I spent some time with my offspring in Wales over the summer. We wanted to go see metal birds flying close to the ground and so took ourselves to the Mach Loop. The Mach Loop or LFA7 is a designated low flying area for military aircraft in Wales. There is an area where they can go lower than 250 feet and that’s called LFA7(T), the T is for tactical but that is slightly south of the Mach Loop. A lot of people think the Mach Loop is so called because of how speed relative to the local speed of sound is measured in Mach, but that is not the case. The Mach Loop is named for the town at one of the entrances to the loop: Machynlleth.
The first day of the trip was to drive to Wales and set up camp. Two Texans flew over at relatively low altitudes and that was nice. We were camping near the town of Dolgellau. Dolgellau looks quite large on the map and perhaps it is large for a Welsh town. It’s at the confluence of some A roads and on a river. The town itself has a few pubs, some restaurants and a single Co-Op. It’s very pretty.
The first full day in Wales we drove to Machynlleth to see what it was like and have breakfast. I booked some tickets for a tour of a mine and we headed to Castel y Bere which was marked on road signs. It was the ruins of a castle but it was such a lovely setting, miles from anywhere, sitting in a valley overlooking the lands, no phone signal, dodgy roads. “One of the most beautiful places I’ve been” was a comment from one of our party (not me). Driving to our afternoon activity we stopped briefly by Llyn Mwyngil for some photographs and then reached our destination of Corris. We had a tour of the old Corris slate mine – it was lovely and cool, the outside was pretty hot. The Barmouth called and we headed there. There was a pedestrian and railway bridge across the mouth of the river and so we walked on that.
Once we were bored of this view, which took quite a while we walked back over the bridge. A train came over the bridge which was pretty exciting. Then we headed back to the campsite via the Penmaenpool Toll Bridge, a wooden bridge crossing the river and one that I had to pay for the privilege of using.
The following day was a trip to what could be the place we use to see metal birds flying. I had studied maps and there are a couple of places that are suitable for observers. We had driven past one on the way to the campsite originally so this time we walked up the hill to get to know where we were going. It was a Sunday and so there was no chance of anything being in the air but it was good to check out the land before we actually did try and see planes. Then we went to the Dovey Valley Shooting Ground for a go at clay pigeon shooting. We also had lunch here. The less said about the clay shooting the better. I am a rifle target shooter and not particularly good at shooting flying clays (terrible actually).
The following daylight hours were spent driving to Llanberis, walking up Snowdon, walking down Snowdon and then driving back to the campsite. I couldn’t get parked to be able to walk the Pyg Track so Llanberis seemed the best chance. We also didn’t have the best clothing or footwear to be doing super adventurous routes up the mountain so the safest and busiest route seemed best. The weather was super sunny and clear pretty much all the way up the mountain, but for the forth time the summit was in cloud and I couldn’t see far. We ate at the café and I had a beer. Lots of people were coming up by train and then queuing to take a photo at the trig point at the absolute top of the mountain. It was a good achievement to walk to the top.
After a good night’s sleep we wanted to see Harlech Castle and so drove there. The closest car park was super busy with idiots trying to manoeuvre their massive cars to get out, so we drove past and looked at another car park. But, this one was down quite a hill and all of us decided that walking up a hill was not on the plan for a few hours and so we left. We had lunch at Llyn Trawsfynydd overlooking a couple of disused nuclear reactors. After that we went to watch metal birds. We parked at the crest of the road pass through the valley and climbed a little to a place known as Blywch. To be honest I think Blywch is just a word for “crest” or similar but in terms of birdwatching that’s what this place was known as. It was quite windy up the top and we found crevasses to sit and wait. There were other people up there and they had radios and aircraft trackers and all sorts so we spent our time listening to what they were saying.
It took two hours of waiting and so false starts with aircraft not quite making to our spot – we saw a Phenom in the distance. Then we had four F15s fly by, probably the same two twice. Then there were two Typhoons and a single Hawk. This was well worth it. The RAF planes were flying below us!
Our final day of being away from Kent involved us packing up and driving home. We did stop off for a little while at the RAF Museum at Cosford and we walked around enjoying the sites, but I think we all just wanted to get back to relax!