Tuesday September 25th 2018 - Going home via Conwy

I woke that morning to a partly sunny/partly cloudy day with the wind back again, and after a leisurely breakfast I started the packing up process - it was much earlier than I would normally pack up but I wanted to give myself enough time to stop off somewhere on the way home and also to get to the far side of Manchester before the late afternoon rush hour started. Taking the tent down in the wind wasn't too much of a problem using my tried-and-tested system but trying to fold up the huge footprint groundsheet was another matter entirely - it didn't want to play ball so in the end I just bundled it up any old how and squashed it in the back of the van.

I was ready for leaving the site at 10.45am and just as I normally do I drove down to the beach to take Sophie and Poppie for their last walk of the holiday; there wasn't all that much beach to walk on though as the tide was in and the sea was right up to the promenade wall and the base of the cliffs, so we kept it short and set off for home at 11.15am.

Over on the mainland I started to leave the cloud behind and the further north I got the better it became until I was driving in brilliant sunshine with blue sky overhead. There was one particular place I had in mind to visit so I turned off the A55 and went to Conwy, and I was lucky enough to be able to park for free in the shade of an overhanging tree on a side road across the river from the back of the castle.

As a long-time follower of the Quest tv programme Salvage Hunters (I can quite happily watch the repeats of the repeats of the repeats!) and just for curiosity I wanted to have a look in Drew Pritchard's shop. It wasn't easy taking a photo of the outside of the shop as there were too many people and parked cars around but with a lot of patience I finally managed it; taking photos inside the shop was better although not being sure if I was supposed to or not I did it quite surreptitiously.

To be honest I wasn't terribly impressed with the stuff in there; with the exception of a couple of things which I really liked most of the items were well worn, horrible, and very overpriced. The place reminded me of an old 1970s junk/second hand shop but with grossly inflated prices, and as for the furniture - I've thrown out nicer looking stuff than what's in that shop, but I suppose some people with more money than sense will buy some of it.

Just inside the window was some sort of mechanical contraption fixed to a trestle, there didn't appear to be any description or price on it but it looked like it had been cobbled together from various bits of an old car engine. The carousel horse was featured in a programme quite a while ago, I can't remember how much it cost him to buy and have restored but the price on it was £4,500. There was one thing upstairs which I did like - a very unusual early 20th century Tramp Art dog kennel for a small dog. It was priced at £3,400 though so I'm afraid at that price my two will be keeping the beds they've got! The other thing I really liked - or rather two things - were a couple of brightly coloured stained glass panels; unfortunately I couldn't get close enough to see the price as other things were in front of them but I did manage to get a decent photo.

When I'd looked round the whole shop twice and still not been impressed by much I went for a wander up the street and came to the attractive Lancaster Square with its statue of Prince Llewelyn, then from there I made my way down to the quayside and part way along the nearby gardens before returning to the van and setting off homewards once more.

When I got to Colwyn Bay I turned off the A55 and did a reverse of my previous route through Old Colwyn and Abergele to avoid the roadworks, then called to see Eileen again but unfortunately I missed her this time as she was out somewhere. With the warm sun and blue sky I was very tempted to stop off somewhere else along the coast but if I did that I would probably end up getting stuck in the rush hour traffic near Manchester so I continued homeward, arriving back at 3.30pm and still in bright sunshine. In spite of my holiday being shortened and the wet and windy start I'd still had a good break and I'd managed to pack quite a lot into the few days - and having taken 286 photos in just five days I can't complain too much.



** That short holiday may very well be my last camping trip of the season until next year as I've got some pet sitting engagements coming up soon and my next break away will be a few days non-camping in Ireland in early December, but until I update this blog with another trip with the tent tales from my everyday life can always be found here.

