What this is about

Many years ago, inspired by the example of waymarked circular walks such as London's Capital Ring, I began to wonder whether my home city of Bangor should have something similar. I began to plan the Bangor Ring walks, which grew to three concentric rings, with Lôn Adda running through the middle. I was going to write it up, but somehow lost interest, among competing other projects, and the idea got nowhere.

Now, facing lockdown and social distancing, and with the one daily chance to exercise close to home, this is the time to dust off those designs and look again at the Bangor Ring walks, as we walk these , and parts of these, during our daily exercise.

I will go into more detail on these later when I have re-walked some and firmed up on the routes, but here is a quick summary. A circular walk can of course be joined anywhere, but these walks have a nominal start and finish point at Aber Adda: the car park near the mouth of the Adda (by Crosville Club), where they also join up with Lôn Adda. Obviously they can be walked in either direction, but I tend to think of them as anticlockwise walks. The 'Outer Ring' is designed to follow approximately the outer boundaries of the City of Bangor, but extends beyond them for a better walk, and is about ten miles. The 'Inner Ring' is just inside the Outer Ring, but still mostly outside the built-up area, and is about seven miles. There was also going to be a 'City Ring', mostly a walk of the City centre, but I didn't get round to planning that one in detail, and maybe this will be the time to do so. There were going to be pushchair-friendly variants, too. More details will follow.

This blog isn't just going to cover the Ring Walks, but will also document something of the experience of more intensely walking around Bangor, and observations.