Peregrines, plumbing, and a test of Steve's patience...

Last week we took our campervan to Anglesey, anticipating coastal walks, wildlife spotting and - for me, not Steve - the possibility of a sea swim, given the hot weather that was predicted. Then, as so often happens once I settle into a holiday mindset and the to-do lists evaporate, I picked up a pen and notebook. My first instinct was simply to sit in the evening light and write up a diary of the day, which seems a little dull, I admit. But I read it to Steve later and it seemed to mildly amuse him, so I am chancing my arm here in the hope that it may mildly amuse you too…

Day Four - Pencraig

‘Are you sure this is it?’
I glanced at the map and re-read the email from our host. ‘Yes, definitely, there’s the campsite sign.’ We drove cautiously through the open farm gate, spotting a single, tiny tent at the end of a sloping field and a small green hut not much bigger than a chicken shed by the entrance. I had skimmed the list of facilities when I booked the site - toilets, washing up area, waste disposal, recycling centre, fresh drinking water… And it did indeed have all of these, housed in this tiny green hut. Compared to the smart and very well provisioned site we had left that morning, it seemed somewhat spartan, but we picked a fairly flat pitch, parked up, made a brew and settled ourselves in.

The site also advertised fine sunset views and that has proved no exaggeration either. As I write, the sun is dropping slowly towards the sea through bands of purple cloud, turning from gold through amber to a glowing ruby red, burnishing the surface of the almost dead calm sea. The still air is surprisingly warm for a September evening and I have a perfect, uninterrupted sea view from the campervan window. Steve is reading ‘Hard Times’ (though it’s not even close to Christmas), and I have a pen in my hand. Truly, I could not be happier.

An hour ago our cheery ‘landlord’, Andrew, and his solid young son came round on their quadbike, trailer on the back. Three large dogs leapt out and ran around, happily introducing themselves to all the other dogs on the site, some of which clearly felt peeved at being tethered in the face of such freedom and let their feelings known with successive rounds of barking and yapping. As Steve pointed out, there are more dogs than children here, at a ratio of roughly 12:0. In truth there are probably more dogs than adults. Andrew stopped to chat, collected our rent (a very fair £15.00 a night) and we complimented him on his herd of very fine cattle across the road, in particular his spectacular blond bull, which we had accidentally encountered earlier in the day - of which more shortly.

After an hour or so of cheerful banter with his guests, Andrew threw the recycling bags into the trailer and roared off up the lane, his dogs panting atop bags full of clinking bottles.

The campsite is close to Anglesey’s north west corner, the island’s wildest area, according to the Anglesey Costal Path write up. Internet access is patchy here and in any case, Google is much less use than a proper Ordnance Survey map when it comes to footpaths. Earlier in the day, I had spread my trusty Landranger map on our fold-out camping table and plotted a circular, afternoon walk of about 4 miles around the headland. The map showed a footpath leading from the field opposite the campsite that would take us straight to the cliff top to pick up the main coastal path. I memorised the simple route and after lunch we set off, climbing over the stile at the foot of the official-looking footpath sign, exactly where it was marked on the map.

Almost immediately, the path vanished and trodden grass footmarks radiated out in all directions. I picked a middling one which led to a promising farm gate on the far side. But at the tightly tied gate there was no footpath sign and no stile. This was not the first time we had encountered indifference towards footpaths on Anglesey and having spotted a faint track on the other side of the gate I climbed over it. Behind me Steve was asking if this was definitely the right route and shouldn’t we check the other corners first…. But I was up and over by then, striking out along what was clearly a path, confident that it took us in the right general direction. A large black and white cow with small curved horns eyed me up to the left of the path ahead of me. A smaller tan and white one to my right prevented me from taking a circuitous route around her. I pressed on calmly, keeping steady eye contact with the bigger cow as I passed her, picking my way sure-footedly between the lush grassy tussocks, grateful that we didn’t have a dog to unsettle them.

