On our way home from Snowdonia I had planned for us to stop off to climb Maesglase, but we changed our mind when a short walk up to Dolwyddelan Castle in the drizzle showed our legs were still saw. We weren't giving up on walking entirely though. We headed for Fairbourne, where instead of being up on the mountains looking down, we'd be down at sea level looking up. We started by catching a packed train on the Fairbourne Railway up to the Barmouth Ferry station.
We then had a short ferry ride across to Barmouth, in a boat that could take at most 8 people at a time. No problem though, there were plenty of them going back and forth so no one had to wait for long.
It was lunchtime by this point so we bought fish and chips and ate them on the quayside. Then we started the walk back to Fairbourne. The mainline railway goes over a long bridge across the Mawddach estuary and alongside there's a path for cyclists and pedestrians. On the way across a train went past, which made the bridge shake somewhat.
It was then a case of following the coastal path on back to Fairbourne. There were fine views across the mud flats to Barmouth and we also got to watch two trains doing a token handover so they could cross over.
As my son said, we had good views of land and sea, fish and chips, a ride on a train and a boat, no steep climbs and an ice cream to finish off - we'd have had none of that up the mountain. And while a little bit of me wished we'd climbed another mountain, mostly I had to agree. If anyone has any suggestions for other walks like this, less than 10km with places to eat and interesting things to look at on the way, I'd love to hear them.