The longer days are tempting me further from home, so on the first morning with no forecast rain I head north into the county of Gwynedd. Skirting the estuaries of the Dyfi and the Mawddach, I pitch up at Harlech just as a light drizzle begins to fall. From the old shoreline, the great bulk of Harlech Castle and the crag on which it stands is imposing both by nature and design, the walls of dressed stone rooted directly into the ancient Cambrian rock.
Today, with the sky a uniform grey dome, the towers that define the structure are wet and dark with accumulated rain. In a group of bare trees clinging to clefts in the rock, three rooks fossick around in last year’s nests and argue over possession.
Avoiding the famously steep lane that climbs in switchbacks to the castle, I walk southwards before doubling back past overgrown woodland haunted by birdsong. My destination is an outcrop of rock I remember from years ago, which overlooks the settlement. Happily, the spot is much as I remember it: broad ledges of stone covered with lichen and edged with flowering gorse, although the surrounding trees have grown dramatically.
This outlook places me level with, or even slightly above, the castle, and has plenty of natural cover. Not for the first time, I wonder how many other folk once crouched here – out of bow-shot of all but the most skilled, or lucky, archers – observing the goings on within and around the battlements. It amuses me that the secrets of this castle, a massive engine of control and projection of power, could so easily be compromised by an old grandad like me – “taid” in the Welsh of north Wales – sitting on a rock and looking on.
A robin emerges from the tangled undergrowth as I unpack my lunch, clearly used to sharing. As we eat, I look across the bay to the Llŷn Peninsula, where the usually prominent hills are all but obscured by the mist and cloud, their outlines fading in and out of visibility as squalls of rain hiss across the bay. Against this broad panorama, the castle seems reduced in stature.
The great wedge of sand dunes and sweeping beach that has accreted below it over the centuries now looks temptingly deserted. But with the rain starting to beat against the hillside, it will have to wait for better weather.
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