Definitely got my mojo back today. This was what I've been waiting for .... a holiday ride, somewhere I've never ridden before, requiring a bit of orienteering. We are staying in a little village on Anglesey called Star, and it is currently rather windy, though mercifully cooler than the blast furnace that was Gloucestershire last week. Many of you will know that I am old school when it comes to navigation, preferring to rely on paper maps and my own in-built innate pigeon nav system. This time it was just as well that I did a bit of advance research on G**gle Str**t View before setting off. It turns out that my map of North Wales is too large scale to show the detail I needed, and they don't seem to believe in direction signs on Anglesey. Most crossroads i came across had no signage whatsoever .... even including one A road that I had to turn on to on my return journey. Thankfully I had anticipated some of that, and had planned a straight route to the SW, straight into the wind, with a north easterly wind-assisted return. My return route was a parallel straight one that meant all I had to do to get where I wanted to go was to keep going straight until I arrived at a recognisable point. My aim was to then find my way somehow to a viewpoint on the Menai Straight opposite Caernarfon Castle. First of all I had to cross the North Wales Expressway. Thankfully there is a pedestrian bridge nearby, so no hassle there. Early on a Sunday morning, the expressway was completely empty:
From there it took me less time to get to this railway station than it would for me to pronounce its name correctly:
Then I headed off to start my straight line outward route, via Llanddaniel Fab. I thought it oversold itself a bit. Llanddaniel Okay would have been a more accurate description. From there the quiet country lanes were so quiet that I never saw a car for 6 or 7 miles. Lovely narrow, hedge-lined lanes with distant mountain views, bunnies scampering everywhere and, in places, grass growing down the middle of the road.
Remembering a route from my online browsing and following my trusty "flatnav" ....
.... I found my way to the edge of the Menai Straight to a fantastic little road that runs along the shore for about half a mile with fantastic views across to Caernarfon Castle and the mountains of Snowdonia.
What a magical place. I stood there for a while, watching a cormorant and listening to the bleating of sheep and the lapping of waves.
As I was settng off for home, I spotted a solitary seal just off shore. He seemed to be watching me with interest for a minute or so before taking on a few big gulps of air and disappearing beneath the waves before I was able to get a decent picture of him.
I found my way back to the A4080 by playing guess the direction at a small unmarked crossroads and used the A road as far as Niwbwrch, still only encountering about 1 car every couple of minutes. Sunday morning really seems to be the time to go cycling on Anglesey. I then cut inland, catching sight of an ancient druid standing stone as well as some more rugged natural scenery:
The final leg of the journey, eastwards along the A5 was also almost traffic free at that time of the week, and I had some great views of Snowdonia in the distance:
I thought it was going to be about an 18 miler today, but with some decisions made on the hoof I actually got it up to 25.0 miles. Absolutely loved it and can't wait for my next ride in a couple of days time. Hopefully I won't have to study the maps so much as a couple of my remaining rides will be on traffic free routes. Lets just hope the weather holds and this wind doesn't get any stronger.
