Monday June 8th 2015 - Part 1 - Looking for lions, Penrhos & Trearddur Bay

Another warm sunny morning arrived, and the last full day of the holiday. My quest this time was to find and photograph the Egyptian-style lions at Britannia Bridge; there are two at the bridge entrance on the Anglesey side and two on the mainland side. Carved out of limestone, each one is 25ft long, 13ft tall and sits on a 13ft high base; put there when the original rail bridge was constructed in the mid 1800s, a rather modest and amusing short poem written at the time stated "Four fat lions without any hair, two over this side and two over there". 

After the bridge was partially destroyed by fire in 1970 it was rebuilt with the modern day road running above the rail line, meaning that the lions are now hidden from view and can only be seen briefly from the train - road users will actually pass just feet above them without ever knowing they are there. 

I didn't set out until late morning, and as I had no idea how to find these lions I stopped at the petrol station nearest to the bridge, which is actually a mile away from it, to ask in there, and got directions for the lions on both sides of the bridge. Assuming that all four lions were exactly the same I decided there was no point going across the bridge to find the ones on the far side, I'd be happy finding just the two on the Anglesey side.

Parking up at St. Mary's church close to the Menai Straits I walked a little way back up the hill to a wide footpath which took me down through a wooded area and back in the direction of the straits; I'd only gone a few hundred yards when the path opened up onto the railway embankment on my right and there, up ahead of me, were the lions I was looking for. Climbing up the embankment I reached the level of the railway line and the underside of the A55, but because of all the chain link fencing and security gates (I was now on Network Rail land) I couldn't get as close as I wanted to and it was almost impossible to take a clear shot of either of them without part of the bridge being in view. From a distance they didn't look too bad, but looking from a closer position these things were seriously ugly; however, I'd completed my mission and with a few shots taken I made my way back to the van.

From St. Mary's church I drove along to the A5 and all the way up to Penrhos coastal park - it was lunch time by then so I couldn't resist getting another cheeseburger from Pete's burger bar. Parked up in the sunshine and overlooking the bay it was nice just to sit in the van and relax for a while.

With lunch over it was time for my next quest - finding the old stone boat house somewhere at the far side of the coastal park. This wasn't something featured in the photography book I was following, I'd actually found out about it while chatting to Pete when I got my cheeseburger the previous day. Taking a path by the duck pond I wandered through the woods until I emerged onto a wide tarmac lane where there was a stone-built folly with a castellated tower; this particular building had actually been renovated in recent years and was being used as the club house for the nearby cricket ground.

Just down the lane was the path which closely followed the edge of the coastline and which I'd walked part way along only a month previously; if I'd gone a bit farther than I had I would have found the old boat house then. It was situated just down below the path at the end of a small rocky cove, and only the rusting remains of an old slipway at one side gave any indication of what it had once been. With a few shots taken I headed back to the van, this time taking the path which ran close to the various little coves and beaches.

From Penrhos I drove along past Four Mile Bridge and round to Trearddur Bay, heading for the little cove I'd discovered and photographed four years previously. Things looked to be very much the same as before though I did notice that the white hotel on the headland seemed to be partially surrounded by security fencing, and when I walked on round the bay and looked back I could see that several new houses had been built close to it.

With just three shots taken I returned to the van and got the map book out in an effort to decide where to go next; having been to Anglesey so many times I'm running out of places to see and photograph without repeating things several times over. I finally settled on a visit to South Stack as I'd only been there once before and I'd recently been told that the gorse on the headland would be looking good, so after giving the dogs a drink I set off on the next part of my afternoon.