Behind me, Steve was following, still querying the route, and then… ‘Sue - there’s a bull.’ I glanced to my left up the slope. Pressed up against a wire fence post was an enormous honey-blonde bull, mercifully standing with his back to us, his vast, muscular buttocks moving up and down as he rubbed his side ecstatically against a fence post. Between his rear legs two bubblegum-pink testicles the size of rugby balls swung languidly in time with his scratching action. I had already passed him so it seemed only sensible to keep going and hope he didn’t turn and see us. I scampered down the path as lightly and quietly as I could, careening between the clumps of heather and gorse, glancing back only to check that the animal hadn’t moved. I didn’t need to look for Steve - I could hear his exasperated entreaties close behind me.

‘Our’ bull, pictured later from the safety of the other side of the fence.

As the path dropped into a small valley a stream bubbled up beside us and the path became even more uncertain and swampy. An up-and-over ladder stile gave me some confidence that this was actually a human-made route, but the first wooden step gave way as I stood on it, so we picked our way around it, through the cowpat-infused mud. Steve had by now resigned himself to the folly of our unorthodox route - the alternative was to go back past the bull - and he took the lead, finding the driest route through the glistening reeds in his heavy walking boots. I had meant to change from my light walking sandals into boots before we set up, but in the shimmering heat I had forgotten. Now, having led us into this fragrant quagmire, I felt obliged to accept the consequences. Thankfully, Steve’s careful footwork and the previous week’s hot, dry weather spared me and there was just enough dry ground to find a way through.

Ahead of us, running across our little valley was the clear, sandy line of the coastal path and an obvious wooden gate. I pointed it out to Steve confidently, as if I had known all along it would be right there, which was half-true. He gave me one of his looks… As we got closer it was clear that the gate was on the main path and did not offer access from our route to the path itself. Our way forward was blocked by a wire electric fence. There was only one option. I threw my little rucksack over the wire, laid down and rolled under it, standing up triumphantly by the sign on the other side which said ‘Anglesey Coastal Path.’

Steve approached the wire, weighing up his options. He isn’t as flexible as me, nor as foolhardy. He clutched his binoculars and crouched down and for a moment I thought he was going to attempt some kind of limbo manoeuvre, but he passed the binoculars to me silently, and crawled under on his elbows and knees, emerging dusty, relieved and tight-lipped.

From here, our walk was a joy as the path turned northwards along the west coast, dipping and turning with the cliff edge. The Skerries sketched themselves prettily on the water ahead of us and a tubby yellow tourist boat chugged out towards the lighthouse, leaving a line of turquoise foam in its wake. In a steep rocky bay I spotted two rounded shapes bobbing in the deep, peacock blue water - a pair of grey seals. One lay floating almost on its back as if dozing, the other rolled around lazily showing us its beautiful cream and grey spotted underbelly.

I pulled out my phone to take a photo and saw a missed call from Mike, our heating engineer. We have just had a heatpump installed and Mike and his team are now re-plumbing the house to upgrade the ancient pipework. Mike is a truly brilliant engineer with a total commitment to correctly calculating heat loss, flow rates, pump volumes, weather compensation and the all important COP. He does, however, seem to have a bit of a mental block when it comes to spatial awareness. Over the phone I tried to explain how the upstairs bathroom and downstairs kitchen are linked via the extension roof space and that he therefore didn’t need to take any bathroom floor tiles up to get pipework from one to the other. It seemed to make no sense to Mike at all.

