climbing hiking camping

Officially it’s called the Bryniau Glo Walk. I call it the Hidden Valley Walk. You climb up a long way on a well-defined trail, through a forest, over the hills and into a hidden valley. It’s protected on three sides by higher hills, with a view out to the rest of Snowdonia. I guess it’s because of that protection that it’s so silent. I stopped in the valley and listened. Nothing. No bird song. No wind. Just silence. The most perfect silence. For a moment in time, I was part of that silence. Transfixed by it. Such a perfect moment. Listening and hearing nothing. Looking out onto such stillness and beauty. Worshipping. Silence is not always welcomed. One of my favourite songs is The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel (check out the version by Disturbed – amazing!) But the lyrics are slightly depressive: ‘Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again, because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping.’ Too often we shut out silence. We su...

Did you know there is such a thing as ‘philosophical walking’? You do now. There’s even a group in Yorkshire who arrange such walks, complete with a friendly walking philosopher. But if we think for a moment, all walks can be philosophical – especially those away from our daily routines. We see new things, we plan to get somewhere, we consider routes, we observe the new things around us. All that adds to a philosophical walk. I’m just back from one of my favourite places – Dolgellau, just south of Snowdonia. Walking in the foothills there is invigorating, uplifting, challenging, tiring…. all these things and more. One day I went out on my own on what is called the ‘bird sanctuary walk’- basically climbing half way up a hill and walking through a nature reserve. The only bird I saw was a crow! But there was plenty to enjoy, consider – even meditate on. Those that know me will know that for me there is a ‘God connection’ too. To appreciate the creation made by God is special. There’s a f...

I live in a beautiful place. On the edge of a village, our house looks over open fields with an ever changing landscape of sun, sky and clouds. The photo’s illustrate – but don’t do justice – to God’s creative grandeur. For me, such beauty always points me to the Creator behind it. I find it incredulous that someone can say for a moment that all we see, from the snowflake to Everest, from the flower to the flowering of the Grand Nebula are simply the chance encounters of atoms. No. There is a Creator. And He is to be worshiped . We only worship Him in an incomplete way. As C S Lewis put it: ‘We are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.’ So, we don’t fully understand or see. But what we do see is su...

A few musings from my daily diary today..... 'It's a beautifully sunny Sunday morning and I'm sitting in the back garden, looking over the rolling fields. The sheep are on the far side today and I can see the cattle in the distance. The bird feeder is doing good business. A flock of sparrows come and go. They do great damage to the two containers with normal seed, spilling the contents onto the floor in a flurry of wings. Having seemingly spilled a lot and eaten little, they contentedly sit as a flock in the nearby rosebush, observing their destructive handiwork. There's two starlings in attendance too. They don't balance too well as they try and eat the fat cubes. One seems to be the baby of the other and even in this extended summer, it's still calling for attention. A robin stands contentedly on the floor below the feeders, picking up a King's breakfast from what the sparrows drop. A blue tit flits in and out from the peanuts, startled by the noise from t...