Monday September 24th 2018 Part 2 - Llanddwyn Island

Having driven into Newborough village, which wasn't far from where I'd parked, I pulled up in the small car park just off the main road and went in the nearby corner shop for a sandwich and a can of Coke as my breakfast had long since worn off and I was feeling quite peckish. From there I drove along the lane to the start of the road going down through Newborough forest - it's a toll road and the first time I went down there it cost £3 then a couple of years ago it had gone up to £4. It was now £5 and the automatic pay machine and barrier had been replaced by a toll booth with a young woman operating the barrier. Normally I wouldn't pay so much to park but I could have as long as I wanted and with the weather getting better and better it would be worth it for once for what I wanted to see.

Down at the car park I found an out-of-the-way space which was well shaded by some overhanging tree branches, demolished my sandwich and can of Coke then set off for Llanddwyn Island. I didn't want to leave the dogs behind but they aren't allowed on the island until after the end of September, however in the shade of the tree and with a cool wind I knew they would be okay until I got back. The walk through the forest took me fifteen minutes and when I emerged onto the beach the view almost took my breath away. The grey clouds over the mainland had gone and the mountains stood out clear against the blue sky - well worth a photo before I went any further

Another few minutes walk across the end of the beach got me to the island, though I thought at first I was going to be disappointed. A young woman stopped me just by the gate onto the island itself and I thought at first she was going to tell me I couldn't go any further but she only wanted to tell me that there was a BBC film crew on the island and I couldn't go near the old cottages, other than that I was free to go wherever I wanted to. That would do for me so I started off on the north west side of the island, which I hadn't really seen before, and worked my way round the coast in an anticlockwise direction, though I did deviate briefly to the centre of the island to take some shots of the ruined St. Dwynwen's Church.

When I got to the largest lighthouse at the far end of the island I found that the door was open and the film crew were using the downstairs part as a base - I got talking to a lovely young guy who told me about the programme they were making and when it would be shown on tv. After chatting to him for a while I made my way over to the other, older lighthouse and from there I managed to get a zoom shot of the cottages set up for the programme with fishing nets and lines of washing, then I continued my walk along the south east of the island.

Back at the start of the island I checked the time and realised I'd been out long enough, it was time to get back to the dogs so reluctantly I left this beautiful place, walked back across the end of Newborough beach and back through the woods. The dogs were asleep when I got back to the van, just as I knew they would be, but they were eager to come out so to make up for having left them I took them onto the dog friendly part of the beach before setting off back to the camp site. The stupid thing is, in spite of dogs supposedly not being allowed on Llanddwyn Island for another week I'd seen several people with dogs there and no-one seemed to be bothered, so maybe I should have taken Sophie and Poppie with me after all.

Monday September 24th 2018 Part 1 - Menai Strait and Giant's Stepping Stones

It was a morning of partial sun and partial cloud that day but there was plenty of blue sky around as well so in the hope that the weather would come a bit nicer rather than turn the other way and deteriorate I set off at 11am to explore a corner of Anglesey I'd only been to once before, a stretch of the coast on the south side of the island alongside part of the Menai Strait. Heading west along the A4048 I eventually came to a sign pointing down a lane to the Anglesey Sea Zoo - that was the turn-off I was looking for and it eventually brought me out on a long road running for quite a distance alongside the water.

The road was separated from the shingle beach by a long grassy area with a couple of small parking areas set at intervals facing the water; I parked in the first one then set off to see what I could find. There wasn't much to see along the road, just an odd cottage every so often but it was a nice enough place and the road was very quiet, making the walk very pleasant. The first proper place I came to was the sea zoo and a bit further along was the entrance to Foel Farm Park, then past a few fields was the entrance to Anglesey Riding Centre. 

The road eventually came to a dead end where there were a couple of fishermen's cottages and a dirt track leading down onto the shingle beach - the worn wooden timbers of what could once have been a fishing boat or maybe a small jetty were sticking up from the shingle so I walked along far enough to take a photo then turned and retraced my steps back to the van. Although the sun was still shining there was a lot of grey cloud over the Snowdonia hills so I just hoped that it wouldn't come across the water and spoil the rest of my day.

