Introduction
New people are infuriating: they are forever telling you about their new-found discoveries, about things that have been around for ages. I’m one of those people, new to Snowdonia a few years ago, and loving every moment of it.
Shortly after arriving I attended an event called ‘A Walk on the Wildside’, aimed to inspire local people to make more of what is around us in attracting visitors to the area. Our guide was Twm Elias, from Plas Tan y Bwlch, the national park’s training centre, and he started off …. ‘It’s not just a pretty landscape, you know…’ I was so impressed with what followed, the stories and history he told, that I wrote up the event for the benefit of those that couldn’t attend.
Since that day I have been unable to stop discovering, talking and writing about the wonderful things that lie just below the surface of this ‘pretty landscape’. Due to the mountainous nature of the land, the low density population and National Park status there has been minimal development to wipe away the past. It’s like walking through a slice of evolution.
Over the years some things have fallen by the wayside: creatures such as the beavers didn’t make it. They were too tasty and by the thirteenth century had been hunted to extinction. But the habitat is still right for them and very soon I expect they will be reintroduced in line with the rest of Europe.