Day 84
Cemaes to Church Bay: 11 miles
Favorite Food of the Day: Lobstar Gin
Reason: Yes I consider gin food. And it was marine gin without being too marine-y
And I thought all I was going to see was a nuclear power plant
From what I'd seen described of the trail west of Cemaes, I expected my walk to largely meander through different views of the Wylfa Power Station. This is a decommissioned nuclear plant which used to have the largest reactors of its type in the world, and supplied 40% of Wales' power.
All I know is I took a wrong turn when the path veered through a forest next to the power plant, and I suddenly found myself at an overlook that couldn't have been more than 50 feet from it. Terrified that I'd snuck into someplace I wasn't supposed to be, I did what I always do when I think that hidden CCTV may be watching me - I looked confused and terrified, pretended to consult my map, and very clearly mouthed 'what the f***, where am I?' over and over in an attempt to ward off any questions as to what a foreigner is doing skulking outside a nuclear power plant. Even a decommissioned one.
Anyway, it actually took me rather a while to get around the plant, because there's a lot of construction going on that cuts across the trail (I think for a new power plant but I'm not entirely sure), and so there were all kinds of extraneous fences, signs pointing towards each other to indicate where the trail went, and also I think some signs were missing.
But I found my way eventually, and wasn't particularly looking forward to the rest of the walk because I figured if the scenery was spectacular, I would have heard about it already.
Turns out this is a lot nicer than a nuclear power plant
Well, apparently my books have been missing chapters because even right after the nuclear power plant, the scenery gets lovelier and lovelier, and although there are no proper villages for the rest of the journey west, there certainly are things to see. First the path goes past an abandoned farm and some National Trust land, including a sign that informed me that the fields ahead included a breeding bull. I assume this was literally there just to terrify me entirely, but I went along anyway, always planning my escape route should I see a giant angry bull pop out of the scrub bushes.
After safely negotiating the farmland (while peering quietly around every fence I could find just in case there was actually a bull around), I came to a giant stone beach that beautifully curved off toward two distance crumbling sets of buildings, and behind the beach was a massive lagoon. This was Cemlyn Bay - a man by the name of Captain Hewitt, also called the 'modest millionaire', had first built the dam and weir to create the lagoon. An avid birdwatcher, he was rewarded (and other birdwatchers still are) by the lagoon becoming a nesting place for very rare terns in the summer. I think one of the abandoned buildings was his home, but the signage was kind of unclear on that point.
In any case, it was a beautiful spot - although the size of the stones on the beach made it a rather uncomfortable one to walk across. After passing the beach and the buildings at the end of it, there's a walk further out to a headland viewpoint, where you'll see old broken cargo stores and the monument to Anglesey's first lifeboat. Further along, there's also St. Rhwydrus' Church, which is apparently an extremely old church with a 'sad' tombstone of a Norwegian sea captain shipwrecked nearby - but I can't tell you about this because I was prevented from going to it by some cows staring at me. I probably could have gotten by them but the whole bull thing was still worrying me.
And then it took my breath away
If it hadn't already been rugged and isolated, now the walk certainly feeling even more so. I hadn't really heard much about this part of the walk, so wasn't sure what to expect. What I found started as views to the island of West Mouse, and the lighthouse on the Skerries - the last private lighthouse in Britain (no longer), and originally built in 1716. Then what looked like two tiny pyramidal pillars appeared on the hillside I was walking on, and as I got closer they turned into two completely gigantic pyramidal pillars that act as daymarkers for passing boats. I passed a few ruins - a chimney, the wall of a small house - making me wonder again about what it would have been like here when people were in these buildings.
Then came a giant grassy hillside that forms the northwest corner of Anglesey - Carmel Head. I knew the path was supposed to curve up and around the headland and then I'd crest the hill and start south down the other side. But I couldn't really see a clear path and the markers were few and far between. Determined not to lose height I'd climbed up I just tried to make my way around the corner going slightly upward - and I luckily kept coming across the markers so it seemed like I was making the right choices.
As I got toward what I hoped was the top of the hill, the wind started to pick up ferociously. I hoped to myself that the path on the other side wouldn't be too worrying in wind like that - because if I fell around here clearly no one was going to come for help anytime soon.
And then, I walked into one of the best surprises I've had on the Wales Coast Path - a shockingly stunning (insert more synonyms for beautiful here, I've run out of them after 80 days) view over craggy promontories and the islet of Ynys-y-fydlyn covered in a blanket of green and purple vegetation and falling off into a bright blue sea, all with the backdrop of silvery Holyhead mountain in the distance, and then the mountains of the Llyn peninsula barely visible behind that. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the view actually stopped me dead in my tracks. Or it may have been the tremendous amount of wind. But either way, I stopped completely, sat down, and just drank in this view for about 10 minutes while being blasted by wind, because I couldn't think of anything I'd rather be doing with my time than sitting there and staring at that view.
