The walk today included a new experience:  the flagging down of a train!  I was supposed to walk to Porthmadog, which I did, and where I am staying for three nights, but the distance from Criccieth was a mere seven miles, so decided to go on to Llandecwyn Station, a platform with an automated voice that tells you relentlessly which of two trains is coming next, because this is a platform where only one train in each direction passes by every couple of hours, and, to boot, my direction was a non-scheduled stop.  The instruction is that if you want the train to stop, and, indeed, I did, you have to SIGNAL CLEARLY to the conductor to stop el tren!  Took off HAT, tied it to wrist to prevent its being blown away, and waved it madly as the two car jobee rolled into view.  Success!  Oh, the things that make us feel accomplished!

A stretch of the walk today was on the large and lovely Black Rock Sands beach:

Popular area for cyclists.  Joanne?

Poor little lamb was so scared and could not find the way out!

Some things just catch your eye:

Uncared for but more beautiful because of it:

Next summer?

Oh, Wilbur!  You and your Maaaa Maaaa have become so famous that are now art.  And you are still very handsome!

If the ubiquitous (ubiquitous for castles, that is) slits in the walls are for archers to shoot arrows through, then one might deduce that the archer had to lie on his stomach to do so, most uncomfortable on the uneven stone floor.  But maybe they were for something else?

A shopping list from the olde dayes:

The shoe and sock situation was neither equitable or happy, it seems.

Nature asserts herself everywhere:

Criccieth is a larger town than most I have passed through, but other than bed and breakfast places and many tea rooms and restaurants, the only commercial establishment is a large picture framing store with an art gallery attached.  ¡Qué raro!

B and B for the night is lovely and it is located right across the road from an ice cream shop which does sell the most delicious confections!  ¡Estoy muy contenta!

The last few days have been a blur of long walking days, frustration with company handling this section of the walk, lots and lots of frustration, way finding, bad but not terrible weather, and, of course the phone!

After the twenty-one mile day came the best and most gorgeous section of the Llyn peninsula, that being from Porthcolman to Aberdaron.  I can vouch for its being wild and vast, but not much else, because, sadly, I didn’t see it, so heavy was the mist when it wasn’t raining, that you were lucky if you could make make out the next marker in the distance, a necessity in open country, bordered by cliffs, and no actual path.  It might have been just as well not to have been able to see how steep some of the drops were!

But, oh, joy, in Aberdaron was new phone.  Miracle of miracles!  Setting it up, a few glitches, but accomplished, at last, and then relief!  Oh, such relief!  The map app on PHONE and GyPSy are really indispensable.  Each occupies prime real estate:  one in a pocket on the left and and one in a pocket on the right shoulder strap of my backpack.

Lucky for me, yesterday, man-of-B&B, designed the walk for today.  While it was nineteen miles (did not realize that), it was really gorgeous especially when the sun finally came out.

At the tip of the BIG peninsula.  Very thrilling!

The sea, with boats in the distance, on a sunny morning:

 An unexpected patch of daisies:

As you can see in the above photo, not all beach walking is as it is in Aruba (not that I have ever been there).

Do they appreciate the view?  Maybe they are thinking, “The sea is kind of ho-hum today.”

In Llanbedrog, home for the night, there is an art gallery, so, when proprietress of B and B suggested I go, I hastened, only to discover that the David Nash exhibit was being dismantled.  Very sad making.

Here is his Red Tree:

I really wanted to take it home!

And some other trees.  Don’t they look as if they are dancing, or maybe doing Yoga?

Mostly Nash does wooden sculptures, like this Charred Oak.  One of the features of his work is his use of wood as a material that will respond to the weather. This piece, for example, has cracks from the cycle of the wood’s getting wet and drying and cracking.  The textures are warm and soft:

Not his, but Big Mama wanted attention:

Fifteen miles is a lot easier than twenty-one, but because of hesitating here and there—when it doesn’t look right it usually isn’t—and being cautious—you really have to be what with al those treacherous cliffs and all (there you are holding onto a thick tuft of grass to keep from slipping, grateful that your slight physiognomy allows you to do this effectively)—and maybe just being a year older, it seems as if the time it takes to walk fifteen miles is more than it should be.

The beginning is always calm and promising even if it is grey, windy and freezing cold:

At Morfa Nefyn is a fabulous golf course, just fabulous, the most fabulous, and guess who does NOT own it?  Lots of balls must be lost to the God of Golf, though:

Just what might Warning Calls words be, maybe even coming from the deep, as just above?

.

I forget why I took this picture.  Consider it the scene of the day:

No, wait!  I do remember (two days later).  It is a photo dedicated to Alex, who, no doubt, would have cheerfully put up with a damaged phone, inspired by a conversation:

“Hello, Apple?  Can you tell me how I might get a smashed i-Phone repaired?”

