The fun Welsh wellness retreat — for people who hate wellness retreats

Times

4 days ago

I've no truck with restrictive diets, my liquid intake is roughly 95 per cent coffee and red wine and I loathe camping. So I'm not a likely candidate for one of those hardcore boot-camp retreats I keep seeing on Instagram, where you're doing burpies on gravel from the second you arrive, caffeine isn't an option in the low-cal fasting regime and it's £950 for two nights in 'a vegan-friendly yurt' that may or may not have been constructed from bin bags.
When it comes to wellness my passions are yoga and walking and I'd like somewhere cosy to sleep once I've kicked off my trekking boots. It had felt impossible to find the reset I was after — something doable in a weekend that wouldn't involve dollops of self-denial or wrestling with tent pegs — but then I found Zest Life's small-group hiking and yoga retreat in Anglesey, north Wales, on social media. There is no booze and meals are vegetarian, with the ethos being about embracing mental and physical wellness through a combo of seasonal outdoor activities and yoga. I was drawn to a weekend on Anglesey in May, but other options included wild swimming in Norway in summer and breath-work and cold-water swimming in November.
The plan was straightforward: get to Anglesey for Friday evening, do an hour's yoga, get up early on Saturday to trek up Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and have a post-walk yoga session. Then on Sunday there would be a short local walk and lunch before leaving feeling virtuous and refreshed, no self-flagellation needed.
Indeed the only hellish part was an eight-hour drive from London to north Wales, until my friend Jo and I turned onto the A55 and the hilly Gwynedd coastline facing the Irish Sea unspooled. The sun was shining and the mercury set to gloriously warm for the weekend.
Our digs for two nights was Plas Cadnant Hidden Gardens, a mini country manor house with holiday cottages and 200 acres of grounds in a valley outside the town of Menai Bridge, just a hop over Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge and 35 minutes from Eryri National Park (Snowdonia).
The drive up to the traditional Welsh stone-walled buildings past neat lawns was promising, and inside — once I'd decanted a car boot's worth of my overpacking — things got off on an instantly cheerful footing.
First things first, refreshments of cherry cake and apple and elderflower kombucha were served and there was an introduction to our course leader, the yoga teacher Katy Stylli. We were shown to our room, which had an en suite (some of the lower-priced rooms have a shared bathroom), and while it wasn't five-star, the duvets were super-soft, the beds as cosy as I'd hoped and there was a homeliness to the antique dark-wood furniture you wouldn't get at a hotel.
Just after 5.30pm we met the rest of the group; 13 of us, all women, with ages spanning from 30s to 60s. Stylli broke the ice with a variation of the shopping list memory game; we had to say our names and something we like that begins with the same letter. I went for lemons, Jo Jack Russells. It was a surprising success and gave our group an instant in-joke that was called back to throughout the weekend; we chatted about Tanya's choice of tango (she'd never actually done the dance) and Sonia's genuine love of a sunset.
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At 6pm it was time for the first yoga class and I was jangling with nerves as we walked across the gardens to Plas Cadnant's visitor centre, which doubles as the studio. While I love yoga, I started doing it only four years ago, aged 39, and I'm far from bendy. My crow pose involves genuine corvid-style squawking and my downward dog is modelled on a recalcitrant labrador.
I need not have worried. Stylli took the first class gently (somewhere between the vinyasa and hatha styles I'm used to), starting with breathing exercises that moved into a flow of poses. Everyone worked to a pace they felt comfortable with, no contortions needed. The focus was on loosening the legs before the next day's big walk and feeling present in the moment.
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Later, dinner was in the upstairs dining room of the house, which looked like a Plantagenet king's banqueting room. The long, heavy table was set with candles and the high-backed chairs gave off a grand air. We were all thinking it: 'It looks a bit like the Traitors' castle — where's Claudia Winkleman and which one of us is going to get banished at the end of the night?' Jo joked, as we sat down to proper portions of Sri Lankan beetroot curry with tofu, heaps of salad and sambal, and, after, a chia seed pudding. Our chef for the weekend was Cathy Whitfield, who popped out from the kitchen to explain that her dishes are inspired by her travels and her love of fermentation.
Aware of the 6am start, we all hit the (very comfortable) hay by 10pm.
