Peelies travels

The serious news of increased coronavirus infections drives home the need to take care of personal hygiene and space. We have experienced shops, cafes, pubs and communal facilities at campsites during this trip and it’s clear that the standards differ widely. As this virus is a silent spreader there’s little that can be done except to try to stay distanced during conversations. This can be very hard as some people just don’t think or remember. When walking on a narrow cliff path you do get a sense of COVID hesitation upon meeting others coming towards you. It’s the differing standards at campsites though that is a surprise. Some have hand gel but others don’t. Some enforce 2m and others don’t. This is how Eric the Quartermaster does it. Contact details are taken in some places such as this café and now masks are worn in shops here in Wales. As I write, the UK government are about to announce further restrictions to try to slow the spread of infections in the second wave. I’m sure that ...

A couple of Land Rover 110s arrived on Saturday morning and by the afternoon we were chatting. The guys were very interested in our lifting roof and had a tour as we explained the set-up. They are from Nomad in Macclesfield, a company that sells Land Rover accessories, provides all sorts of upgrades and also ECU remaps from Alive Tuning. We looked at their ‘blingy’ vehicles with some admiration and promised to call and see them at Nomad / M&R Motors. It’s handy to know that they are next to the famous Shufflebotham’s cloth and fabric outlet. Mike Woodier (Nomad) is a long term visitor to this previously quiet ‘site’ and was a little shocked to see so many visitors. We are all staycationers now though, as we were originally planning to be abroad and he was supposed to be at the Adventure Overland Show. CoVID19 has really affected all aspects of life. Farmer Chris, once able to leave a few campers to themselves, now has to sleep in his caravan on the busiest nights. He certainly cond...

Giles and Mary were staying on the site at Llanbedrog. At least it could have been them. The couple near us talked to one another in the same way as do those stars of Gogglebox. It’s as if they they are getting used to living together, even though they’ve been married for years. They talked so loudly that ignoring them wasn’t really an option. Are you ready to have lunch? What shall we have? Would you like cheese Mary? Cheese and biscuits? We do have a lot of cheese Mary. I’m going to pop to the shop Mary whilst you go to the gallery. Yes I’ll have a walk to the gallery. Do you want to come to the gallery Giles? I’m going to pop to the shop. How long will you be? Only a few minutes. Do you want to come to the gallery? Have you ever visited a gallery? So it continued. They were sitting outside their camper but could have been on different pitches, oblivious to things around them. We made a decision not to rush off around the Cardigan coast. The weather forecast was still holding warm an...

We were entertained when a couple of guys turned up in two cars and proceeded to try to erect their two tents. Never has it taken so long to achieve some sort of erect-ness. These fellas spent well over an hour with the first. These are small tents with just three or four poles. They made a reasonable attempt at it and celebrated with a couple of beers. Then it was onto the second and a couple more beers and another hour and the tiny tent was up. We laughed with them as they turned to the first to improve on the initial attempt, by dismantling it and starting again. We suggested that maybe two more beers would help. I have never, ever seen two people struggle so much when erecting a tent and yet keep on smiling and chatting throughout. It was a world first for me. At the bottom of the lane in Llanbedrog is a wonderful house, built in gothic style, that for many years has been an outlet for art. Plas Glyn-y-Weddu  (the mansion of the Widow’s glen) is now a formal gallery and we went...

Abersoch really is in a perfect position. It faces east and is sheltered from the south and west by some big lumps of igneous rocky headlands. The southern beach is large, sandy and flat and sweeps north for perhaps a mile to a headland that separates it from the northern beach which is even bigger. That stretches north with ‘The Warren’ alongside, until the very large igneous lump immediately south of Llanbedrog, marked on the map simply as Mynydd. The tidal range at the moment is about 4-5 metres and the flat sands mean that the beaches are very wide too. However, Abersoch is not for us and we moved to a fantastic site on the top of Mynydd. The link to the site is here  and it has to be one of the best ever. It is large but with just a few pitches on short grass. Small hedges separate most. The amenities block is worthy of an award. The pitched roof is supported by engineered beams with cladding in timber and large Velux roof windows. Inside the fixtures and fittings are better t...

 It was just as well we weren’t in a rush to leave on Sunday morning. Farmer Robert was on fine form with lots of chat. We quickly covered off some sheep and lamb updates and moved on to the job he’s doing on the cottage next to the field. His farm is a little further away and this place came on the market twice. First time he missed out to a ‘developer’ who seems not to know one side of a stud wall from another. Robert had found radiators built behind them! I asked about cottages bought for holiday use and he said that some of the locals moan but then “they are happy to do the building work, first in the queue”. We didn’t mention the old sketch, Come home to a real fire; buy a cottage in Wales . That one is best left alone 😀 So we said goodbye and vowed to be back and we drove through Aberdaron and over the headland to see Hells Mouth. This is a huge beach with its jaws open to the southwest and today the breakers were rolling in on the back of the recent gales. A few motorhomes ...

The coast path follows quite rugged scenery around the headlands of the peninsula and we walked around the north side, over Mynydd Mawr itself  towards Porth Oer. At the top is a coastguard lookout which for some reason hasn’t been used for over twenty years. .  I like the way in which there are smaller farmsteads spread right up the hillsides. Some are still very ‘primitive’ and others ‘gentrified’ I can’t remember the name for this flower but I believe it’s quite rare or at least hard to spot. That’s because it only flowers on one day so I guess we were lucky😁 It was a good walk of eight miles or so with a lunch stop on a rocky beach and a few people with whom to pass the time of day. Certainly though this part of the coast isn’t busy. We passed one lady who was walking from our turnaround at Porth Oer to our start at Mynydd Mawr. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get back and like us, assumed it would be along the roads and tracks. Only afterwards did I think that I sho...