“Oh, sorry to hear that, Victoria.  I’ve been there a few times myself,” says Apple Person.  You are not comforted by his scripted instruction to identify with potentially irritated customer.

Au contraire!  You want to shout, “Mister look at the picture.  You have not been here!  And, no, I cannot make an appointment and go to one of your select few Apple Stores in the UK., and if I am lucky get the phone back the same day or the next day, because I am HERE!

Drama of the phone has different resolution, since a ten day turn around time for a mail-in repair will not do, and besides, no place I’ve seen to set up overnight delivery.  However, isn’t it just the state of things that Apple can overnight a new phone to a business in a town of just a few streets, but not effect a repair just as quickly.  En todo caso, if any one will want to buy a slightly used iPhone7+, there will be one for sale when I return.

Winged creatures riding the waves.  Watching them was very happy-making!

After a disappointing rest day, it was time to set out for Clynogfaer.  That section can be described in two words: road and beach, more of the former than the latter.

This kind of beach, but see the majestic mountains of Snowdonia yonder :

A lady and her dog—only you can’t see the dog—the beach, a little tidal pool, and the mountains:

While I was on the road, who should pass by but my now friend, Eurwyn!  The one person I know in all of Wales!  He was taking my bags to Clynogfaer!  It was as delightful a surprise to see him as to see these sweet poppies:

Mount Pleasant Lodge seems to have lost its luster:

Edge of Wales (company doing the next segment) said to me, “You have to take our route tomorrow. It is much prettier than the Wales Coast Path.”  Who can refuse pretty?  It was as promised, but it made the day far too L O N G, there being more than a few navigational challenges.  Start time 6:30 a.m.  End time 5:00 p.m., which is probably why I smashed my phone.  Don’t ask.

Sort of just appears:

But that shot reminds me of a conversation I had with a man on the beach yesterday.  I was asking him if one could walk on the beach all the way to Clynogfaer (’cause the map did not show the route thusly), and he said you could, so I did!  Then he pointed to the distant mountains and said, “You see those three peaks?  You can climb between the second and the third and just drop down a little and you will come upon an iron age fort.” Trying to sound as if I might consider that suggestion,  I replied, “Really?”   Which is what you reply when you want to say, “You have got to be kidding?”

My only company all day:

 The goat, apparently, is not a mascot, but an actual member of the corps, with a rank y todo. And, it was even punished for infractions of one sort and another.  I swear!

I cannot get started on how absurd it is that so much human thought, work, creativity, engineering, resources, organization, money, lives, etc. has been devoted to war and its glorification.

The most interesting bit of information about the regiment had to do with St. David’s Day.  “March 1st is the feast of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales.  The Regiment celebrated this day all over the world [all over the world??] wearing a leek in the cap and eating leeks at dinner.

The youngest soldier in each company, and the newest officer would stand on a chair after dinner with one foot on the table.  They would eat a leek while a drummer played a roll, then make the toast, ‘And Saint David,’ while drinking from a loving cup.”

It is enough to make you want to join up!

This was my last Pu&Do for a while, and truth be told, I am going to miss these ride with Eurwyn, who has been just so accommodating and enjoyable to talk with.  So, if anybody out there in the blogosphere ever want to walk in Wales, contact Anglesey Walking Holidays….You won’t be disappointed!

This was the last day of walking on Anglesey and a devilish walk, it was, too!  At first it wasn’t bad, just a little bit rainy, only then it got a lot rainy and I could not figure out the route.  You had to turn, but there seemed no place to turn.  There was the beach, but this was not walk-on-the-beach-beach.  “Turn left,” say your devices but you cannot see where.  You walk back up the road, it is raining harder, Your GPS acts funny in the rain and you curse it, you put on your poncho, you look, you wonder if you missed a subtle turn, you walk up the road again, and repeat this cycle several times.  FINALLY you spy a pice of stone just above the beach, which leads to a little path, and you breathe a sigh of relief—because this exercise has taken the better part of an hour— and then you realize you have no poles! You go back to the place where you put on poncho; you remember this place well because you wondered why the little building had no eaves under which to stand, but poles are not there.  You walk further up the road yet again; this is about the sixth time.  No poles.  You decide, OK, I am going to continue without my poles and hope I don’t need them today, and THANK GOD I brought a spare pair.

As you are walking along in the rain, the thought comes to you that, “Hey, guess what?  I could order a back up pair of poles from Amazon and have them sent to the next place I will be staying for two nights, which is about 10 days from now.”  You think this because once or twice you have almost dropped a pole off a cliff and there are many cliffs to come.  Then you wonder, do they carry these Z racing poles here in the UK?  Why, yes, they do, it turns out, only you cannot find your size and aren’t you happy you brought that little tape measure, granted, for a whole other purpose, so that you can check the length of your poles, and finally, after searching several vendors at Amazon, you find one pair. Check with B and B to make sure it is OK to send poles to them.  It is, so you do, only to receive message from Amazon that they don’t like your credit card.  You re-enter number, this time with a space between the sets of digits, and, finally, get a confirmation.  Meantime, you have signed up for *free* Prime trial here in the UK and decide you will worry about the details later.