My next quest was to find the Giant's Stepping Stones which I'd seen on one of Julia Bradbury's 'Walks' programmes on tv and though I had a rough idea of the area they were in I didn't know their exact location, which seemed to be in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere. Back on the A4080 I expected to at least see a sign pointing in their direction but there was nothing, and when I realised I was heading for the Llyn Rhos Ddu car park at the end of a lane close to the south end of Newborough Forest I instinctively knew I'd gone too far.

Knowing that the car park is used by walkers I thought I might find someone there who knew where the stepping stones were so I turned off the main road onto the lane - and almost ran over a chicken which suddenly jumped out of the hedge on my right and strolled across the lane right in front of the van. Once it was safely on the grass verge I grabbed the camera and took a shot of it through the van window  then continued to the car park.

The Llyn Rhos Ddu (otherwise known as the Marram Grass) car park was quite a pleasant place with a strange but attractive modern metal 'sculpture', representing sheaves of marram grass, in the centre; marram grass grows abundantly in the nearby Newborough dunes and helps to stabilise the shifting sands of the dune system. Across the far side of the car park a couple were sitting on the steps of a motorhome and putting walking boots on - if they were walkers they might know where the stepping stones were but it seems they were only visitors and had never heard of them. While I was chatting to them I had the pleasure of meeting their little dog Phoebe - a little Jack Russell, smaller than my two but absolutely adorable, and she posed so nicely for a photo.

Back along the lane and just off the main road was a caravan site with a cafe near the entrance so I pulled in there to see if I could find someone to ask. The cafe was closed but two guys were working nearby so I asked them and got the information I wanted; it seemed I wasn't too far from where I wanted to be but the lane I had to walk down was private so I would need to park up somewhere. I had two choices - go back to the Marram Grass car park and walk back along the lane or drive a hundred yards up the road and park at the playing field then follow the path back down; that seemed to be the nearer option so with the van parked and locked up I set off.

The path took me along the edge of some small paddocks with a few sheep and goats in a couple of them and some pigs in another; a notice tacked to a fence post warned about the 'feisty pigs' and as soon as I started walking past their enclosure they came galloping up from the far end, grumbling and snorting and presumably swearing at me in pig language. They weren't very big but even without the warning notice I wouldn't have gone anywhere near them!

At the end of the path I reached the main road, crossed over and continued down the private tarmac lane. A short distance down I got the whiff of something similar to the smell of fresh meat when it's just starting to go off, and behind the trees on one side of the lane was a series of long single storey buildings with the noise of some machinery coming from them. The smell seemed to be coming from there, and while it wasn't too unpleasant it wasn't terribly nice either so I was glad when I left it behind.

Eventually the lane ended and changed to a grassy footpath with a gate separating the two; the path got wider as I went along and further along, through another gate, I came to the Afon Braint river and the stepping stones. And they were well-named Giant's stepping stones as they were seriously huge, but then they would have to be - the river is tidal and the stones are part of the Anglesey Coastal Path so they would have to be big enough to allow for a rising tide. The gaps between some of them seemed to be quite wide too - a jump rather than a stride - and with two dogs I wasn't risking going across so I stayed safely on the riverbank.

Now while it might have been beautifully sunny a mile or so back inland the grey cloud seemed to be coming over from the mainland and covering much of my immediate area so with just a handful of shots taken I made my way back along the path. As I got up the lane towards the main road my nose was assaulted again by that horrible smell; curious to know what the place was I walked along the road to the entrance but other than a security barrier and a 'sentry' guy in a box at the side of it there was no indication at all. Later information has told me that it was one of the Anglesey branches of Grampian Country Chickens (Rearing) - and I could be wrong but I really wouldn't like to give too much thought to what happens there.

Back across the main road I retraced my steps past the feisty pigs and again they came charging over to see me off; there was no such attitude from the sheep or the goats though, they just carried on munching on the grass and totally ignored me. Looking at the sky the grey clouds seemed to be staying put and in the direction I wanted to go it was blue with fluffy white cotton wool clouds so I hopped in the van and set off on the next part of my day.