Monday July 17th - Part 1 - Rhoscolyn & Tyger's memorial

Another glorious morning arrived and when I took the dogs out for their first walk I took the camera with me. Several changes had been made to the site since I was there last year, including cutting back or down many of the trees and high bushes separating the individual fields, which gave views of the sea to those areas which previously didn't have any and also gave the site in general a more open look. I must admit that after camping there for twenty years I'd got used to it as it was and when I'd arrived this time I wasn't sure I liked the changes, but they'd grown on me over the last few days and when I stood on the edge of the headland field and looked across the main body of the site I had to concede that it did look much better.

My main mission for that day was to do a bit of remedial work on Tyger's memorial stone at Rhoscolyn; I didn't know if anyone locally looked after it but I'd noticed last year that the inscription was fading, so unless someone else had already done it I was going to repaint the lettering, hence the previous day's purchase of paint and brushes.

When I got to the car park at Rhoscolyn beach I was quite surprised to find it was now a pay-and-display place; it had always been free, indeed it was free when I went there last year, but now there was a ticket machine and a large board displaying the prices. Hoping that two hours would be enough I stuck the relevant ticket in the front windscreen, gathered my things together and set off with the dogs. It was a very pleasant, if rather hot, walk but I kept up a steady pace and with only a couple of very brief photography stops it didn't take too long to get to the stone.

There were plenty of sheep mooching about round the cliff top, although the dogs didn't bother about them and they didn't seem to be bothered about the dogs, but where you get sheep you also get sheep poo and I had to remove several lumps of it before I could kneel on the grass at Tyger's stone. 

Painting the inscription was easier than I'd thought it would be and the day was so hot that by the time I finished the last number the paint was almost dry so the whole lot got a second coat. With hindsight I should maybe have used a finer brush as the lettering looked a bit thicker in some places than it should have been, but with a posy of wild flowers at the base it did look better than before.

With mission accomplished I wandered a bit further along the cliff top in search of the Black Arch. After I'd found the White Arch last year I was informed later that the Black Arch wasn't far from it - this was true as I hadn't gone far from Tyger's memorial when I found it, and though it wasn't as impressive as the White Arch it was still worthy of a couple of photos.

Mindful of the time and not wanting to overstay my time on the car park ticket I didn't linger too long before I set off back. From up near the coastguard look-out I got a great view over to the mainland; the hills of the Llyn peninsula rose up out of a sea level mist which obscured the coastline, and in the foreground the rocky Gull's Islands stood out in dark contrast to the surrounding blue - that was one view which, to me, was definitely worth a shot.

With a handful of shots taken on my approach to the beach I got back to the car park with just five minutes to spare. I would have liked to stay and explore the far end of the beach but it was the last full day of the holiday and there was somewhere else I wanted to go to. I could always explore Rhoscolyn beach another time; my main mission had been accomplished and it was now time to head off for the next part of my day.

Sunday July 16th - Part 2 - Rhosneigr, Penrhos & Holyhead

Parking in Rhosneigr can be a bit of a nightmare in summer with any available spaces filling up quickly, but on the outskirts of the village, set back just off the main road from Aberffraw, was a small free car park big enough for a dozen or so cars. There was just one space available when I got there so I parked up and went for a wander, seeking out the stream running across the beach which Ruth had mentioned in her blog. I'd been to Rhosneigr three times in the last few years but never to the south end of the beach so this was something new to me.

Just round the corner from the car park was a sign pointing to a picnic area; it sounded like a good place to start so I followed the path and within a couple of minutes I'd found what I was looking for - the stream, overlooked by a strategically placed bench and crossed by a small bridge. It widened out where it hit the beach and took a sharp right turn before sweeping round in a curve to join the sea; I was well impressed with that end of the beach and wished I'd gone there years ago.

A tarmac slope led up from the beach onto a lane with very pleasant-looking houses and bungalows on each side; a distance along took me past another small beach then a couple of side streets took me onto the main beach which was a hive of activity with windsurfers, catamarans and boats out on the water. A couple of tractors were bringing boats in and half a dozen other tractors were parked in a line along the sand; with the exception of one they were all older models though they were very smartly painted in their correct colours.

With the afternoon getting on I decided not to go any further along the beach; I needed to go to the Stermat store at Valley, which was quite a distance from Rhosneigr, and I didn't want to risk it being closed when I got there. With one shot taken on the beach and another from the village square I made my way back to the van and headed off for the A55 which would get me to Valley in a fairly quick time.

The Stermat store was thankfully still open when I got there and after getting what I wanted - a small tin of black gloss paint and some cheap artist's paint brushes - I drove across the embankment to Penrhos coastal park to get a cheeseburger from Pete's burger bar. I was destined to be disappointed however as the burger van wasn't there - that was really unusual as other than Christmas it's always there. By that time I was ready for something to eat so with no chance of having one of Pete's delicious burgers I decided to try the Toll House Cafe near the entrance to the park. The menu items weren't exactly cheap but the scrambled egg on toast was reasonable so I ordered that and a coffee, and I have to say that it was actually very nice.

When I came out of the cafe the tide was still in and as I'm very rarely at the coastal park when it is I spent a few minutes wandering along taking a few snaps. Several benches were set by the path, some of them with memorial plaques and posies of flowers attached, and behind one of them was a lovely little miniature garden in a small clearing under a bush; it looked really sweet and was worth a photo. 

My next port of a call was a visit to my friends Louise and Derek, just a few minutes drive away on the outskirts of Holyhead, but there was no-one in when I got there and I had a sneaking suspicion they may have been away on holiday themselves. Turning out of their road I went left instead of right, just to see what was down there, and I ended up close to the fishing dock. With only one boat moored up and no activity it was a bit of a boring place but I did get a good shot of a seagull on the harbour wall.

There was a huge Stena Line ferry berthed over at the ferry port but from where I was I couldn't get a good shot of it so off I went in search of a good vantage point. I ended up on the edge of a large housing estate with a playing field and a vast expanse of well kept grassland stretching between the last row of houses and the sea. From the bottom of the field I could see the ferry clearly and got a great shot - if I'd been much closer I could have got on board. 

As I walked back across the field I noticed a stone archway set down in the bottom corner; with no buildings around it looked rather incongruous stuck there on its own so I went to take a look, and discovered something else I hadn't previously known about. An overgrown flight of steps led down through the arch to a rocky beach and over on the right, on what would probably be a small island during a very high tide, was a ruined stone building. It looked like it had been a square tower but when I climbed up to take a closer look I found it had a bit built out at the back; research since I got home has so far given me no clue as to what it could have been. By the time I got back to the van it was early evening and I'd been out long enough - time to be heading back to the camp site but I had one more brief stop to do first, at Penrhos beach. 

With just a couple of shots taken I headed for the A55 and took the fast route down to Llangefni, then less than quarter of an hour from there saw me back at the camp site. It had just gone 8pm by then so the rest of the evening was spent relaxing with my book, and after the long day we'd had all three of us slept well that night.