After that, of course, I tried desperately to steady myself and coax my malfunctioning camera into taking pictures. I think I managed alright, but as with most gorgeous views, my photos here really don't do it justice.
Unfortunately, as I kept walking, my worries about small paths in the wind returned. More specifically, my worries about small narrow paths, climbing sheer 200 foot drops to a rocky shore, while being blasted by winds threatening to tear my backpack off, returned. On a good day this path would be tricky - on a day like today it was a bit more worrying than that. I've always found that the best way through things like this - in particular if I'm nervous - is to put away anything that could distract me (i.e. the camera went in my pocket) and to try to trick my senses into believing I'm not near a precipitous drop. So basically I watched the immediate trail in front of me, and my feet on it, and I very, very, very specifically did not attempt to look any more at the gorgeous view all those feet down below me. Because surely I couldn't be more than 10 feet up, right?
Apparently this worked pretty well, because I made it down safe and sound (after unintentionally causing a several hundred strong pheasant stampede), and with enough peace of mind to still be able to appreciate the rock formations from below - and not place too much importance on exactly how much bigger they now looked that I wasn't looking at them uncomfortably from above.
The wind wasn't slowing down though - and as I looked west towards Ireland I was suddenly reminded that I'd heard a forecast that morning that it was going to start raining at 3pm. I was reminded of this because there was a rather nasty looking giant black clutch of storm clouds hurrying eastwards right towards me. Taking mother nature's hint, I scurried the rest of the way to Church Bay - only stopping to occasionally force my broken camera into taking a picture of some pieces of the trail that seem to have collapsed into the sea.
Any gin with lobster in it is fine by me
Not only did I make it back before it rained (thankfully for my poor shoes) but I made it back with time to spare to go to a pub up on the hill overlooking Church Bay before going to dinner at the Lobster Pot lower down in the village. The reason this is important is twofold - first, this pub is set into the hillside and has stunning panoramic views westward over Holyhead island and the sea and second, because it meant I had a pre-dinner drink that really added to my ability to amuse P with what was some really absurd intoxication on my part.
After my first drink and a half at the pub, we made our way down to the Lobster Pot (P driving, he was here for dinner and for Eisteddfod, which I'll tell you about shortly), a name which is sufficiently reminiscent of summers in Maine that the rest of the restaurant experience really could have been irrelevant. But then we got there, and I was happy I'd changed into at least semi-presentable clothing (i.e. the least smelly clothes I could find in the trunk of the car and my flip flops), because this was clearly a nice restaurant.
And in keeping with the way of nice British restaurants, when we got there we were escorted to a pre-dinner table in the bar area where we put in pre-dinner drink orders, and then dinner orders, and then drinks for dinner orders, to be escorted at a later time to our table once it's ready. We've been confused by this type of service before, and usually the kind waitstaff just realizes instantaneously we're Americans and have absolutely no idea what's going on and just pretty much lets us do whatever.
In this case, however, we came prepared. And I don't know if you noticed it, but there were several drink orders involved in the above dinner arrangement - which may have helped grease the wheels of the preparation train. Fresh off of a pint and a half at the pub, the first thing I spotted on the menu was something called 'Lobstar' gin (which I pronounced on the fly and which P corrected me on the fly and which I promptly told him to shut up and stop correcting me, it had an 'a' in it, I think to the amusement of the bartender watching us), which I learned is in fact lobster gin, is a specialty of the house and apparently was created by a Michelin starred chef. My fancy lady taste was well rewarded, as to me my gin and tonic tasted very much like the sea, in a good way. I really don't know how to describe it without making it sound horrible, but it had a soft taste of seaweed and the smell of lobster and shellfish and seasalt air. Or maybe I was already drunk, who knows.
Whatever the case, eventually we were escorted to the dining room where I pretty much devoured my cold shellfish platter with half a lobster, prawns, a crab, several oysters and I think a bunch of other stuff and did I mention we got half a bottle of wine and P was driving so really what could I do? I think there was also possibly dessert involved. It was probably good.
In any case, we left quite happy though significantly lighter money-wise, only remembering as we got into the car that the headlights hadn't been working right, and it was pitch black on an island off of a country that doesn't seem to believe in streetlamps. The headlights weren't broken like there was no light, but broken like when you turned them on they seemed to be all highbeams, and when I say high, I mean like they illuminate the second and third story of buildings from 100 feet away.
Needless to say, a lady's got to get her sleep, and P drove like a trooper considering half of Anglesey driving the other way was flashing their highbeams at him telling him to take his off, with me laughing hysterically and yelling 'Sorry! Sorry! He can't take them off! Hahahahah' to no one in particular and for some reason reading the Welsh version of every single roadsign we went past. If I gained nothing else from this evening, it's that I will forever remember that the word 'Gwaesenaethau' means 'Services' in Welsh. Also that gin with lobster in it exists.
