Penmon+Snowdon

Day 1 - backwind; day 2&3 - fighting the wind; day 4 - no wind. Suspicious. 

Skipped Holyhead, but still wanted to get to the edge of the mainland to take my 'end of the land' photo, and because I have a childish penchant for bridges and lighthouses. So, I've chosen Penmon  as my end-point of Wales.

After discussing Tito, Milosevic, Yugoslavia, Austro-Hungarian Empire and all the good old questions in the last few days, I was wondering where my Yugo nostalgia was coming from. How do I have one at all?
When the smell of the sea hit my face as I cycled along the coastline, a memory came back, clear as playing a tape back. My godparents once took me to Brela, a village on the Croatian  seaside - that's the bluest water I've ever seen. I think when I stayed there with them (a mix of ex-yu adults) that was a magical feeling, seeing their common memories, even though we were in international company. I think, to me, Yugoslavia means a very nice blue, the integrity of the strongest language boundaries, and holidays with whipped cream on the top - which I could have everyday for brunch. What brought all this to mind was the funny smell of the dead seashells.

Magic! There is a saying in Hungarian: every piece of magic lasts for three days. True. After three days without rain (lasting longer than 10 minutes, at least), I got it all on the fourth. Because of that, my day was cut short by 10 miles. I couldn't make it up to Snowdon. :(
BUT, luckily my very kind host Annie saw that sad smiley, and offered me a ride up to the top.

I've named this day my luxury day: bridge, lighthouse, car-ride, reggae music, huge dinner, live music - where the band dedicated one of their songs to my charity cycle, and listening to looooooots of Welsh talk (I didn't hear any English, except when they were talking to me). Beautiful language -  hopefully gonna have enough rain not to dry out these green valleys.  

Caernarfon

After resting my knee a bit, I was ready to continue my journey to Caernarfon. Before leaving Machynlleth, Alan, the guy who hosted me, showed me around the town. He took me to his workplace, a secret garden hidden in the forest few miles away. It was a laboratory for experimenting with alternative energy sources. As it was raining I couldn't take any pictures (but you can always google it).

I said goodbye to him, set off on my bike, and with the wind behind me I started my third day on the road around midday. Even though I was a bit later than my planned start, I was sure that with the help of the wind I would succeed...

The wind blew me to the foot of the next hill. After around half an hour pushing my bike up, I got up to the top of it, in the middle of the farmland. As I had already uploaded loads of photos of sheep, I was starting to feel quite overdosed with their monotone BAAAA echoing in my ears everyday. (As a footnote, I just want to say I have nothing against sheep or any farm animal, but as they completely replaced the human company after I left Brecon, I just wanted some change.)

I decided to continue on the main road. Surprisingly, that was empty as well. There were just a few cars passing by every few minutes. Even though I was happy with the speed I could keep constantly, I thought, 'it's boring here, let's go back to the woods for a while,' as I knew that I would go back to the main road for the last chunk of the daily distance.

There was a nice walk/cycle path around a lake. According to the map I needed to follow that half way through and then turn left... I was looking for the left turn, and looking, and looking, until I'd gone around the whole lake, and got back to the same point even before I'd left the route. I wasn't happy.
Enough of dirt roads, and super-remote uncyclable cycle lanes. Ignoring the the lovely little Route 8 and 82 signs I stayed on the roads all the way to Caernarfon. Managing my extra 10 miles again, I was on the road for about 7 hours, which is a lot less than the second day's 10 hrs. From the next day I will definitely combine A and B roads with the woodland labyrinths.

Caernarfon is a beautiful city with a beautiful main square - pictures to come in the next post. As my knee hasn't got better today (I'm writing this on the fourth morning) I'm looking for a support for it to prevent future uphill "screaming like a horse" effects. Another change, thanks to Jon's (my first host's) advice is that I will skip Holyhead, and head to Snowdon instead. I am staying at the same place for two days, so hopefully will manage the highest hills in Wales with less pushing as I'm not carrying all my luggage today.

Wish me luck, and here is a little illustration of my third day for you:

The last picture is of Caernarfon's main square, which I've just taken while having a rain break & cafe blogging stop.