Snowdonia Warden - North Wales Moan 3

Cadair Idris, Snowdonia National Park Warden

After an evening spent on a great farm campsite just down the road we parked up at the Dol Idris car park for the Minffordd path ascent of Cadair Idris.

It was hot. Very hot. It was a Sunday morning. It was 0845.

There was a petrol strimmer running, on and on... And on and on...

I noticed a warden for Snowdonia National Park was in the car park and by 9.45 I had had enough and so I approached her and asked why there was someone hand strimming a massive field. I was not averse to work being done, I said, but a four stroke petrol affair would be a lot less noisy...

The warden said that they were making a wildflower meadow. I said yes, but a hand strimmer for such a large area and at such a time and on a Sunday? She then said well if you don't like the noise you can leave and in any case you have stayed overnight in this car park and that is against our regulations...

That made me angry...

I said NO, I had not stayed overnight and that that was very accusatory of her and stating that if we don't like it we can leave is not very constructive. I again highlighted the idiocy of hand strimming what effectively is a farmers field and walked off.

She stopped her vehicle and continued to try to make clear to me that the noise and over an hour long use of a petrol strimmer was all for the good of 'nature'. She did however go to the bloke with the strimmer and she had him stop.

The areas strimmed is huge and instead of looking anything like a wildflower meadow it looks like a closely cropped and dried out grass field with piles off drying grasses at the edges, something that you could find in any large garden at this time of the year.

What really got to me was the fact that once I had wrong footed her she immediately attempted to accuse me of what she would perceive as an offence. It would appear old style customer service is not on the cards in situations such as this anymore...

Disgraceful behaviour b y the Snowdonia National Park representative and also poor management of a site that really just needs to be left alone if they want it to be a wildlife habitat. What nonsense are they discussing over tea and biscuits at Snowdonia HQ?

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