Back to the walk.  You have already walked an extra hour, when the next impediment impedes.

And behind her was a horned one:

You learn that cows will not respond to your throwing a stick because cows, unlike dogs, do not play “fetch.”  The critters will not move.  Granted, they are not that big, not as big as the huge field of huge cows who were two inches behind me a few fields ago—yes, I was scared; there were so many and I could hear them breathing, snorting, more like, pero bueno—but they are a lot bigger than are you!!  Finally, I approach and cow jumps over low barbed wire fence, so clumsily that I don’t know how one ever got over the moon.  Second bovine, having horns, was less inviting, but I had to ignore that and get closer so that s/he would play follow the leader.  Eventually, it, too, went over to other part of the pasture.

I am too out of steam to describe the further travails of today, but let’s just sum it up by saying there was a lot of city walking beside very busy roads, and at the end of it all, though flat, the 14.5 quoted mileage added up to 18+ miles.

Across that water, on the distant shore, is a pair of Black Diamond Distance Z poles. If someone the right height finds them, won’t they be lucky!!

However, I did  walk very very very fast early in the morning to be able to visit the little island of Llanddwyn, which also has tidal restrictions.  It was a gorgeous little spot.  Inter alia, it has a new(ish)  lighthouse:

and an older one:

I met a local man, not local as living on the island because now nobody does, who walks regularly here, and asked him about the two lighthouses, a curiosity for such a teeny tiny place.  (It takes less than an hour to walk around the island, although one could spend much time on its small beaches where the Irish Sea laps gently on the shore. So sweet is the sound.) Anyway, he did not know.  He did know, though, that these little cottages were inhabited by boat pilots years ago.  Now they are a museum:

Some sights never become tired:

Heading out on an overcast morning:

Two white goats:

One brown horse:

A three-step-stone-stile:

The path is overgrown (very), but making your way through five-foot tall corn is not as difficult as pushing though nettles and gorse.  After a while, too long a while, you realize that you should put on your gaiters and you do:

Never did figure that out, but on with the next day’s beautiful walk, 14.5 miles and flat.  The hills will come!  Soon!

The nice thing about taking pictures of snails is, that unlike birds, bees, and butterflies, they sort of wait for you.  But, you cannot always capture the front AND back ends at the same time!

Another early morning sight:

This island is bunny heaven.  And the area I walked through to-day was the capital of bunny heaven.  I think the bunny, whose home is on the right, has a good piece of real estate because notice how well it is landscaped:

Definitely the sight of the day:

Today was a day I had been looking forward to in one way and dreading in another, each for a different reason. The exciting part was an excursion with Ken Croft, birdman of Anglesey.  He picks you up, takes you to a place where you get out of the car and start walking.  You see grasses, clover, heather, gorse, the usual stuff, but Ken stops, sets up his tripod upon which is mounted a telescope, looks through it, turns it a bit this way and that, tells you to jump in to look, and, like magic, there is a splendid creature, whose name, alas, you do not remember, but a few were:  chough, egret, guillemot,—lots and lots of guillemots—mallard, egret, oystercatcher, plover, puffin, manx shearwater, and mute swan.

A number of the birds of Anglesey migrate to Africa; some partially.  This does not mean that they stop in Spain, it means that some migrate and some stay.  (How they decide who will stay and who will go, is one of nature’s mysteries.) This does not empty the island of birdlife in the winter, however, because some birds from the arctic migrate here, so it all works out.  BTW, a documentary anyone and everyone would really enjoy is Winged Migration.  Try to watch it on the biggest screen you can because it is so beautiful.  Anyway, my birding day was full of delight, an experience to remember.

The dread had to do with my having to upload data to the GPS.  I figured out, thank God, that I had better take out the map from the GPS before uploading data.  This is because the map is locked to the GPS-that-died, therefore the computer won’t recognize it in the new GPS.  So why am I not using the map that I had to buy with the new GPS? Because the new GPS won’t recognize IT!  This is a delicate situation, to say the least.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the data loaded—after I figured out some of Basecamp’s quirks—and the map, reinserted into the device, showed itself.  As it is said, “It’s all good!”

Today’s walk, from Holyhead (a depressed town if ever there was one, but it does have a good bakery), to Trearddur Bay was not as navigationally challenging as the walks of previous days. Speaking of navigation,  I was lamenting to Ken yesterday my frustrations, and he was quite in accord that the signage and barriers, etc., were thorns in one’s side!

Well, dragonflies and birds are given directions:

And, in the same style, a bench:

From the top of a cliff:

A different kind of cliff and a different perspective: