Saturday 26th June 2022

Day 5 – up and out early this morning as we had volunteered at the Nant Y Pandy parkrun (great name)!! I was the official tail walker so got to wear the high viz and ‘tail’ – Steve and David were my fellow tails. An absolutely beautiful setting and super friendly team. We had lovely chats with the marshals, runners and dog walkers as we strolled around the 5k hilly route – especially David as he found lots of willing Welsh speakers to practice on.

From there we drove in our two cars to Rhosneigr where we parked up to have breakfast. A fab little cafe called Cafe Notos – (Notos is the God of the South Wind), so appropriate for this surfing renowned stretch. We all enjoyed a full English Breakfast which really hit the spot. The cosy atmosphere was somewhat hampered by a screaming baby (and I mean screaming), accompanied at times by her toddler brother – you just had to feel for the mother!

Fully nourished, we left one car in Rhosneigr and drove on to Four Mile Bridge which was the starting point for today’s coastal walk. Parked up right by the path … such a treat. Almost immediately we hit a small field heavily populated with cows – we had to literally walk in between them at close quarters – the way they stare you out unnerves me!

The first mile or so was quite overgrown with ferns, brambles, nettles and all things prickly … a little bit jungle at times … but we were brave soldiers! Lots of countryside prettiness in the first 4 miles. There were quite a few ramblers of all sorts, so plenty of opportunity for exchanging walking tales – and David took every opportunity to converse in his very eloquent Welsh language.

The wind at times was unbelievably strong – coming down a slope at one point I felt like I was skydiving (not that I’ve ever skydived) – arms outstretched in a funny position and face contorted!! “Looks like a rather blustery day” …. says Winnie the Pooh.

But then, for the last four miles we were walking along the rather magnificent Rhosneigr Beach – the tide was fully out and I have never seen such an expanse of beach ever – quite remarkable … oh, and windy! It was hard at times facing the wind head on but there were lots of distractions by way of wind surfers, kite surfers and ‘blow carts’ (as we discovered they were called).

We had been so lucky dodging the rain all day. As we walked the final stretch of beach however it was threatening hard.

As we came off the beach we realised we had overshot where our car was parked so had to walk back on ourselves a little – oh, we laughed!!

My pace (and enthusiasm) was beginning to weaken by this point so Steve and David had gained some distance on me. And then I felt some spots of rain – so as I climbed to the brow of a sand dune, battling to get my flapping in the wind raincoat on at the same time, muttering to myself … I stumbled across a most tranquil Tai Chi class in full swing! I did my best to slink by inconspicuously so as not to disturb their meditation – think I got away with it!!

Got to the car just in the nick of time before the heavens opened.

Now back at base and have enjoyed a fabulous Welsh dinner cooked by David – Cawl … so tasty hearty and we accompanied it with some red vino of course – well, it is Saturday! So now, I’m finishing off the blog, David is doing some of his Welsh studies and Steve is writing the parkrun report – we are terribly busy bees!!