Rest day! A chance to explore Caernarfon some more.
Over breakfast I was looking for a hotel in Bangor and planning a gentle bimble over there in the afternoon. The forecast for the rest of the day was windy and sunny. Tomorrow’s forecast warned of heavy rain all day and gale-force winds in the afternoon. I changed my plan.
Bank holiday weekend meant accommodation wasn’t easy to find online, so I looked in the area around Holyhead and rang a few. Half an hour later, I’d booked. My rest day had turned into a full afternoon of cycling.
Route 8 from Caernarfon to Bangor is a well-used multi-use path. Plenty of people out and about. A stiff breeze pushed me along.
At Y Felinheli, the waterfront looked Mediterranean. The wind knocked the bike over as I was taking a photo.
The little dock in the village had an amazing steel lifting bridge with a huge cog mechanism. Sheltered here, it was suddenly very warm.
I’d wanted to cross both bridges to Anglesey on this trip. Traffic on the A55 normally slows as it crosses the Britannia Bridge and plenty of people cycle across. That thought was scuppered by the high winds signs, which put a line through caravans, motorcycles, and bicycles.
It meant a detour adding a couple of miles to the day. And it meant a date with Telford’s masterpiece, the Menai Bridge, a couple of days earlier than expected.
I wound Route 8’s winding way through Menai Bridge to Llanfairpwllgwyn and took the obligatory photo at the station. It’ll not be the only time I visit in the next few days.
I took the A4080 along the south coast of Anglesey. More than an hour slogging against the wind with rain threatening all the time. At Newborough, some local people in Hi-Viz were standing behind road closure signs telling drivers they couldn’t go down to the beach. I had a chat with one of the team who told me I could go down. I asked if it was worth it and was told its the best beach in the world. I asked how far it was down there. A couple of miles… Into a headwind? Another day perhaps.
I missed the turn for the Malltraeth costal cycle path. The road was quiet and I reached the village quickly.
Somewhere near Bethel, head down against the wind, I took a wrong turn. I wound through tiny high-hedged lanes, mostly protected from the worst of the wind. At Bryn Du, I passed two converted windmills, which could have been highly productive this afternoon, if they still had sails.
I was really grateful when the familiar blue Route 8 appeared again. They took me up towards the A55 and turned back towards RAF Valley. If there was a windier place on earth than RAF Valley that afternoon, it would have been uninhabitable.
At Valley, I knew I had just over a mile to go. It was a hard mile. I finished at Four Mile Bridge.
Day totals: 39 miles, 1,6999ft of elevation gained
Tour totals: 1,172 miles, 48,914ft of elevation gained