travel
In Bunhill Fields
This week we paid a visit to a place that’s been on my wish list for many years: Bunhill Fields. Some might think it a perverse pilgrimage, because Bunhill Fields isn’t not a rural glade or open park, but an old burial ground – the origin of ‘Bunhill’ is thought to be ‘bone hill’ – […]
Wales Coast Path, day 13: Swansea to Mumbles
This may be Day 13 in the geographical series, but chronologically it’s number 95 – Sunday 9 September 2018, and the very last stage of our Wales Coast Path journey. We‘ve left our ‘home stretch’, one of the flattest in the whole course of the Path, till last. It’s a route – along the track […]
Carmarthen to Aberystwyth by train
It’s our first time on the Gwili Railway – thanks to a nearly-three year old boy obsessed with trains, or, more accurately, steam locomotives. We spend several hours pottering back and forth along the four mile track between the Railway’s current termini, Abergwili Junction and Danycoed, on two trains, one pulled by a steam engine, […]
Wales Coast Path, day 79: Church Bay from Valley
Just the two of us today, to finish our circuit of Anglesey. We get up early, plant one car at Church Bay and drive the other to Valley. No cloud and drizzle this morning, just a balmy breeze and powerful sunshine. For once I can’t avoid wearing my socially disastrous reversible sun hat. There’s no […]
Wales Coast Path, day 78: Cemaes from Church Bay
The driver of the Lewis-y-Llan 62 bus to Holyhead needs nerves of steel. She takes the three of us at a good pace on the main road from Cemaes as far as Llanrhuddiad, and then turns off to Rhyd-wyn, down a long single track road with no passing places. Meeting another vehicle would be difficult. […]
Wales Coast Path, day 77: Porth Amlwch to Cemaes
Have we made a mistake? After a month of the driest, hottest weather since the summer of 1976, C and I chosen today to start our final, three-day campaign of the Wales Coast Path, from Porth Amlwch to Valley, on a less than tropical day. It’s dark, drizzly and clouds are so low that Cadair […]
The sore feet of Ursula Martin
When I first heard about what Ursula Martin had done I found it hard to believe. Over a period of seventeen months she set out to walk 3,300 miles around Wales – in the end she walked 3,700 – including all the recognized long distance paths and other, river-long walks, she devised herself. Now she’s […]
Wales Coast Path, day 86: Newborough to Brynsiencyn
It’s our last day, and a chance to fill a missing link, between Newborough and Brynsiencyn, the furthest point west we managed last year. We leave the car in the Llyn Rhos Ddu car park south of Newborough. In its centre is a metal sculpture by Ann Catrin Evans of several ‘gafrod’ or bunches of […]
Wales Coast Path, day 81: Trearddur Bay to Four Mile Bridge
After Holy Island north, today three of us are tackling Holy Island south – a much shorter and less strenuous trek. It’s a cooler and cloudier day. We start from Trearddur Bay. Just as it took half an hour to get into Trearddur from the north, it takes half an hour to leave it walking […]
Wales Coast Path, day 80: Valley to Trearddur Bay
Just the two of us today. Valley to Trearddur Bay direct is no more than three miles. Valley to Trearddur Bay via Holyhead Mountain, taking in a circuit of the northern half of Holy Island, is sixteen miles, and that’s our route. We’re lucky to have a day of continuous sun, from start to finish. […]