Yesterday we drove up the vary steep and narrow lane to the car park at Cwm Eigiau to have a circular walk up to Melinllyn and Dulyn. The path to the lakes is stony and steep at first but eases up as you enter the valley where the lakes are. The path then follows the contours of the hill high above the valley and gives some great views across to the Carneddau mountains and the lakes. Just before you arrive at Melinllyn there is the ruin of an old mill but we couldn't work out what it did in its working life. We had a quick look at the lake before descending down a very steep path to the more impressive lake Dulyn
The lake is surrounded on its northern side by the high cliffs of the Carneddau mountain range and you can see why the lake got its name Dulyn or black lake in English. Sadly on the 11th November 1944 a plane crashed into the top of the cliffs and all four passengers in the plane died. Some of the wreckage fell in to the lake and apparently the prop was recovered by Stanton, Hall , Wilkinson et al from 50 metres depth, below the cliff on opposite side of lake in 1998. As the water was quite low the prop could been seen quite clearly in the water.
We were starting to feel quite hungry by then so we headed for the bothy to have our lunch. We struck up a conversation with a very pleasant guy called Phil who was busy renovating the bothy inside and out. He had put in new joists and floors and was building bunk beds for future visitors to the place. Phil was a carpenter by trade and lived in Brighton but had been here living and working in the bothy for the last three weeks as an unpaid volunteer, what a remarkable thing to do and in complete contrast to a visiting imbecile who in the past broke every window in the place.
After we had lunch we said goodbye to Phil and headed off across the moorland back to the car park passing by a ruined farmhouse that had been abandoned many years ago.
If anyone knows the road from the Cwm Eigiau car park back to Tal Y Bont then they will know that it's not suitable for the faint hearted and thanks to some superb driving from Tellytubby we arrived safely in Tal Y Bont. He had to reverse a long distance uphill on two occasions when tractors and trailers came up the slope and then we met another car coming up this narrow lane but we all ended up well. If only his navigation skills were as good as his driving!