Mynydd Mawr

We had phoned ahead to Mynydd Mawr campsite to ensure there would be room for us. The owner, farmer Robert Jones, said that there would be, especially as we don’t need ‘electric’. This is a distinct advantage on many campsites both for space and also as the non-electric pitches tend to be larger and more separate. This is true of the Mynydd Mawr field.

It has a great view of the sea although not of Bardsey Island which is around to the right. The view is big enough to ensure that the wind blows and it did blow, a lot.

We are at the end of the road with just a car park somewhere up above us. This is seducing several campervans but at the moment I haven’t worked out if there’s some sneaky overnight stays going on up there or not.

Eric had charged £7.50 per person per night, cash only and issued receipts from a small Quarter Master’s book. This is a very unusual tariff that must be popular with single travellers, such as the nice guy from Bridlington on a Triumph Tiger. He is rightly excited to be importing a Harley from the Middle East, owned there by his army mate.

Robert Jones on the other hand is happy to take the cash too but doesn’t bother with receipts. It’s obviously less work for him this way. At £20 it’s still a ‘good deal’.

He likes to chat and before I knew it I’d discovered that he buys his Suffolk X ewes from a farm at Peak Forest. He trusts the seller and places an order every year, buying them unseen. They are put to a Texel ram and then they breed their own lambs from the resulting Texel-Suffolk ewes.

We put all our waterproofs in our rucksacks and our windproofs on and walked to the headland to meet the coast path and then followed all the way to Aberdaron. It was extremely windy and got very dodgy at one point as we traversed the cliff tops due to wandering off the route.

Aberdaron came into view eventually and the sun came out too. We were out of the wind and in the warm, had a cup of coffee and then spotted seals. Down in an inaccessible bay there were two pups and two mothers with another in the water. One mother eased herself into suckling position and all was going well until a fourth seal came ashore.

As it neared first one pup and then the other, the respective mothers became very aggressive to see it off. Then it turned to see seal number 3 now out of the water and it moved so fast across the rocky beach that I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t seen it.

 

Aberdaron is a tiny place and appears to be windswept and bleak. Certainly today it was on the windward side, however just behind the buildings it is sheltered. There’s a little river with a road bridge with attached junction, just small enough to cause a little traffic congestion in these not very busy days. We managed fish, chips and peas in a basket sitting in the sun next to the river.

Nicely fortified, we retraced our route a little before turning inland to walk back along the lanes and roads. These are lined with ripe blackberries and also blackthorn, with sloes ripening more densely than they ever do in Derbyshire. 

More pics to be inserted when my signal is stronger.