Day 89
Rhoscolyn to Rhosneigr: 11.5 miles
Best Part of the Day: The Mansplaining
Reason: Because there's so much in life I already know, but do I really know it until a stranger explains it to me? Of course not.
So, today, through the vagaries of islands and bays, despite walking 11 and a half miles, where I ended the day's hike was almost within sight of where I started. But on the plus side, I completed Holyhead Island - which means that now I'm no longer on the island off of the island off of Wales, but just on the island off of Wales. And since I'm basically three quarters of the way around the island off of Wales, that means I can truly say I'm almost in Gwynedd and thus I'm almost finished! Woo hoo!
The whole walk today was relatively flat - the only thing that varied was really exactly how flat it was. The beginning out of Borthwen rose a bit from beach to rounding the corner at Silver Bay, but really not much. Basically I was following low cliffs that I knew skirted where I'd be later in the day on Anglesey proper (though it was hard to tell how close I actually was because the tide was almost all the way in).
Duct tape and Flyovers
Silver Bay itself was lovely, a nearly empty sweep of beach with a small food shack on it. But it was here that I got my first taste of what the entire day would consist of - RAF flyovers. You see, walking down Silver Bay you can see straight over to the runways of the RAF base on Anglesey - and they seemed to be doing some sort of training exercises today because I saw individual planes taking off and landing. And since the trail later in the day actually skirted the base itself - that meant the entire day was full of rather low, and also rather constant, flyovers.
I'm not sure what they were practicing, but they seemed to be learning by repetition, because literally every part of this walk, maybe at 5 minute intervals, was broken up by air force jets taking off, circling, landing, taking off, circling, landing, taking off. . . Anyway, it was a bit loud - but to be fair that's what you get when you walk around air force bases.
In other news, my feet had still been picking up bits of water and mud, so I asked P to just get me a roll of duct tape, which I rolled around both of my shoes and then kept in my bag. The problem, of course, is that as I walked, the motion of my feet would pull the tape forward off the front of my shoes, and eventually it would just fall off entirely. Today the ground around Rhoscolyn, Silver Bay, and the small woodland walk behind it were all a little damp from a rain the night before - but it seemed like I'd put the duct tape on pretty well, because my feet were dry as the desert.
That is, until, I was just about at Fourmilebridge, of course. I'd been walking across a series of duckboards over marshy tidal flats, and was just thinking how thankful I was for the duckboards because it was high tide, when I saw a couple approach me, and the woman was barefoot and carrying her shoes. They said they'd had a bit of trouble, and after I'd mentioned that there were no problems behind from where I'd come from, they said that the path was basically underwater up ahead.
And so it was. Not enough water to make me want to turn aside and figure out another path, but just enough to make wearing duct taped shoes entirely pointless. After walking through a half inch of water for 5 minutes, and occasionally sinking halfway up my shoes in mud, my feet were well and truly sopping wet. I pulled the duct tape off my shoes because really, what was the point.
I have hiking explained to me
While I hoped my feet would dry out as I walked, I knew they wouldn't - if anything they'd probably just get worse because the ground was slightly damp. So I walked across the bridge at Fourmilebridge and left Holy Island for my final turn of Anglesey. On the other side, I met more sodden paths, a slight rise through some horse-filled brushy fields, and also a dam, built to protect the farmland and marsh behind it from incursion by the sea. It was here that I learned that apparently there are eels that travel as larvae all the way from Brazil to grow up in this exact spot in Wales, and when they reach adulthood they swim all the way back to Brazil to mate. Quite the trip.
After my eel related discovery, I continued on through a few confusing, and of course wet, fields while following signs that were honestly confusing me as to what direction I was facing. I eventually got to a field that had a lot of horses, and a lot of small foals in it. They all got up when I walked into the field, and not wanting to walk between the adult horses and the kids I walked a bit off the path uphill, intending to go around them and walk back down. Then I saw another person coming from the other side of the field, and since the horses started to go towards him, I thought that was great and started walking back down toward the gate.
