Wales Day 18 - down the coast, Plas yn Rhiw and a birthday

The Friday was Rene's last full day with us, and her birthday.
We drove down the north coast of the Llyn Peninsula towards Aberdaron.The day was overcast and cloudy, but we stopped in a car park at the top of a cliff and walked down to the beach at Traeth Penllech. Here is a place highly to be recommended. It is about a 500m walk from the car park to the beach and this keeps the crowds away. You follow a stream down which ends in a series of little waterfalls on to the beach. I could not photograph this as the water was quite deep leading up to the falls and I wished for wellingtons which I did not have. There were a couple of people on the beach who left fairly soon. The only other life was two horse riders who galloped over the sands.
The afternoon was spent at Plas yn Rhiw, a National Trust house which had belonged to three sisters who restored it and handed it over to the NT when they died. By this time the heavens had opened and it was raining torrentially, so we ran between the carpark and the house through the beautiful gardens dewy and wet.
We returned to Trefor and Rene blew the candles out on her birthday cake!








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 11th June - we go ashore in Village Bay

Image
  We had had a good night anchored just off shore in Village Bay on Hirta,  St Kilda's main island. When we woke up the sky was clear and the visibility good and I felt very proud of being able to make a panorama of the shore from the slightly rolling boat. There was one other small yacht tied up in the bay. The other yacht in the bay with Stac Levenish in the background In the panorama, if you enlarge the picture, you can see the bay, the sandy shore, with the military buildings at the front of the shoreline, the old village spread out some way behind and then a jumble of walls and stones going off into the distance. However by the time we had had breakfast and got out in the dinghy to go on land a fog had descended limiting our views of the hills. It seemed good though to explore in the conditions that must prevail on St Kilda most of the time! As we climbed the jetty I noticed some kelp in the water that looked just like a fish skeleton. St Kilda had been inhabited by man since
Read more

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 8th June - we go aboard in Oban

Image
  We have never booked a holiday a year in advance before so the anticipation leading up to our sea trip on yacht Zuza was immense. We had arrived in Oban the night before and at the appointed hour (2.00pm) we wheeled all our luggage, far too much with cameras, a laptop, walking boots and Alan's, new to him, yachting trousers and jacket recently purchased from eBay, down the jetty and onto the boat. The good ship Zuza is a Bermudan cutter rig ship built in 1998 as an expedition boat for the Royal Geographical Society. She is 22m long and weighs a  goodly 42 tonnes. When we were on her there were 3 crew and 8 guests who occupied two twin bunk cabins and two double en suite ones. I was too late to get a double cabin so we were in a twin. With a saloon and a covered wheel house she was perfect to take us all the way to St Kilda and then around some of the Hebrides. Bear with me while I introduce everyone. Neil was the Captain, Erin the First Mate, and Grosia the chef. Neil was very la
Read more

A weekend in the Dingle, a damp drive and exciting lichen

Image
We woke to a drizzle the day after our 'Tom Crean experience'. We had not enlisted for the Tom Crean 19 mile endurance walk, and luckily that was sold out anyway, and given the weather would not have been pleasant by any yardstick. Instead we did what any old codger would do under the circumstances and go for a drive. The Slea Head Drive to be more precise and part of what the Dingle tourist board call the 'Wild Atlantic Way'. Wet and wild that particular Saturday. It is manners to drive clockwise around this circular route as the road is very narrow and cars coming the other way, as a couple did, cause all the traffic to snarl up. We started in Dingle where we stopped briefly by the harbour, before continuing until we shortly came to a museum. It was a private, commercial sort of venture, run by an American and called the Celtic and Prehistory Museum. And it was actually very interesting, containing some animal skeletons and stone axes and other such artefacts. Th
Read more

The Ancient Agora of Athens

Image
  After our trip to the seaside we thought we should examine more of the ancient sites of Athens. So we walked to the district of Monasteriki, the very busy touristic area, where behind iron railings lies the Greek Agora. This occupies a large area and was originally a place where the Athenians senate met, as well as holding the market, places for socialising, temples and craftsmen's workshops. We started by walking up the hill to the Temple of Hephaestus which overlooks the Agora. This temple was completed around 430BC and as Hephaestus was the patron god of metal work and craftsmanship it was built on a very fitting site, although it was used as church from the 7th century AD to 1833. We passed workmen tidying as we walked. From the top we got very good views over Athens. Directly under the temple lies the site of the ancient Bouleuterion which was the senate house where political discussion took place and the Metroon where the state archives were kept. The boule was a sort of pa
Read more