Friday 19 August 2011

Day Three - Black Rock Sands to Llanbedrog, 18.2 miles.

There is method in my madness. Actually most people reading this will probably think it sounds like the worst holiday ever, and I should at the very least find a B&B as tonight's forecast is poor, but it isn't the worst holiday ever, though today's blog will do nothing to change your mind. The only person I know who would enjoy this as much as me is Fatman, who is currently cycling around the Isle of Arran to get his madness out of his system.

So, the method. Last year I walked Glyndwr's Way, then walked two extra days to get back to the start (and my Mini). This year I have started with the two extra days for a good reason. The reason is my rucksack. I remembered that when I did the Pembrokeshire Coast Path the first two days hurt like mad, and I didn't want to be in pain during the main event here, so I got it out of the way doing the link walk. Simple, huh? So how was it in practice? Well for once I got it right. The pack felt much better today, on my hips and shoulders at least. As for my feet, however, they still don't know what's hit them. The last mile today was tarmac-bashing, and they were actually stinging by the end.

So I've taken your advice an I'm in a B&B. If there was one night when this was likely to happen before The Ship at Aberdaron it was tonight, because the campsite here at Llanbedrog had quoted me £25 for the night which was a joke, so for not much more here I am. Not sure what it's called but it's very nice, well apart from my room as I've emptied the rucksack and hung wet and/or smelly things everywhere.

If someone asked me what my perfect day's weather was on the Lleyn Peninsula, or any coast for that matter, I would describe today's. Before 4 o'clock. Sunny intervals with big puffy clouds and a strong breeze. This meant big waves crashing onto the rocks at high tide and, importantly, not many people about because they disagree with me entirely.

Today was tourist day, passing through Criccieth (a great place that isn't actually touristy at all (though I knew this already as I'd been loads of times), with a great WELSH castle (which the English stole as they did with everything but Owain Glyndwr got it back, hooray!)), skirting Haven holiday camp (vast) and trudging through Pwllheli (which has the worst seafront of anywhere I've been).

I noticed and carefully considered something today. For the most part dog owners are very good at scooping the poop, but owners of two animals get away with murder:
1: Cats. Now you don't tend to spot cat poo because they bury it, but it's horrendous when you're gardening, smelly and very sticky. I propose culling all cats. Or at the very least making owners follow them with a pooper scooper, all night and over garden fences if necessary.
2. Horses. This is how I got thinking about it in the first place. They do poops all over public paths and, in this case, beaches. Ok they aren't too smelly but they are enormous. I propose that anyone owning a horse must employ someone to follow them and scoop the poop as they're all rich enough anyway. Or it could pull a trailer and poop in that.

Ah yes, the walk. As I said, fantastic till 4 o'clock, when in an exact repeat of yesterday the sky went uniformly grey and it rained for an hour. However whereas yesterday it cleared to a beautiful sunset, today I was left with enormous, lumbering grey clouds.

Dead animal of the day - easy this one, a freshly squashed rabbit I came across first thing this morning. It's eyes still had a startled look and it's head was upright. Sadly the rest of it had a Pirelli look and was as flat as a pancake.

Llanbedrog is a pleasant village with a very busy pub serving standard fare. I had chili with rice which was completely in the ordinary. Meal rating 5/10.

I probably won't be blogging tomorrow as my battery level is falling, and Jen won't be meeting me till Sunday with the charger, although to be honest I'll be heading into the furthest reaches of the Lleyn and may well have no signal for a few days.



-- Posted from my iPhone

3 comments:

  1. How come Thursday is day 1 and Friday is day3? And what happened to Porthmadog?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just checked again. Day 1 finished at Rhyd Ddu and Day 3 (the day after) started at Black Rock Sands?

    ReplyDelete
  3. who gave you permission to use my maps?
    You will be invoiced for £350.00 for unauthorised use or theft of my maps.

    ReplyDelete