I turned, phone pressed to my ear, to see Steve gesticulating wildly at me. I glanced in the rough direction he was pointing, shrugged and walked on. Mike and I continued our disjointed conversation until the phone signal failed. I had only succeeded in confusing him and raising my own blood pressure. Steve caught up with me, wild-eyed and out of breath. ‘Did you see it?’
‘See what? You were waving at me but I couldn’t see why.’
’The Peregrine on the cliff edge, out there. I wanted you to stop walking and look at it.’ He paused. ‘Actually, I just wanted you to shut up, not scare it off and enjoy it with me.’
I scanned the cliff edge, but of course there was nothing there. ’Did I scare it off?’ I asked, cautiously.
Steve, to his eternal credit, cannot lie. ‘No. I watched it for ages and then it just flew off back along the cliff.’ His voice was clipped. It occurred to me that he might be almost disappointed that it wasn’t my fault the bird had flown off, so irritated was he with my clifftop plumbing exhortations, but his face was an inscrutable mask. Suitably chastened, I pocketed my phone and we walked on, down onto a shingle beach, stopping to watch a cormorant diving under the seaweed under a rock arch.

Minutes later we passed a sign which said that this section of the path would close in five days time for the winter. We mused on the reasons, perhaps for safety, or maintenance, given how close it ran to the cliff edge. Just then a group of pheasants flew up squawking, lifting themselves awkwardly over a high fence towards a blue feeder bin. ‘They look a bit odd,’ Steve observed, studying them through the binoculars. They had no tail feathers. What a dismal sport, we both thought, shooting birds trained into near domesticity by feeding and with their capacity for flight literally curtailed.

We soon reached the far north west corner of Anglesey, the path swung right along the northern coast and immediately the landscape changed. The pale limestone rock of the west coast which had been gently daubed in purple heather and yellow gorse gave way to black pock-marked rocky outcrops and a headland coated in thick, bright green clover-rich grass. The main path ran inland here, so we followed rough tracks to the cliff tops and peered down into deep ravines, waves lapping at slippery black rock faces. Both of us were silenced and awed by the realisation of how wild and dangerous this place would feel in a winter gale, in comparison to its craggy beauty on this muggy, hot September afternoon.

A huge raven crawked angrily at us from an outcrop above our heads, its throat feathers puffing out with the strain of repeatedly pleading with us to go away. We left it in peace and walked on, passing a curious tower and the ‘White Ladies’, two giant triangular pillars which line up due south with a lighthouse offshore, forming a shipping navigation aid, presumably rarely used now in these GPS days, but still impressive close up.

Rounding a clump of salt-whipped pines the explanation for the thick grass became apparent as a vast dairy herd appeared, ambling into a lush green cliff-top field, pursued by a quad bike. Our way was now corralled by electric fencing as we followed a freshly stoned farm track towards an enormous new milking shed surrounded by earthworks. The Coastal Path signs pointed directly ahead, up the path towards the farm, straight through an electric fence and along a track thick with fresh cow dung.

The map showed that the right turn we needed to take us back to the campsite was just after the farm, but with our way ahead blocked and an unobstructed track to our right, we followed the invitation and our instincts, with the late afternoon sun ahead of us as a rough guide. But our attempts to get to the road were blocked by electric fence wires everywhere and we knew we were heading back to the coast path. Steve stopped and scanned inland through the binoculars. ‘That’s our campsite right there, two fields away. And there’s the bull. I’m not going back that way. We’ll go back and find a way to the road.’ Given Steve’s total aversion to encroaching onto private property I knew he meant it. We had seen a truck cross in front of us earlier so we backtracked, unhooked a rope which blocked a side track, found a gate with a very clear footpath sign on it and stepped with some relief out onto the road.

Anglesey delighted and enthralled us. I had been once before, in a former life, but I recall spending most of that trip looking longingly out of the car window. This time, we walked 50 miles of gorgeous coastline and I jumped in the sea for a swim almost every day. We watched as a pod of dolphins swam up the coast alongside us, and to our mutual delight saw and heard curlews every day we were there, on one occasion well over a hundred in one spot.

We are back home now, to a house in some uproar with skirting boards off, channels gouged into walls, cupboards half dismantled and an inevitable layer of dust everywhere. But no matter - it will all be to the good once it’s all finished. And we will return to Anglesey for more of its delights.