This young Scottish man then, for some unknown reason, before saying hello or anything else, suggested that I was lost and needed directions. 'Nope, I know exactly where I am.' He then explained to me that the horses wouldn't hurt me. 'Nope, they probably won't, but I still try to be wary about going between any farm animals and their children.' He then explained he knew what he was talking about because he'd worked on a farm. 'Great.' He then explained that if you walked a lot you learned to deal with animals, and, not to worry (I wasn't), really the only thing I had to worry about were bulls - you did sometimes run across those. 'Well, I don't particularly like bullocks, they always seem to come too close.' He told me the horses were fine though. 'OK, well, I've survived walking 800 miles around Wales, so I think I'll just stick with what I know.' He explained he was taking part in a run all the way around Anglesey tomorrow. 'Oh, that's a long way.' He explained that he'd walked Offa's Dyke Path, like I must have, several years ago, but he'd gotten bored and stopped walking halfway. 'Oh, I didn't find it boring, I just think'. He interrupted explaining wild camping in the UK to me, and why that was what I should be doing. 'Well, I thought about it, but it's illegal and'. He explained that if anyone caught me it would be fine.
Now, halfway through this conversation (and there was more to it than this) I realized that this person wasn't listening to me. Like, at all. I'm not sure if I was supposed to be comparing feats of derring-do or proving how badass I was or whatever, but at a certain point I hit the wall of not particularly caring. Anything I said that wasn't directed toward his achievements clearly didn't merit discussion, or even, really, acknowledgement (Did you perhaps catch the part where I told you I'm literally walking the entire way around Wales? No? Nothing? Don't care in the slightest?) The American (well, and the Italian I suppose) in me used to try to keep up my side of the conversation at times like this, but I long ago learned that what I'm really good at is the good old-fashioned Scandinavian I'm super comfortable with silence oh are you not? trick. This involves looking someone right in the eye and kind of saying 'mmmm' very, very quietly when they pause for what should be a reaction or a question. And then just saying absolutely nothing.
Most people last for about four 'mmmm's. This conversation lasted two, before the ball was clearly sufficiently dropped for me peace out with absolutely no qualms whatsoever. Really, I left feeling like I'd come a long way, since at the beginning of my hike around Wales I'd run into someone much, much, much more offensive than this (in a literally offensive way, this person was just mildly competitive and could potentially have had redeeming qualities) and hadn't really done much about it.
Satisfied, I continued on my way with my damp feet merrily squishing away - well, when I could hear them over the din of the jets, that is. There were a few low cliffs around small bays, then another trek through some fields, and then I took a slightly wrong turn just before the RAF base that made me worry I was going to get in trouble. That worry was short lived - as despite the various 'low flying planes no loitering if your head gets chopped off Her Majesty's Government isn't responsible' signs there were a few people watching the planes take off from a small parking lot, and also others walking down the wide dirt road that skirted the base.
With the base on my left, and the water to my right, I went straight ahead over a dune wall and landed on Traeth Cymyran, a giant, windswept, dune-backed sandy beach. But rather than take in the whole beach, including all the brightly colored kite surfing sails down the Rhosneigr end, I was noticing that if I faced the other way, i.e. west back toward Holy Island, I was looking directly at the far edge of Silver Bay - where I'd been at the beginning of my hike several hours earlier. And what's worse, since it was now low tide, the distance across looked deceptively short. Though I'm certain there was probably a tidal river flowing through it, because of the angle I was at it looked like only 20 meters of sand separated me from the other side.
But when you decide to take on a thousand mile hike around a country, this is the kind of thing you get used to. So I turned my back and focused on heading toward the bright colors of Rhosneigr, and on the hundreds of people taking part in all manner of water sports on the other end of the beach, with the mountains of North Wales as the backdrop. And I decided I didn't care in the slightest.
