I always bring a set of darts with me wherever I can, just in case an opportunity presents. This was the case on a scrambling holiday in Snowdonia. Although the weather was uncharacteristically fair for Wales, meaning no all day pub darts sessions was had, there was still a chance for a few pints and a throw one evening. The mural outside promised darts, and we weren’t disappointed. The only cask beer on was the Snowdon Craft Bitter. It had just a whiff of being on the turn, but I was too keen to get to the board to bring it up. Although I did switch to their keg IPA thereafter. There was a telly at the end of the oche blasting S4C, but we were eventually deafened to its din.

Unusually, the oche had two boards stacked vertically one above the other. The top board was the correct height, with the bull 173cm (5’8”) above the ground. The second board had the bull about 75cm (~2’6”) off the ground. Too low to be a wheelchair/junior darts set-up, which has the bull at 137cm (4’6”). I’m not sure what the second board was for. Both boards were Unicorn Eclipse Pros with bladed spiders. Neither board was rotated, but all the beds were in good nick. The lighting mount for the top board was cool; an old school Marin mountain bike frame chopped in half, with the light dangling from the head tube where the fork would normally sit. The final leg was played on the lower board. I was at a significant advantage over Tim, being almost a foot smaller, and just about managed to pin double eight to take the match.

The oche line was a simple strip of tape, I didn’t have my measuring string with me, but it seemed about the right length. There wasn’t much space between the radiator to the right and the pool table to the left, making getting out of the way after collecting your darts tricky. However, we settled into a pattern once the legs of 301 were flowing. The bigger issue was when people were playing pool. There were often pauses in either game as whoever was on throw/cue finished what they were doing. From the layout of the room there wasn’t much that could be done about it, and patience is a virtue.

There was a decent sized chalkboard to the right of the darboard. It had a slightly funny surface that chalk didn’t stick to well, but it was adequate for the task. The previously mentioned issue of getting out of the way post-throwing was fixed by writing on the chalkboard, as there was just about space for the next person to throw safely as the previous person updated their score.

Throwing some darts was a great addition to a fantastic holiday in Snowdonia, I would have been delighted with a much worse set-up. Getting to have a throw for an hour or two after a stunning day in the hills was the icing on the cake. We did a few scrambles from Garry Smith’s book which I can highly recommend.