Day 28
A Tale of Two Arms
The great ‘will we or won’t we’ meet the seizetheday Belles was resolved. we would meet at the wrong Anglesey Arms in Anglesey rather than Caernarfon, well I think we will!
The heat was rising , Wales was the hottest place in the UK and at 7am Uncle Mike’s felt like the hottest place in Wales. We were going to ride coastal though and we prayed there would be shade and if the gods were with us a strong bracing north easterly breeze. We got some shade, but the gods were sleeping and we got no breeze. The start was flat but beautiful along the Mawdoch estuary. The tide was out and wading birds fed in the sand. We passed the old wooden bridge I used to make the guys divert onto when we came mountain biking here 20 years ago. The hills surrounding us begged to be explored, there was an abandoned reservoir, that only the locals know about, cool and welcoming hidden in the hillside, there for us to go wild swimming in, but no we were riding, Team Belles were waiting. Well actually they were melting in a queue up Snowdon but tomorrow they’d be waiting in the pub, and hopefully the right one.
After days of not really believing we could do this I started to realise we nearly had. On world ready touring bikes, in a heatwave we had traversed Wales, well almost. Every opportunity I took us on the easier option. Beautiful quiet country lanes were rejected in favour of the flatter and marginally cooler coastal roads. We stopped at Mike’s partner Sue’s for a wonderful lunch and a doze in the garden, hoping to miss the midday sun, but, it simply waited for us.
I won the toss to go into nirvana, otherwise known as the Co-op. The air conditioning was simply the best. Water bottles filled, a chat with another touring cyclist and we were off, avoiding those hills. Tom had worked out a good place to wild camp, and he was spot on. 20 miles from our Sunday meet up point was our wild camp!
I felt it was maybe a bit too close to houses, and sure enough just as we had pitched the tent a lady walking her dog spotted us. No problem though, Barbara was so kind and welcoming, filled our water bottle and eased my worries about annoying people by wild camping there. She also pointed out the campsite we had missed, doh! We had a lovely natter, thanks Barbara.
