August 7 - Monday
I am staring at the grill of an old rusted unused/unusealble tractor. It's drizzling, and a rooster is walking around outside our tent. We decided to stop in Harlech for the night hoping to find some place to do our laundry which really, really , REALLY needed to be washed. The place we were hoping to stay at was no longer taking tents so we rode up to the first place with a tent sign posted along the road. It was a farm that had converted some of its fields to caravan hookup and tent sites. Sheep are grazing just on the other side of the fence. The farm dog is deaf and blind. He did a thorough sniff-down of my shoes and legs before allowing me to pet him. They did have a wash machine but we didn't have any detergent fortunately, the daughter of the proprietress gave us a detergent tablet so now we have clean clothes. We were more than appreciative. All of our clothes had been worn at least twice since leaving Pam's. Jon had started rigging up our laundry line to dry the clothes inside the tent before the rain started coming down. We had a whole load of laundry and not enough space to dry it all. At least they were clean.
After we got the tent set up - I wanted to face out into the field, knowing we would be spending most of our time inside the tent looking out the vestibule window but Jon had determined that facing the grill of the tractor was the best position given the direction the wind was coming from. The grill fills the entire window opening of the vestibule.
The morning had started out well enough. It was blue skies once we started packing. We had planned for an early start but I think I slowed things down because I felt soooo sleepy. Jon boiled some water for a cup of coffee. I climbed out of the tent and sat next to him with my coffee watching the rest of the camp wake up too. We had nearly finished packing when one of the adults with the group of kids who were racing yesterday approached us and asked about the bikes. A really nice guy who was from Cardiff which was south of where we were. His teenage son was in Holland for the weekend for a training camp for select cyclists - he sounds very talented and his dad sounds very proud of his son.
It seems lately, people always seem to approach us about the bikes as we are getting ready to leave. They spend all evening staring at us and not saying anything and it's like they finally work up the gumption to say or ask something knowing it's their last chance. The result is that we have been leaving up to two hours later than we normally would have. At first I was like, "Oh, good god, here we go again." as Jon and I start in on our speil about the bikes, cycling in Europe, where we're going next and where we've been. It hasn't been all bad and once I get over myself and just relax we end up having a good conversation which often leads to some good hints or tips about cycling in the area. As a result we've only been cycling around 30 miles or less for the past couple days and we're both getting antsy to put some real miles on.
I paid for our campsite and we were off. The sun was shining and burning through the clouds - it was looking like it was going to be a nice day. We had shorts and short sleeve shirts on. It was breezey but not cold - really good riding weather. Traffic was light and the roads were nicely paved. I stopped a few times to take pictures. The Atlantic ocean was a beautiful shade of green blue as we road along the coast. There were rolling hills but nothing asthma-inducing.
The man we had met the other day had given us a tip about a short cut over some mud flats that would save us probably about 15 miles so we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. Jon doubled checked on directions to the bike path from the local grocery clerk who also happens to breed Rag Doll cats and has 8 right now to sell. The path was a "normal" walking path and we thought ' hey, this is going to be great'. It followed along the boundary of a mini golf course so that won points with Jon. Things were going fine until we hit the first obstacle: a gate. The guy we met yesterday didn't mention anything about a gate. Luckily, Jon was able to completely lift the gate off its hinges while I pushed the bikes through. Not so bad, we continued on past fields and pastures with sheep grazing alongside the mudflats. The we hit the next "step over". The step over is literally just that: a short ladder from one side to the other side of a fence marking the boundaries of an owner's field. So you're looking at going over a four foot high fence. We got lucky with the gate. The next hurdle was a step over but the fence had been partially torn away and you could see where the sheep were now passing back and forth between fields as evidenced by the wool bits left behind on the fence. When in Wales, do as the sheep do. We were able to push our bikes through the makeshift hole in the fence without too much trouble. OK, onward. The path was pleasantly flat with a few rocks