I’ve been following the Mawddach river over the past few days with a team of students, heading west from Dolgellau on the old railway…

The weather was perfect – dry, bright and without a breath of wind – to begin with at least! Plenty of small stuff to look at along the way as well…

At Penmon Pool, the reflections on the water were superb as the tide was high.

The autumn colours were in full force and even the tree bark was looking artisitc.

Before heading in land towards Cader Idris and our overnight accommodation at the ‘Kings’ Youth Hostel, we stopped and sat on the river banks to watch the sun set. It really was sublime.

The walk up the Hostel took us past one of my favourite trees! What a whopper! The eight students in my group could only just link arms around it’s trunk.

After spending most of the day on the cycle track, the saturated ground in the surrounding fields made for a challenging final kilometre.

With the bulk of Cader looming in the distance, we made it to the Hostel just before needing headtorches.

We were self-catering at the Youth Hostel, so I took a shift in the kitchen on arrival and stayed there until around 21:00! Chopping spuds, stirring stew and supervising sandwich making for the next day. It was quite an epic, with nearly 40 people to feed in total! I was asleep as my head hit the pillow around midnight…

The next day brought a change in the weather! Storm Claudia was on her way!

We did at least have the gales blowing us in the right direction and with our hoods up, the rain didn’t bother us too much as we marched onwards to the coast…

The high tide had washed up loads of debris in swirling patterns…

We got the students back and cleared up as the full force of the storm arrived, but driving back to The Cottage was wild. The A5, and later the A55 closed due to floods and I almost didn’t make it home to The Cottage. Following another van, I drove through the deepest floods I’d ever seen around here after turning around at several points. Eventually, my last option still had a glimmer of the white line showing, so I cautiously pushed on and arrived exhausted and wired back at the sanctuary of The Cottage. By morning, the roads in both directions out of Coed y Parc were closed. A local tested the depth here and it went over her knees!

Eventually, I made it out via several alternative routes and got to work!