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.