The following day was the big hike and by 5.45am it was that rare thing in Wales — shorts weather. I was glad I'd brought enough water bottle capacity, three litres, plus an SPF 70 sun cream I'd bought in the Caribbean. I'd been up Yr Wyddfa once before, 20 years ago, on the Llanberis Path, effectively the easiest route, approaching from the northwest. This time we were taking a more strenuous trail: Rhyd Ddu, a quiet pathway known for its views, which approaches Yr Wyddfa's summit from the southwest.
We took taxis to the car park of Rhyd Ddu train station, where the trail starts. There was time for a breakfast of tea and banana bread (homemade by Whitfield) as we were introduced to our guides, Iona Pawson and Amy Fox from RAW Adventures. The ascent is taken seriously: both are qualified mountain leaders, and there was a short safety briefing, radios, and an equipment check.
I'm not a fast walker — I lingered near the back, and I knew from the off it would take me the full six hours. As Pawson said: 'You've come to terms with your pace on the mountain and that's all good.' The first part of the walk was easy strolling, with views up to Pen ar Lon and down to Llyn y Gadair, where hills and yawning valleys covered in grass the colour of the Starbucks logo lay ahead when I turned to admire the views.
Two hours in and there was a shock for me. Yr Wyddfa's southern ridge involved some significant scrambling. There was a moment when I wasn't so grateful for the sparkling sun after all. If it had been foggy I wouldn't have been able to see the terrifying sheer drop either side of me. My pace dropped to sloth-like over the small cliffs of steep uneven rock. It was properly challenging and I was puffed out — this isn't a climb for the faint-hearted or unfit. At the summit, though, I realised that for the first time in months I was untroubled by the constant noise in my head: thoughts of work, an impending remortgage and my recurring paranoia of whether I've left the gas on back in London all simply stopped.
Sorry to say it, but the summit of Yr Wyddfa wasn't as much fun as the ascent itself. There was a whiff of sewage around the back of the café and the queue to check in at trig point 10684 on the man-made plinth was at least an hour. We didn't join it. I was troubled by the fact I didn't see a single bird up there, other than chonky gulls.
But it's a truth universally acknowledged that a sandwich at the top of a mountain tastes better than it does at the bottom, and Whitfield's packed lunch of a cheese and chutney roll proved the point again. After 20 minutes or so we all agreed to head back down.
We took the Llanberis Path and with the summit done, we chatted more deeply. Sonia Rowbotham, 30, had come from Hartlepool: 'I wanted to do this because I just love hiking, and yesterday I did a circular walk around Conwy, finishing at the Smallest House in Great Britain, to extend the weekend,' she told me. 'My next project is more Munro-bagging in Scotland.'
That ambition is something that Laura Bell, who founded Zest Life in 2001, understands well. Her experiences are why Zest Life's retreats are grounded in a holisitc approach to wellness and fitness.
'I had an eating disorder in my twenties and very low self-esteem,' Bell explained. 'And I started Zest with what I love, which is being out in nature and feeling in tune with the seasons.
'But I also want these retreats to be luxurious, with delicious food and an opportunity where everyone can push themselves and have a laugh.'
We reached the bottom around 3pm and there was an option to go to the wood-fired Sawna Bach next to the National Slate Museum, which faces Llyn Padarn. I had my swimsuit in my backpack, but I was too exhausted to get changed — all I could do was lie on the ground and wait for the feeling in my feet to return.
Back at Plas Cadnant, the gentle, hour-long yin-style yoga session led by Stylli was most welcome, holding leg poses including baddha konasana (butterfly pose) and kapotasana (pigeon pose) for several minutes at a time to help us stretch.
The yoga session on Sunday at 8am was the most strenuous of the three, designed to iron out any walker's tension. After the hard work came a breakfast of spinach tart, great wedges of bread (no carb bans here) and a berry kefir smoothie. Then we were off for an hour's guided walk with Stylli around Menai Bridge.
All the mountain hiking, yoga and eating meant I'd inadvertently saved seeing the gardens at Plas Cadnant for Sunday afternoon. Beyond the formal section of perfectly trimmed lawns and pyramid-shaped hedges was a steep valley. A maze of pathways edged by ferns, rhododendrons, late tulips, hibiscus and roses about to bud led to a secluded waterfall. Zest Life had done exactly what it promised: I felt stretched by nature in all the best possible ways.Laura Jackson was a guest of Zest Life, which has two nights' full board from £695pp, including yoga, guided walks and accommodation at Plas Cadnant, departing on October 3, 2025 (zestlife.co.uk)