here and there. Just as we were getting a rhythm of avoiding rocks while keeping to the path we came upon the next step over. This time we were able to pull the whole side of the fence away with only a little trouble with all the pokey parts of the fence that was broken away from the post. So far we hadn't had to take any of our bags off. The next stepover posed a little more of a problem. The fence was not broken aay and there was barbed wire along the top of the fence. Jon was ready to lift the bike up and over the fence. I, on the other hand, was not at all liking the idea of having a fully loaded bike handed over to me on a four foot high fence and my suggestions of taking a few bikes off weren't going over very well. So, jon ended up lifting both bikes up and over while I spotted for the bags, tires, or parts of Jon getting stuck on the barbed wire. With each subsequent step over, there were three more before reaching the main trail, more and more of the bags came off until all that was being lifted over was bikes, followed by all the bags only to put all of the bags back on the bike until we hit the next step over. This got old pretty quick and we hadn't even gotten to the footbridge yet. Luckily it was beautiful and the sun was shining. As we came closer to the footbridge we noticed other cyclists. Now, where were they coming from?! Turns out that we were sent on the footpath route and not the bicycle route. Granted, we figured something was up shortly after passing through the first gate and certainly by the 5th stepover not sure who to curse, the man who originally told us about the path that he "always took on his bike" or the grocery clerk.
We finally made it to the footbridge that crossed the mudflats. The tide was low but there was still a little stream of water to cross over too. The wind had picked up and we were hit with a fine spray of sand as we crossed the sandy bit before the mud. By the time we reached the other side of the bridge every part of us that had sweat and/or sunblock now had a layer of sand on it: our legs, arms, face, neck, even in the piece of gum I was chewing had bits of sand in it. That whole ordeal ate up a lot of time and with our late start we weren't really interested in travelling great lengths today.
We stopped in the the town center of Harlech at the information center which is where we found out about the campsite not taking tents. We ate lunch at a coffeeshop. Jon had what was a called an 'American Pancake'. You had the choice of having it with a scoop of ice cream, or lemon and sugar. We didn't think they had any Mrs. Butterworths back in the kitchen so he asked for butter and jam. I had the soup (Potato Leek) and sandwich (ham and cheese). As we waited for our order we discussed the idea of letting the restaurant owner (it was a family run restaurant) know that americans don't eat their pancakes with lemon and sugar or ice cream. Then again, maybe we should. Jon's pancake arrived, it was as large as a plate - very american. It was pretty dense and slightly doughy which is just how Jon likes his pancakes. After we finished our meal we checked out the town castle and headed to our campsite. Jon was also hoping to do a little golfing today but it just didn't seem to be in the cards. The laundry machine was on a meter - 10 pence to make it run and the gal didn't know how much money it would take to do a load of wash so she suggested we come back to check on the progress after we'd "pitched" our tent. The rain had started and as we walked toward the laundry room I saw an older woman walking out. I had a pocket full of ten pence pieces to feed the meter. Right after we walked in the older woman returned and started putting in money for the meter. She said that she had seen that we were running out of time and wanted to keep the washer running - we thought that was really nice. We chatted for a while and she let us hang our clothes to dry in the family laundry room and in her barn. She explained that she had converted the farm after her husband had a stroke as another means for income. The building she is living in now with her husband was once a cow shed. The showers are 20 pence and no matter how I turned the water pressure and water temperature dials all I got was a whole lot of cold water. Actually there was about 2
Jon and I are both getting a little tired of spaghetti for dinner, and tuna. We bought some locally made raspberry jam and have been eating a lot of that tonight on Ryvita and Digestive crackers. It looks like the rain has stopped but it's still looks very dreary outside. I think we've got a little cabin fever - Jon is flicking rubberbands at me leaving me no choice but to retaliate - I think I'll hide his Nutella.
Jon is planning out tomorrow's ride. We hope to get to Bangor where, apparently, there are at least two golf courses. We've decided not to catch the ferry to Ireland from Holyhead but instead take a train inland from Bangor and spend more time in Scotland.
