cloud, merely a wisp, transparent & high, obscured all but the brightest stars. Laying back & looking towards the heavens time passed quickly & a few shooting stars later, it was time to turn in.

We had a laugh

Beer & a single malt. Bingo!

Still laughing.

I woke at 6am to a sunrise of Dragons' breath & fire. Separating the land from sky, a bright scar slashed from left to right edged with warmth & the promise of a fine day ahead. Above this scar, darker cooler hued clouds drifted, teasing me with glimpses of distant hills beyond & then closing the curtain once more. The scene before me in constant ebb & flow of now you see me, now you don't. Peering out of the tent a little more as a tortoise from its shell, I could look around at the escarpment behind me. The top was lost, shrouded in low cloud like an unfinished painting. As the rest of the world slept I left my shell & wandered along the shore Northwards, zig zagging up & down the slope as I went.

A sunrise of Dragons' breath & fire.

More Dragons' breath

If you look closely you will see two small tents, green & in one of them Andy is probably snoring.

Along a rocky outcrop, in sheltered crevices, plants that I knew not the names of found homes & rejoiced at their survival in such a wild place, standing proudly from the rocks as if to boast. Colourful mosses & pale lichens, lush vegetation & tiny flowers, cushions of wild thyme & ferns so green you'd think they were made of emeralds. On the lichen splattered rocks below, beading the shoreline, Otter spraints.

As I reached the North end of the lake the cloud was clearing to reveal a morning of Mediterranean blue, deep & saturated. In the sheltered bay a tiny sandy beach, no bigger than a room, with barefooted footprints. The clouds although clearing, were still hugging the tops of the mountain.

A sheltered bay at the north edge of Llyn y Fan Fawr

Wisps of low cloud hugging the mountain.

On returning to our camp, Andy was awake. He had woken earlier than me but on looking out of his tent, it was cloudy & dull so back to sleep he went. If I had woken at the same time I may have done the same. Thats the thing with weather in this place, it changes quickly & from one minute it is Summer, & the next Winter is upon you before reverting back to Summer again.

One of the greatest joys for me when camping is breakfast. Its one of the finest meals of the day, as long as you do it right & take care how you prepare it or the quality of what you use. Even the humble slice of toast with butter would probably make it onto my desert island list of foods as long as it was great bread & a good quality butter, none of this pappy thinly sliced white that never goes off & tastes of damp cardboard. No! Not for me. Theres a saying about being the best thing since sliced bread. There are many things which are much better than sliced bread. I'd better move on here as I sense a food rant coming on & we don't want that do we.
Back to breakfast then. As Andy greeted the morning sun in his soon to be cult status Muppet onesie I cooked some bacon, smoked of course, thick succulent rashers from pigs that actually had a life. This was then put into thick slices of good bread with some Tommy K & a pinch of salt & black pepper. As we ate we were silent, enjoying the moment of being beside a wild mountain lake eating a bacon sarnie, the sun warming the very cockles of our hearts & nourishing our souls.

Andy greets the morning in his Muppet onesie.

Sizzle, spit, crackle.

As diamonds dance upon the water Andy tucks in to his bacon sarnie.

After breakie we packed up & decided to walk around the lake before heading home. Again our path was marked with the white rump of Wheatears & on the Western shore I found a Toad ( sorry Helen. My friend Helen doesn't like Toads so I feel it only kind to warn her that a photo of one is coming up ) which surprised me up here. It must be a harsh life as a Toad in this environment. It looked a little odd to me, like it was a toy one, made of plastic. It is a real one honest.

It is a real Toad but it looks more like a toy one to me.

The weather started to change & the clouds grew thicker, the sun bid farewell & we walked in a homewards direction ( always best I find when wanting to get home ) along the base of the escarpment, its sides slashed with scars of Indian red, the path pimpled with shiny round sheep droppings the size of Blueberries but not as tasty. The path was dusty & pink & the aroma of sheep comforting & warm. No sheep jokes here please. Stopping to take some more photos we realised that our adventure was almost over.

The colour started to drain from the sky as the clouds grew thicker.

A quad in the distance rounds up sheep & I sit upon a rock gnome-like.

Almost home. 

And full circle, back where we started. 

Some of you will not have read this far but if you have I thank you for coming along & if I could give you a medal I would. It was a fun adventure & Andy & myself plan to go on more. Some would say that the idea of heading out into the hills & sleeping under a bit of cloth is madness, those people preferring the comforts of home. Well I love those comforts too but to be out there experiencing life, out in nature feels real & it feels good. We were both tired the following day & our legs didn't function properly & some would say that we had lost our sanity but in the end all I lost was my hat.

                                                                      The End.