8th July 2021 to 16th July 2021
Covid wins again. It’s my Mom’s birthday today (11th July), She is 79 years young, but having to isolate after being close to the virus last week. So unfortunately our plans to visit her to celebrate her birthday have been put on hold once again.
Our aim was to visit Mom in Barmouth for a few days and complete some outstanding jobs from her recent house move. Then move on up the Welsh coast to the Llyn Peninsular and Anglesey. A quick search on the Caravan and Motorhome Club website revealed very little short notice availability in that region. But I did find one site with a spare pitch – Coed-Y-Llwyn Caravan Club Site.
As a child, I went to school in Dolgellau. As with all welsh schools we played rugby and I was second row. The wednesday afternoon inter-school games involved travel around most of mid-wales as there weren’t that many schools in that region. I can vividly remember playing rugby on a very wet and cold winter afternoon in Blaenau Ffestiniog. It was really, really uninviting and since those days visiting Blaenau Ffestiniog has never raised itself to the top of my list.
I’ve been missing out. The site was quiet, peaceful and well managed. The location was perfect for walking and visiting the sites around and about.
Even having lived only a few miles down the coast I had never visited Porthmerion of The Prisoner fame – until yesterday. What a very pleasant surprise – it was stunning and in an authentic quality sort or way – not a hint of the tacky film set I had expected after visits to other similar locations.
Take a look at these photos:
Here are a few photos :
Our first walk was from the camp site at Coed-y Llwyn. It was a 5 mile circular that took in the lovely Welsh mountain scenery, the lake and dam at Maentwrog and strangly enough a nuclear power station (Trawsfyndd – now decommissioned).
Llanbedrog
Our next stop-over was a small village on the Llyn Peninsular called Llanbedrog. There was a specific reason for visiting this lovely little place. For a few years during my Wife’s early childhood, she used to come to Llanbedrog for her summer holiday. It’s been 50 years since she last visited. She has fond memories of sites and places that she wants to try and find again if they still exist.
We found a small private site in Llanbedrog with 5 touring pitches – Crugan Farm. Richard and Gwenno are the working farmers who own the site. Both are very welcoming and the site had all we needed (minus a roll-over grey waste – but we improvised).
A short walk from the site (over the main road and across a field) was Llanbedrog beach. Such a lovely cove of shallow sand with a beach bar and a line of National Trust beach huts painted in primary colours.
The beach and beach huts were just as she remembered them, but was the flat where they stayed still there? She rememered walking back from the beach to the accomodation as a child and tried to follow her memories from 50 years ago. Sure enough there was the big granite house that used to hold a number of holiday flats for summer lets. It’s a gallery now with an open air theatre around the back. Happy days.
Anglesey
I’ve recently heard good things about Anglesey from a colleague at work, so we thought we would try a few days on the island before we head back home. The last time I was there was a school day trip to visit the aluminium works in 1981. I can’t say I remember much about the island itself.
My first impression is that Anglesey is a quiet sleepy place with some fantastic beaches and coastline. The weather was absolutely perfect for most of the 3 days we spend at Tyn Rhos Caravan Park. Greater than 20 degrees, blue skies and a little sea breeze. Eating breakfast alfresco in the sunshine reminded me of some of the many such breakfasts taken in Lanzerote and Menorca over the years.
A short walk from this site is another lovely sandy beach, where we spend some hours in the sun listening to the lapping tide – and getting sun burn.
Motorhome Niggles
On the route between Llanbedrog and Anglesey an engine light came on. A quick check of the manual told me that the van was running low of AdBlue. Having not driven a Euro 6 vehicle before I had not encountered AdBlue before. It’s the additive used to reduce the pollution in the exhaust emissions of these new engines. The odometer was showing 5750 miles but I didn’t know if the 14L tank was full when we bought the van from new or how much ADBlue is used per mile. So I pulled over at the next garage and bought 5L in a plastic container. After pooring all 5L into the tank the warning light went out. I since found out that a full tank of ADBlue should last 10,000KM with the warning light coming on with 1500KM left in the tank. In old money that’s 6,200 miles and 932 miles. Which all aligns with my current mileage – roughly. So that 5L should last another 2000 miles.
The newly installed motorhome wi-fi is working really well. I needed to top up with a further 4G after just a couple of days (£4) But it is dependent upon a 4G signal of course.
Round trip distance 320 miles according to google maps.