Ever wondered what that odd line about “the Rivals” in “Green Grow the Rushes- Oh” means – the one before the “two, two, lilly white boys, dressèd all in green-a-ho”? No-one really knows for sure, but the most convincing answer is that it refers to a trio of shapely hills on the Lleyn peninsula in North Wales. Known collectively as Yr Eifl (literally “The Fork” in Welsh), the peaks were much loved landmarks on the old Pilgrims Road to Bardsey Island, heralding the end of a long journey for weary travelers from England, who Anglicized their Welsh name to “the Rivals”.
Yr Eifl is one among a dozen or so low hills, here known as carns, that carbuncle the face of the Lleyn. Jutting more than sixty kilometres/thirty-seven miles into the Irish Sea from the Cambrian Coast, the promontory feels more like an island than a peninsula: remote, exposed to the elements, and with a distinctive maritime light that is at its most magical on clear evenings, when the setting sun casts a red glow across the mountains of Snowdonia just inland.
[1] From the crossroads in the centre of Llithfaen, walk east along the B4417 for a couple of minutes in the direction Caernarfon as far as a turning on your left opposite a small chapel. Follow the lane uphill until you pass the last of the houses to reach open moorland. Follow the wide track signed to Yr Eifl.
[2] Head right from the fork in the track at SH359437(A), keeping the day’s first objective, Caergribin, firmly in your sights. Stay on the main trail, which runs left of the hilltop, but after the black kissing gate turn right onto a narrower path for the final climb to the rocky summit.
[3] Follow the little path running north off the top of Caergribin, dropping through the heather to rejoin the main path to Tre'r Ceiri, the next summit to the north-west. Turn right when you reach the latter, which continues north east to another kissing gate through a drystone wall. It then drifts right before switching left up the hillside towards the southwestern entrance to the Tre’r Ceiri hillfort (B). An obvious path leads towards the summit of the hill, at the top right corner of the enclosure.
[4] Having admired the view, continue ahead in the same direction, as far as the perimeter wall, then turn left, following the inside of the wall past a tunneled entrance. Keep going, and you’ll soon arrive at the main gateway on the west side of the enclosure, marked with an interpretative panel – it’s not far from the one through which you entered the fort. Head through this to reach a second paved entrance, where you exit the enclosure and bear right along a narrow path that soon after swings left (west) towards the pass below. Continue in the same direction from the saddle dividing Tre’r Ceiri from Yr Eifl (also known as “Garn Ganol”), and keep right when you reach a fork in the trail. The correct route is obvious, winding more steeply uphill via grassy patches through the rocks to Yr Eifl’s summit trigpoint and ancient cairn, from where the view is magnificent.
[5] For the descent from the top of Yr Eifl, follow the trail leading southwest from the summit – orientate yourself by steering towards the tip of the Lleyn if you can see it, passing between two lesser rocky summits. After a steep start, the path eases off as you lose ground. At a junction in paths veer to the right. Once past a tumbledown stone wall, it bends westwards across open, bracken-covered moorland towards the junction of a forestry road and quarry track at SH353440, to the north of which lies a large council car park. Keeping the car park to your right, head left (south) down the lane, past a row of houses and on for another 600m/650yards to regain Llithfaen village.
Public toilets In Llithfaen opposite the pub.